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The rise of never-ending job interviews

bbc.com

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Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#781

Post by lifeisstillgood »

woofie11 wrote: post #643
crispyambulance wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The experiences that people describe here just confirm something that many of us has learned a long time ago: NOBODY HAS "FIGURED OUT" HIRING ! Not Google, not Apple, no one. Sure, some places (and individual interviewers) are better at it than others. But at the end of the day, hiring is a deeply subjective process with lots of error and uncertainty built into it's nature. The subjectivity is intrinsic. Places like…

Pretend there's a Programming Quotient (PQ) which is like IQ. Let's say Google would like candidates with PQ>130 with 95% confidence. Google has an error with std. div. of 15 points in measurement of PQ in jobs interviews. Google then needs to set the hiring bar at 160 PQ in order to get those candidates. This: - screens most qualified candidates out; but - most candidates who do screen in are qualified Statistics wo…

This is an excellent way of looking at this and many other high bar organisations - thank you !

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#782

Post by snuxoll »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #249
peakaboo wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so stupid, all of it. They try to come up with random questions that doesn't mean anything if the candidate remembers the answer at that point in time. I've read about Linux inodes. I know what they do. In fact I even have had Linux systems where I get inode related error messages because the partition had too many small files on it. But given that question, in that situation, I would likely not know what they e…

In terms of topical content it's a good question. The idea that the name is a link stored in a directory entry is a key part of filesystem architecture and anyone familiar with unix filesystems should be able to immediately talk about why. The problem here is that what could be an invitation to showcase knowledge is reduced to a vague, one-dimensional and non-obvious trivia question. There are a ton of valid answers…

> * The file data

Except on some filesystems really small files can actually be stored directly within the inode, so even that's not always true.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#783

Post by hmsshagatsea »

rubicon33 wrote: post #695
throwawayboise wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never written a sort from scratch since my college days, over 30 years ago. Also never had a job interview that asked me do to so, or any other coding questions. I'm planning more for retirement than a next job at this point, but I shake my head at what my younger colleagues need to go through these days for the opportunity to write JavaScript with IDEs that do most of the work for you.

I liken it to what lawyers go through with the bar here in CA. It's gatekeeping. Just like I don't think the CA bar should have a pass rate in the 20% range, I don't think coding interviews should ask riddles that are nearly impossible to solve on the fly unless you get lucky and memorized THAT riddle in your studying.

While I do agree the CA bar is tougher than it should be, a lot of the low passage rate comes from graduates of less-than-stellar schools. If you look into passage rate per school it’s naturally much better at the higher ranked universities.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#785

Post by RIDDLERTHIS »

I can relate to the whole "never-ending job interviews" as described in the article.

Two months ago, in June, a company reached out to me regarding a senior level back/front hybrid role. This company previously ghosted me two years ago but still had my resume and were now willing to hire me right away for a substantial increase in pay.

Before I accepted any offer, I shopped myself out on Indeed and found there is a huge demand for folks like myself right now. Here's a taste of how it went: Company #1: Fintech startup. Two separate 30 minute, non-technical interviews. Third interview was a four-hour long interview involving multiple LeetCode problems. Fourth interview they wanted to discuss my performance during the third interview, and then schedule a fifth interview. I declined because a) I felt this was overkill and unnecessary, and b) one of their developers was rude and condescending because I am self-taught. He went out of his way for 8 minutes to berate me. I had never experienced anything like it.

Company #2: AI-focused firm in analytics. Hiring for a management-level role. Went through three interviews. First was a 30 minute screening. Second was an hour long overview of my technical background. Third was mostly a follow-up to the discussion that took place during the second interview. And at the end of the third interview they informed me there would be four more interviews to meet the team, write code, and a whiteboarding session. I declined and said I'm not interested, again because of the time factor mostly.

And I noticed this process repeat itself for most companies. It's mentally exhausting, plus I have a family, my current job requirements, and other responsibilities.

The interview process is really unpredictable to a degree. Some folks want to see substantially more coding than others, taking into account similar job roles and descriptions.

I see a lot of folks who have interviewed with FAANG companies, and while I don't have any experience with them, the process sounds somewhat similar.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#786

Post by buro9 »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #749
buro9 wrote: post #593

Ah Amazon... 14 interviews, an additional 5 hour technical test, spanning a total of 3+ months. Only to be informed at the end that I was too technical for the role they had in mind but they were offering me a Senior Principal SDE role instead. By the time we got to the end of the process I'd already concluded that the hiring process was a reflection of their internal decision making and that this was not a company (…

I honestly think this is a product of large corporations being essentially incapable of firing bad resources. Companies are terrified of litigation and bad PR so the only control mechanism is the interview process.

I do not disagree.

The more people who interview, the more average the candidate has to be to succeed.

For all the talk of "hire fast, fire fast" the reality is that most companies do not know how to evaluate someone within the probation time period in which they could let go of someone with ease (usually under 60 days) and after that they then fear doing so even when it's miserable for both the person (candidate) and team involved.

I hire a lot, and some of my thoughts on the process:

1. The interview process should be short and sweet. 3 steps is enough, if you can't make a decision in 3 steps then the decision is to decline.

