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Don’t do interviews, do discussions

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Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#321

Post by TrackerFF »

native_samples wrote: post #280
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…

Sadly this isn't some sort of mass hysteria but based on practical experience. Yes, it's hard to believe. New interviewers are routinely shocked the first few times they are asked to take a candidate through a coding test. That's why everyone should just ignore the advice in the article - it's wrong. If you want to hire competent programmers, you need to test them rigorously by watching them code, in front of you. Ev…

The glaring problem (IMO) with throwing hard LC-style questions at interviewees, is that it's a fundamentally stressful and high-stakes situation - which is so far removed from the actual working environment.

What are you actually inferring from the situation - how well the candidate can write software? How well they tackle stress and anxiety? How much spare-time they have to grind these types of questions? etc.

Probably a mix of them all, but there's a lot of irrelevant noise - if you're just looking for one thing.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#322

Post by CalRobert »

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…

"You are bothering to do the interview because for one reason or another you're interested in the job."

I'm interested in learning how other companies do things, what technologies people are looking for in the industry, what sorts of questions are being asked in interviews, and what kind of problems people feel are in the domain of a particular job title. I'm also interested in compensation trends in the industry.

I can get all that information from a decent interview even if I walk away. Politely, of course! It's a matter of respect for each others' time.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#323

Post by CalRobert »

geoduck14 wrote: post #91
CalRobert wrote: post #26

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. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

>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…

Sounds like it's just as well, the interview is a useful filter for you. Conversely, I like to work with companies tackling meaningful problems.

If I might ask, what do you do to excite your candidates about the challenges involved?

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#324

Post by CalRobert »

zz865 wrote: post #173
CalRobert wrote: post #26

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. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

If you have a great paying job you like, why do you interview? Is it when someone cold calls you? I'm in a similar job and haven't interviewed for years but want to start and not sure how to go about it.

Doesn't mean there isn't an even better option out there :-)

Also I'd like to work on something related to tackling climate breakdown, so I'll almost always chat to companies in that space. Sadly I need to pay off some debt before I can take a paycut to work on these problems (or risk a startup).

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#325

Post by CalRobert »

xyzelement wrote: post #74
CalRobert wrote: post #26

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. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

>> "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders. I would be very surprised if you say literally this and get results. No self-respecting company or manager is going to invest in talking to you if you describe yourself so overtly mercenary. Obviously, when you're happy where you are, money is part of the equation to get you to move, but making it seem like the o…

I said this to recruiter at $currentjob and they pay me ~50% more than the last place.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#326

Post by nostrebored »

twic wrote: post #304
jandrewrogers wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge with this approach as that many very competent people are not allowed to discuss their prior work in that level of detail. More practical variants of this approach use a straw man software design problem to talk to that will exercise diverse areas of experience.

I do experience-based interviewing, and i have never encountered this problem. The great majority of the time, people are able to talk about anything. Sometimes, there are sensitive parts of prior work, but a candidate can just talk around those bits and focus on the rest. Even if someone had been working somewhere super-secret, if they aren't a junior, they have other experience to talk about. If all your career exp…

I’ve worked at some large companies and would say this is wrong. I can’t talk about most of my best examples because they’re still roadmap items.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#327

Post by nostrebored »

soneca wrote: post #310
cutthegrass2 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inte…

Isn’t the time spent memorizing leetcode similar to the time spent building a side-project? I took a look at leetcode when I was interviewing and decided it was a waste of time for me to learn that dance. I was happy with my chances with the companies that didn’t use it in their interviews. And it worked out fine.

No, it’s not, because take home assignments are not typically reusable. Learn leetcode and it is valuable at most companies you will apply to. It’s more respectful of your time.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#328

Post by bryanrasmussen »

iamsb wrote: post #274
gamzer wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is diversity of thought measured?

Lack of diversity of thought is easy to spot IMO. Bigger point is - you should ensure your processes are setup to at least try to achieve the kind of diversity you would like to achieve. Those processes may still fail, just like anything else.

If someone answered every question the way the interviewer thought it should be answered that is probably an indicator of lack of diversity of thought, but I think it would actually be hard to spot because they would really look like the perfect candidate - unless the interviewer thought of themselves as a bad candidate / unoriginal thinker - which is unlikely.

On the other hand someone answers in a way that you have decided before hand is just the misguided answers of a particular tribe can be lack of diversity of thought, because you happen to be right about the preconceived ideas of said tribe, but pretty hard not to see that as the result of bias.

If on the other hand someone says some things you don't understand, espouses ideas completely alien - insane!

on edit: clarification

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#329

Post by Sammi »

harry8 wrote: post #220
somberi wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, what you said exactly happens, but not often enough to negate the value of opening up the otherwise clammed up candidate. Hopefully, the first part where the human human chat happens, the candidate is able to see that the intent is to have a genuine conversation, albeit with a more senior person (aka older) person on the other side. Where I differ from you is the zero-payoff framing. There have been cases where…

Yours looks like a classic "yes but I'm different" response. Maybe you really are different. I couldn't possibly say. Just be aware of it? Or maybe there's a way to have your cake and eat it too? Like put on a stupid hat and say "I'm going to play 'Joe Obnoxious the Arrogant' and be critical, this is not how we talk design around here in general but it cuts us the to the chase about something you know. Stand up to an…

This does not seems like a generous interpretation of what op said. The slight that op mentioned could have been surgical and precise, and just enough to kick off a conversation, and not enough to trample the interviewee.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#330

Post by nostrebored »

csydas wrote: post #319
sokoloff wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The law requires you ask the same set of questions of all candidates Does it? I have never heard of such a requirement in a law (though I’m not a lawyer). That might be an employer’s decision on policy they use to ensure compliance with the law, but I couldn’t quickly find any law requiring the questions to be uniform across candidates. (It’s also a difficult set of terms to quickly and confidently exclude the poss…

Sure: https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-im-recruitin... Screen applications consistently. Apply the same standards to everyone applying for the same position. Effectively, you should have the exact same criterion for all candidates for the same position and avoid "on the fly" questions/too heavily customizing it. The legal discussion on all of this has basically boiled down to that you must ensure you'r…

This is dramatically more complicated than it actually is. It does come back to competencies and structures. For instance, at AWS, this boils down to wide technical competencies and leadership principles. Of the nearly 100 interviews I did at AWS, I probably never had two that were very close, just due to people’s resumes, prior experience, and breadth of interests.

But, if you wanted to ask the recruiting team to add an interview to get more feedback, this would be a clear no.

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