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Don’t do interviews, do discussions

thinkingthrough.substack.com

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Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#371

Post by alistairSH »

b20000 wrote: post #361
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.

yeah, and some very competent people have no time or interest in timed coding tests and know that great software is not built that way. if you have been through a CS program you have worked on probably at least 10 projects. and then there are your personal projects. if you have any experience you can talk about at least some of these apart from the stuff under NDA. so, this approach is much better than timed coding i…

if you have been through a CS program you have worked on probably at least 10 projects

That's fine for a new graduate, but many of us are decades out of college. What we did then has almost zero relevance to jobs we might seek today.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#372

Post by commandlinefan »

neverminder wrote: post #356
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…

You can make it even more generic than that. A rather simple at first glance, but discussion provoking question: "What do you like and what do you dislike about the Technology X?". A good candidate who has experience with the said Technology X would not shut up on this subject. A bad one however will struggle. This is of course provided that you are hiring for some specific stack.

> experience with the said Technology X would not shut up on this subject

I've learned the hard way to be very reserved when giving opinions about technology X because interviewers sometimes get really defensive about the thing they like about technology X.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#373

Post by kube-system »

agent327 wrote: post #312
kube-system wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The written portion is part of our take-home coding test. We have the candidate do a short and simple coding exercise, and at the end, there's a couple open-ended questions about their approach, what they could have done better, etc. I find it really insightful to give people a simple exercise to complete and then ask them to talk about it. The answers to the questions are almost more telling than the code itself. Yo…

If you want a job, about the last thing you are going to want to say is that you were in a hurry (meaning "I didn't care about this job enough to pay proper attention to this"). This is going to be your calling card, so it has to look great! You make it appear as if you are penalizing people for going the extra mile to complete all the requirements.

The key phrase above is:

> for the same exact code

And I’m in no position to expect candidates to treat a take-home code test like a real job. These are all experienced engineers that already have good jobs. They don’t need my job.

I 1000% prefer someone who didn’t spend much time on my code test but knows what they’re talking about, to someone who spent a bunch of time and is a bad engineer. The time constraint will be resolved when they quit their existing full time job.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#374

Post by efaref »

commandlinefan wrote: post #369
Hermitian909 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to tell if it's hysterical without knowing the Cost/Benefit for the company. How empowered are new senior hires, and how expensive is the time of the team? At larger companies senior engineers are often phenomenally expensive and at smaller companies controls over potentially business ending operations are usually minimal. A friend of mine at a FAANG recently dealt with a bad hire. Their guess was that in t…

> It's hard to tell if it's hysterical without knowing the Cost/Benefit for the company I'm always curious how people interview doctors. As bad as getting a bad programmer might potentially be, getting a bad doctor must be exponentially worse, so you'd think they'd have vetting the unqualified folks down to a science by now.

In most countries doctors and other health professionals are registered and licensed, and must submit to strict examinations.

Mistakes can also be career-ending and potentially result in criminal prosecution.

It's way harder to get hired as a doctor than "do a bit of leetcode on a whiteboard".

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#375

Post by harry8 »

slingnow wrote: post #342
harry8 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It sounds like the OPs method not only allows people to shine by diving into what they've built, but it would also filter out people like yourself, who are so unbelievably sensitive that it would be a nightmare to work around all of your triggers.

Possibly so. But it's a hell of an assumption to make and not a very kind one. Maybe you were triggered yourself and so that's not entirely fair.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#376

Post by webdood90 »

neverminder wrote: post #356
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…

You can make it even more generic than that. A rather simple at first glance, but discussion provoking question: "What do you like and what do you dislike about the Technology X?". A good candidate who has experience with the said Technology X would not shut up on this subject. A bad one however will struggle. This is of course provided that you are hiring for some specific stack.

The bias in this approach is obvious. In your mind, you think a candidate "not shutting up" is a green flag, but the reality is you are trying to hire someone who thinks like you.

There are a million reasons why this approach doesn't work. Maybe they just don't like talking that much. Maybe they don't like the technology you're discussing. Maybe they just don't care enough to have an opinion on it.

None of the above are good reasons to pass on a candidate.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#377

Post by charles_f »

wiseowise wrote: post #254
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.

How so?

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#378

Post by commandlinefan »

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.

> Research shows more diverse teams deliver better results

Seems like a bit of a sacred cow - how much better? Better enough to sacrifice, say, experience, contacts, or unique business knowledge for? How much, exactly?

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#379

Post by neverminder »

webdood90 wrote: post #376
neverminder wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make it even more generic than that. A rather simple at first glance, but discussion provoking question: "What do you like and what do you dislike about the Technology X?". A good candidate who has experience with the said Technology X would not shut up on this subject. A bad one however will struggle. This is of course provided that you are hiring for some specific stack.

The bias in this approach is obvious. In your mind, you think a candidate "not shutting up" is a green flag, but the reality is you are trying to hire someone who thinks like you. There are a million reasons why this approach doesn't work. Maybe they just don't like talking that much. Maybe they don't like the technology you're discussing. Maybe they just don't care enough to have an opinion on it. None of the above…

> but the reality is you are trying to hire someone who thinks like you.

Not really. If someone can present solid reasoning and argue their point well, they don't have to think like me. Three's more than one way to skin a cat.

> Maybe they don't like the technology you're discussing. Maybe they just don't care enough to have an opinion on it.

You mean the technology they are being hired for? Yeah, hating, not caring about it is probably not a good motivator to go for the job then, wouldn't you agree?

> None of the above are good reasons to pass on a candidate.

Beats the whiteboarding. I was hired like that in my last 3 jobs and I have used the same approach myself with rather consistently good results.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#380

Post by Clubber »

hippyup wrote: post #370
Clubber wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In your examples, did they go through a coding challenge / whiteboard process? I think he was trying to point out that if some of the bad candidates had passed a whiteboard test, it brings in to the questions of the effectiveness of whiteboard tests to filter out bad candidates. I remember a guy we hired years ago who answered all the tech questions we asked with flying colors. He was lazy and unmotivated and ended…

Saying this method of interview is not 100% effective so it's useless is not a great argument. Reality is that bad hires are really expensive (as argued above) and that current interview methods are somewhat - admittedly not 100% - effective at avoiding those while mostly - again not 100% - effective at admitting the great hires. Maybe this "convert to discussion" method is more effective (I have my doubts), and I'm…

>Saying this method of interview is not 100% effective so it's useless is not a great argument.

Who said that?

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