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

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#251

Post by jldugger » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:35 AM UTC

iamsb wrote: post #232

ryandrake wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the last company I worked in London, only one team (DevOps) did not follow scripted interviews. It was the least diverse team, not just in terms of representation, but in terms of diversity of thought. Did this result in poorer job performance for the DevOps team, or any other negative business results that were specific to that team? If not, who’s to say which interviewing method was better or worse? As an inte…

> Did this result in poorer job performance for the DevOps team, or any other negative business results that were specific to that team? If not, who’s to say which interviewing method was better or worse? It did. And even if it had not in this particular case, it will hurt the company in the long run. There is not even a shred of doubt in my mind that diversity (of thought) is the best investment that leads to succes…

> It did. And even if it had not in this particular case, it will hurt the company in the long run.

Honestly, having been on plenty of interview panels for a decade now for DevOps and SRE roles, I'm not sure structured interviews, no matter how awesome they are, can solve the recruitment diversity problem. The war was already lost the moment the job description was published, IMO.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#252

Post by wiseowise » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:38 AM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #210

swman wrote: post #197

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…

This is almost exactly how I hold interviews, except they are usually I've found this technique to be extremely successful. It's possible I may have had some false negatives, but I've never had a false positive. Everyone I've recommended for hiring has been successful.

> I've found this technique to be extremely successful.

That's just survivorship bias waiting to explode. Also, they're successful by some arbitrary metric that is applicable only to your company.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#253

Post by tpxl » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:40 AM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #54

Imagine a hellish interview process where multiple candidates are brought in for a “discussion” at the same time and based on the impression they give one could get the job.

No need to imagine, group interviews are a thing.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#254

Post by wiseowise » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

charles_f wrote: post #94

Every few weeks someone comes back with the one true way of interviewing, or the X things wrong with how interviews are led. I have conducted a few hundred of these by now, and the most I know about it is that there's no good way, because you try to figure someone out in just a few hours based on stuff they tell you. The format that seems to work the least worse for me is when you get them to tell you about actual st…

The is heavily biased to people who did X.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#255

Post by CalRobert » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

xyzelement wrote: post #79

osrec wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. I like this approach. Stops you from being painted into a corner, and if you are, you can still leave with your dignity. Some interviewers can be on such a power trip, which can make things feel pretty horrible for the interviewee.

> Stops you from being painted into a corner, and if you are, you can still leave with your dignity. Talk about wasting time. You are bothering to do the interview because for one reason or another you're interested in the job. It's weird to feel good leaving the interview where you somehow saved face for yourself by not answering any of the questions. You just guaranteed that you neither get the job nor learn anythi…

Interviews can be a valuable information-gathering exercise even if you don't want the job.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#256

Post by wiseowise » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:50 AM UTC

throwaway98az8 wrote: post #43

01100011 wrote: post #30

Depends on the role and the candidate. If I'm hiring for a lower skill position and the candidate has a strong resume I just might want to verify the resume and confirm they have a basic grasp of the relevant skills. If I'm hiring for a high-output FANG job, you bet your ass we're going to the whiteboard. Sure, I hate it too(on either side of the table), but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on you…

Typical FANG employee... Hates whiteboard interviews until they get into FANG, then thinks that anyone outside of FANG is actually delusional about their skills and must whiteboard to prove themselves worthy of handling the incredibly challenging world which is FANG-engineering. More likely that you've drank the kool aid that you are somehow special and smarter for working at a FANG...

Why are you so upset that somebody considers themselves smarter than you? Serious question.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#257

Post by wiseowise » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:52 AM UTC

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #130

01100011 wrote: post #30

Depends on the role and the candidate. If I'm hiring for a lower skill position and the candidate has a strong resume I just might want to verify the resume and confirm they have a basic grasp of the relevant skills. If I'm hiring for a high-output FANG job, you bet your ass we're going to the whiteboard. Sure, I hate it too(on either side of the table), but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on you…

>but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on your feet and solve hard problems if that's what the job is. Because the most common say to day issue is needing to think of an algorithm on the spot... You hate it because you know that's not true. Yet you're using it.

> Because the most common say to day issue is needing to think of an algorithm on the spot...

Are you trolling? Everything that you do as an engineer is coming up with an algorithm.

Algorithm is how you solve a problem, how you think about constraints and requirements.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#258

Post by named-user » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:54 AM UTC

harry8 wrote: post #193

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…

Clearly people don't like the fact that you're making a very valid point.

This site is almost as bad as Reddit, go with the status quo and polish each others ego or you're downvoted or flagged.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#259

Post by Hermitian909 » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:54 AM UTC

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #130

01100011 wrote: post #30

Depends on the role and the candidate. If I'm hiring for a lower skill position and the candidate has a strong resume I just might want to verify the resume and confirm they have a basic grasp of the relevant skills. If I'm hiring for a high-output FANG job, you bet your ass we're going to the whiteboard. Sure, I hate it too(on either side of the table), but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on you…

>but it's not too much to ask to prove that you can think on your feet and solve hard problems if that's what the job is. Because the most common say to day issue is needing to think of an algorithm on the spot... You hate it because you know that's not true. Yet you're using it.

Not every day, but my experience is at least every month-quarter. And since you're not primed like in an interview context these ideas need to be inside your wheelhouse to spot them within a business context. I would not describe myself as particularly technical for my org and in the past year I've made use of the following at work:

-Depth first search

-Binary Search

-Topological Sort

-Dynamic programming in a graph context

-Union Find

-Merkle Trees

-Fenwick (binary indexed) trees

Maybe I'm in an unusually technical area but it doesn't feel that way talking to my colleagues.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#260

Post by TrackerFF » Mon, Nov 08, 2021, 7:55 AM UTC

Hermitian909 wrote: post #247

swman wrote: post #197

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…

As an interviewee I'd like this too, but as an interviewer I wonder if it actually has enough signal. One of the problems I've found with these kinds of conversations is that people can plausibly BS quite a bit about projects, or their role in them. Maybe I started a new compiler or something at my company but didn't have the chops for it and the project flamed out. If I lie and said that all my goals were achieved a…

There is a hysteria that's plaguing the world of tech: The fear that incompetent people might "BS" their way to a position.

Everyone you talk with, has probably one or two anecdotal stories of such. "Yeah I worked with this CS grad that couldn't even write FizzBuzz" - yet we ignore the hundreds of other that do their work just fine.

And this is fought with setting up ridiculous 8-part technical interviews where you'll have to whiteboard some leetcode questions ("Given a problem, show us a working O(Log N), or preferably O(1) solution. You have 45 minutes") or design questions ("Show us how you would design slack / discord / zoom / etc.") that drags over 6 months.

For someone to be truly incompetent, or even not good enough to meet the company standards, the current system is overkill.