Don’t do interviews, do discussions • Hacker News Board

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#191

Post by Jensson » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #129

mattnewton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how much "interviewing" is really testing the kind of performance anxiety that people without other good offers yet have. I experience this too as I not just as I progressed in my career, but even within one batch of interviewing. I've always tried to batch as many interviews as I can. By the third interview I am feeling much less anxious and just perform much better and by the fourth or fifth I am nailing t…

This is a really important point. Many of the best programmers I've worked with are extremely conscientious people, and I think interview anxiety goes naturally with that. When I'm interviewing people, I work very hard to put them at their ease and discount interview anxiety when I see it. Too many interview processes are tuned for confidence, not actual skill.

> extremely conscientious people, and I think interview anxiety goes naturally with that.

No, conscientiousness doesn't correlate that much with neuroticism. You can care about the results without getting cripplingly anxious, the anxiety isn't a good thing.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#192

Post by throwawaythekey » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

geoduck14 wrote: post #177

FinanceAnon wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand why software engineers need to be EXCITED about their profession. I don't think the same would be expected from a lawyer or a doctor. I also think that excitement =/= passion. For example, if you look at the top chess player - Magnus Carlsen - he always looks bored talking about chess, and yet that's what he does all the time and is the best at it.

>For example, if you look at the top chess player - Magnus Carlsen - he always looks bored talking about chess, and yet that's what he does all the time and is the best at it. Serious question: Does Magnus have a team of people that he works with? Do they enjoy working with him? Do they think he is boring? Is he the type of person you want to work along side?

Yes Magnus has a team (all top players do).

Whenever I've observed him seeming bored I've assumed it comes from him being mentally so many steps in front of the interviewer. He's already evaluated all the positions, variations ad nauseum prior to being asked about them. Even if he did have something interesting to say it's unlikely he could put it into words that would resonate with the audience. I assume if he actually didn't have passion for chess he would've retired by now as his record is already good enough to be one of the all time greats.

Take the above with a grain of salt though, as it's probably just me projecting from my own experience as an IC that spends a lot of time working in a fairly specialist/abstract role.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#193

Post by harry8 » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:33 AM UTC

somberi wrote: post #159

Been on the hiring side for more than a decade. In addition to other advice in this thread, I would like to add - I treat the interview as my chance to help the candidate pass the interview. This bent of thought may seem subtle, but makes all the difference in meeting the candidate in their terrain, and seeing the world from their point of view. Consequently, the case studies given explicitly state that if the candid…

> They really good ones admit to the possibility that there were other better ways to have built, or explain to me the constraints under which they made the choices they did.

Does anyone just clam up because you are making slights about something where you don't know the constraints and make inferences about you from that? Most of us have dealt with utterly terrible, opinionated, under-skilled, supercilious and rude interviewers. How do you avoid coming off at least a little bit like that? Generally speaking there's zero point picking fights with an interviewer no matter how wrong they are.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#194

Post by totorovirus » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:34 AM UTC

It is really hard to filter those "discussers" in this way. They often know tons of possibilities and not the practical solution or skills to carry out their proposed solution

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#195

Post by Jensson » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:39 AM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #84

jstx1 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience there's a big difference between an interview and talking/communicating/collaborating with coworkers. I don't think that you can use one as a reliable predictor of the other.

> I don't think that you can use one as a reliable predictor of the other. It's pretty hard to claim that there's no signal from this kind of interview. Candidate A: was able to have a conversation with me, asked good questions, explained their thinking well, was easy to follow, etc. Candidate B: seemed to not understand what I was saying/asking, his answers were rambling and incoherent, and unless I led the conversa…

All else being equal on paper, the better their social skills the worse all their other skills will be since otherwise the guy with social skills would have had a way stronger career than the guy without and then they wouldn't be equal on paper.

The problem is the halo effect here. Candidate A has likely gotten preferential treatment throughout their entire life thanks to his social skills, possibly all the achievements they listed were just because they were good at talking and never had to perform in previous jobs? While if candidate B has similar achievements but acts like that then you know he earned them, since nobody would give such a guy a pass unless they knew their shit.

