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Don’t do interviews, do discussions

thinkingthrough.substack.com

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Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#291

Post by csydas »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #279
csydas wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, one of the safest and most powerful tools is just to continually ask "why" questions as a result of whatever they say in regards to technical details, with a scattering of "how?" questions. Others in the comments have expressed some legal concerns about "discussions" instead of Interviews, but I feel this is a hyperbolized fear based off a laypersons interpretation of US hiring law. The law requires you ask…

> but I feel this is a hyperbolized fear based off a laypersons interpretation of US hiring law Making definitive statements about liability is not trivial. I can confirm that at some very large companies legal has banned this style of interview citing discrimination concerns. I'm not a lawyer, so I can't comment on whether they're call is more or less correct but it certainly doesn't seem settled.

I believe you can see in my quote I even wrote "I feel" ;)

Also working for a "large" US company and discussing with peers from others, no such banning exists. There is very clear training and a heavy restriction on who can perform interviews, but this is not the same as outright banning it.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#292

Post by popcube »

jonathankoren wrote: post #264
TrackerFF wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'l…

I think about the time my manager dismissed an interviewee as not understanding map-reduce because he couldn’t solve some problem in 2 passes, but rather needed 3. I asked him to explain how to do it in 2. And he was like, “what? It’s easy!” Then another person on the team who over heard it also asked. Eventually the whole team was there, asking him to prove it, and he spent over an half an hour trying to explain it,…

this example display the advantage of leetcode. if your recruiters just can not work, leetcode style still can offer some useful data for decision.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#293

Post by swiftcoder »

jonathankoren wrote: post #264
TrackerFF wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'l…

I think about the time my manager dismissed an interviewee as not understanding map-reduce because he couldn’t solve some problem in 2 passes, but rather needed 3. I asked him to explain how to do it in 2. And he was like, “what? It’s easy!” Then another person on the team who over heard it also asked. Eventually the whole team was there, asking him to prove it, and he spent over an half an hour trying to explain it,…

An awful lot of the datastructure-style questions rely on specific knowledge of the optimal approach. I dislike asking questsions because they are more a test of whether you took a particular style of datastructure course than a test of problem solving

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#294

Post by cutthegrass2 »

yvrev wrote: post #268
philbert101 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty pretty much what I tried to achieve here https://github.com/philbert/take-home-tech-test The point is to have a conversation about a project that the candidate understands well and is passionate about rather than asking them a bunch of questions that we already know the answers to. Before the interview we review the code base and try to understand what it’s doing by the documentation provided in the re…

I feel like this is a pretty big ask to do for an interview, unless you happen to have it lying around already.

Yep, agree. 95% of the code I write is owned by my employer and is under NDA various other privacy / IP laws. The 5% that isn't, has no place in an interview. It's a bunch of brittle glue code automating and backing up data between my devices.

"Passion projects" in my "spare time"... maybe once the kids have grown up and flown the nest...

Leetcode is easy... I memorise a bunch of stuff, do the dance and pass the interview. If i'm lucky I get a problem i've not seen before and actually have to use my brain during the interview.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#295

Post by bvm »

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 how I interview.

Show me something you've done that you're proud of. Take me through it in depth. Answer some questions on it.

Doesn't have to be a free-time project. If you don't have a free-time project and you're too NDA'd to discuss previous work, then present some language feature or something.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#296

Post by serial_dev »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #234
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…

Research shows more diverse teams deliver better results. You’re asking something that can’t be proven though: is this thing that is occurring better than the thing that didn’t occur. We can’t know the answer to that.

So which one is it? Is it"already shown by research" or "something that cannot be proven". You can't have it both ways.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#297

Post by DeathArrow »

Any interview should be simple. You just have to not be a jerk:

-threat the guy as a human being, showing respect and kindness

-try to understand his mental processes

-try to asses his knowledge level by meaningful discussions, no "tricky questions" or "leetcode"

-ask to explain what he work on, what decisions he took and why

-explain some of your actual work issues and ask how he would address them

-do not try to make yourself look smart while trying to make your interlocutor look stupid

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#298

Post by ButtSpark69 »

jldugger wrote: post #251
iamsb wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that at minimum it would take a generation to truly solve in a root-cause way (one that won't just come back the minute you focus on something else). Many of these biases get built during childhood when your brain is so so much more plastic.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#299

Post by serial_dev »

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…

I don't really agree with your point. In the example, the candidate did the interview for as long as he/she thought it could turn into something. As soon as he/she realized that they ask questions that are completely irrelevant to the job (in his/her eyes, at least), the candidate let the interviewers know that it's not the kind of job, team, priorities the candidate wanted. Nothing wrong with that.

Wasting their time would be to continue the interview process and answer questions you think are pointless for the position at hand. It's something you can do when you already have other offers or your current position is good enough (meaning it is better than what the interviewers can offer).

When you know you won't take the job, it's okay to cut the interview short.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#300

Post by inertiatic »

As a person who used to take interviews, I thought discussions were the best way to figure out if someone is competent. I mean, when I ended up in a discussion with someone, I felt like I did great. I had a good time and it frequently led to an offer.

As someone who's now interviewing a person or more every week (during a hiring surge), I still don't know of a better way to interview someone, but I'm not convinced this is great. A lot of people, who are unquestionably smart, coming into the interview after long careers in big companies, have a lot of trouble expressing themselves (especially if it's not in their native language), let alone selling themselves. They come in trying to find the correct answer for each question, even if it's open ended questions to trigger discussion. And when asked for a concrete answer to something, they will instead fumble around, only touch upon the answer, and talk about something that distracted them.

We still frequently hire people who interview like that, but it takes a lot of thinking and extrapolating.

I'm still not sure what to do.

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