2. The hiring manager should be the first to interview. We have a good idea of what we're looking for in a team and what other roles other managers have open, we can speak of most teams and can spare both the candidate and ICs from interviews that cannot realistically result in a hire. Likewise, we can increase the chance of a successful hire by having the people from the team the candidate would be joining conduct the interview.

3. Some of the best candidates get love/hate feedback, a candidate who consistently gets "hire" feedback is seldom as good as those who get "strong hire" mixed with "no hire" feedback. The consistent "hire" usually typifies an "on the fence but don't want to take responsibility for declining so will wave through"... opinions should be stronger, interviewers should be excited for people - challenge whether a consistent stream of "hire" feedback actually means "hire". All that said, always listen to "strong no hire" when it turns up.

4. To increase diversity you only need to interview people who aren't already over-represented in your org... you will hire those people at exactly the same rate as you hire everyone else. If you don't have these people in your pipeline you have a sourcing or branding/reputation problem so focus on those things. If you do have those people and aren't hiring at the same rate, you have a bias problem and should root it out with urgency.

5. Degrees are not a signal, so absence of a degree is not a signal.

6. Don't hire based on what someone has done as it only reflects what their employers asked them to do, instead hire on what they can potentially do - if it lines up with what you want to achieve it's a win-win.

Most of the above can be summed up as: Have an opinion and care about what you're doing.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#787

Post by mLuby »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #437
tragomaskhalos wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case they should have teams dedicated purely to technical interviewing, with members regularly rotated in and out to keep them fresh. When I did technical interviewing for my company for a period, granted it was still on top of my 'day job ' but I had the scope to get really invested in the process, and wrote guidelines for other reviewers. Treat technical interviewing as a respected role in its own right an…

That might well be a good idea. I can imagine downsides to it, but it might work. The long and short of it is though - one has to face the reality of the situation they are in. If you go interview at Google (or any FAANG I would guess), you have to understand what you are in for and do your best to get through. Or, just don't interview there.

One company I interviewed at in late 2019 referred me to an interviewing-as-a-service. I forget the name, but the gist was that this service hired and interview-trained software engineers (at least part-time, maybe full-time) who then conducted interviews and provided feedback to the companies purchasing the interview-as-a-service.

From my perspective as a candidate, it was fine (the interviewer was friendly and asked industry-standard questions) but I do wonder how it goes for companies that essentially outsource their hiring bar.

On the other hand, you'd need to be doing a lot of hiring to make it worth dedicating a software engineer to just interviewing people. Or you have someone who doesn't really understand code—like a recruiter—run the interview, with all the difficulties that creates.

TL;DR: hiring still isn't a solved problem.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#788

Post by verticalflight »

mox1 wrote: post #771
endtime wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard disclaimer: everything below is my own opinion based on my personal experience, and I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. > I thought I was done, then the interviewer said she would go go copy my code and compile it after the interview to see if I was right, which blew my mind. I've been interviewing at Google for nine years and have never done this. I generally don't think it's fair to ding a candidate…

How would you feel if you were going to a job as a writer, and the interviewee asked you to put a story, poem, etc. down on a napkin, with a crayon? Like thats how I would feel writing code into freakin google docs during a job interview...with Google. Tie 1 arm behind by back as the synax goes wonky, I'm fighting the spacing, etc. etc. Or put mario Andretti into a ford focus, then test his lap times, with 0 warning.…

Just fyi - Mario Andretti and other similar drivers could be placed into any car and would perform at a very high level after a lap or so...

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#789

Post by neemeizdabest »

endtime wrote: post #760
ladberg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similarly bad Google experience that I've talked about before[0] but will copy here: I was asked to do a task that eventually boiled down to a topological sort, and I thought the question consisted of recognizing that the answer was a topological sort and moving on because it was over the phone. However, that was not the case. The interviewer wanted me to code it all out over Google Docs, but I didn't remembe…

Standard disclaimer: everything below is my own opinion based on my personal experience, and I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. > I thought I was done, then the interviewer said she would go go copy my code and compile it after the interview to see if I was right, which blew my mind. I've been interviewing at Google for nine years and have never done this. I generally don't think it's fair to ding a candidate…

Google interview process is designed around how badly you want to work there not what are your skills i.e practising solving bunch of leetcode puzzles on whiteboard and speaking out loud is all it takes to get through the interview process. It just takes some time to prepare.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#790

Post by moistoreos »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #33
sp332 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies don't want to do job training anymore. Instead of a general background and attitude check, they need to know if the candidate has all of the individual skills that will be used on the job.

This a hundred times over. I still remember in 2020 multiple places asking me "I see you've used .NET core, what *version* have you used?". I had a kind of career crisis/breakdown, where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. Accepting that it wasn't working for me was one of the best things I've done for my career.

I think this is a problem for the greater .NET community in general. I've participated in dozens of interviews where the "technical" interview is them asking obscure .NET or C# related questions like your some kind of technical glossary. What's worse is these questions are likely related to the one or two instances it's ever used in their entire codebase(s).
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