On average a new employer will rate the persons work the same as the persons old employers, since these are the same set. So if both the socially savy person and the socially inept person got the same rating at previous employers, then you should expect to rate these two the same as well. If in these cases your process prefers the first over the second then you will over select for social savviness and under select for technical acumen.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#196

Post by soheil » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:43 AM UTC

> Do they ask clarifying questions when they don't feel judged

Sure, you can tell yourself fairytale stories, but you and the other person both know there will be generated a number right after the call ends that can only range from 1 to 4 and you will be assigned it.

Also if you treat this as a discussion you may come off as arrogant. After all everyone else is showing nervousness so the interviewer probably thinks "what's with this person who acts like they're already on my team?"

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#197

Post by swman » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:49 AM UTC

I wish I could a 2-3 hour interview where I (or the candidate) showcase one of my projects and explain the architectural details and decisions in addition to showing any cool/hairy/insane code that got the job done. We can discuss those things and see how to improve them, or laugh at the crazy solutions.

Honestly how many times do I need to rehearse these dumbass algos (blah blah blah, so I'll optimize for space with blah blah blah) okay already. I would much rather show you real world code that I've built, or passion projects I spend my free time on. I want to bring me to your company/projects, so get to know what I'm about holistically as an engineer. I think you can best understand that by looking at actual work done and judging whether or not the person is capable of contributing to your needs.

Whenever we face challenges, we learn from them. At scale, we learn everyday. So just hire people who are passionate about facing challenges and learning from them. Not someone who can spend 8 hours a day like a college student playing leet code instead of building something useful. It really isn't that hard to memorize a dozen essential data structures and algorithms. But then what? So cringe.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#198

Post by sky_rw » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

NikolaNovak wrote: post #172

sky_rw wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a strategy for this that I frequently recommend to people. Back when I was "in the game" and living in NYC, I used to take 1-2 interviews per month despite being happy in my then current role. I was up front with current and prospective employers about this. This strategy served me well on many fronts: confidence in my skills and my options, familiarity with evolving interview trends, and networking opportuniti…

Fascinating; how did your "open with current employer" conversations go? How did you present it? How did they react?

YMMV, software engineers can usually get away with murder.

It really all depends on how you frame it. I probably used terminology like “taking meetings with” instead of “interviewing at”. Just make sure it’s not with competitive companies and maybe more importantly not with sister companies under shared VC funds.

Honesty goes a long way, and if your employer is going to fire you because you are keeping tabs on your market value then you need a new employer anyway.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#199

Post by dvtrn » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

_dw7s wrote: post #152

geoduck14 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. I've interviewed people who have resched this point. It makes for a chill interview. In some cases, the interviewee is overly "chill" and is bored with the challenges described in the job. I prefer to hire people who are EXCITED about the challenges they will face i…

> I prefer to hire people who are EXCITED about the challenges they will face in the job. In this case your pipeline is optimized for hiring great actors.

Or highly-outwardly energetic types.

I’m outwardly very dull, but also very willing to have a thorough and deep conversation on just about anything.

It just happens that…well…I happen to sound like Ben Stein from that scene in Ferris Bueller when I talk.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#200

Post by mark-r » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 5:00 AM UTC

akomtu wrote: post #110

tchalla wrote: post #49

In the attempt of bias removal, interviewers now want to ask the same question to everyone and leave the effort to the interviewer. Take for example, the standard behavioural question which is expected to answer in a STAR format [0]. The question will go as "Tell me about a time you did .... ". Now, it all sounds fine and dandy but you are basically offloading everything to the poor interviewee. You want them to (1)…

Don't experienced candidates know that behavioral questions is bs and just make things up on the fly? You ask them about a conflict in past, they invent a story about a small disagreement with coworkers that got resolved in a model textbook way, leaving everyone better and wiser? It's not a deposition under oath, after all.

You're probably right, but it pains me to admit it. I would never make up some BS just to get through an interview, it's not in my nature.