Wow.. This is pretty astonishing. I know this is a majorly skewed, opinionated audience, but do people really not have that much of an interest in what they do?
Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
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Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#12That sort of thing specifically, never actually tested it.
The last test I did help administer was for a VB+SQL job, and the first question was to write an example of a valid INNER JOIN. I'd say at maximum 25% of the candidates could do this.
Improving SNR? I did once have a potential employer get me to do a time-limited online test. If you wanted you could always stick your questions into one of them, so you can at least do the fizzbuzz-level screening without calling them in and sitting them down.
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#13I'm curious what candidates are getting stuck on. Is it the testing for divisibility that's tripping them up?
OP may not be actually using "FizzBuzz" as he said a FizzBuzz-type problem :)
Ok fair enough, but I'm still curious where the sticking point is. Can they at least code the loop? I'm wondering if it's just that peoples' math skills are typical pretty rusty
and if using another set of conditions would give you better results.
Edit: For example, iterate through this string every time you hit an 's' print fizz etc...
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#14How are you asking the questions? Good interviewers try to adapt to the person they are interviewing. Depending on how you're asking the programming question, you might want to think about changing it. If, for example, you sit back in your chair and ask someone to go to a whiteboard to write code you should consider that some people simply are not going to respond to that sort of method of answering, even if they are a brilliant programmer.
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#15In the actual interview, I find that most give up after spitting out some pseudocode. About 40% have reasonable psuedo code that makes me think they'd get there (but these half-answers don't give me enough confidence to give them a thumbs up). Actual code that works (and running it from a terminal), we are seeing only about 15% tops maybe lower. We have started sending a fizzbuzz-ish question, a relatively easy css q…
The job has a lot of pros, but probably doesn't do itself justice on-paper
Keep in mind that you may be getting a lot of good people with a lot of pros, but that don't do themselves justice on paper.
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We are looking for a Rails or PHP dev in waltham (near boston) currently without a lot of luck. The job has a lot of pros, but probably doesn't do itself justice on-paper. Are you attending local PHP and Ruby/Rails meetups and user groups? If none are available, consider starting one.
That is good advice. We are at just about every Boston Ruby Group meeting, though...
Related: Are you considering remote employees? There seems to be a trend of the top Rubyists working remotely (that's if you want a top Rubyist, I'm pretty sure you can find a competent Rubyist if you keep looking).
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#17The last time I was a part of this activity in a company (1997-8), using similarly rigorous pre-screening, we had about the same results, only 50% of the people we interviewed could program their way out of an (EDIT) wet paper bag.
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#18I'm curious what candidates are getting stuck on. Is it the testing for divisibility that's tripping them up?
For me the hardest part would be remembering a print function that does not automatically insert a newline. Although I suppose as a workaround assembling the string before printing would work, just less elegant.
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
OP may not be actually using "FizzBuzz" as he said a FizzBuzz-type problem :)
Ok fair enough, but I'm still curious where the sticking point is. Can they at least code the loop? I'm wondering if it's just that peoples' math skills are typical pretty rusty and if using another set of conditions would give you better results. Edit: For example, iterate through this string every time you hit an 's' print fizz etc...
For some reason this is the most common mistake I see from students:
for i in range(0,n):
if i % 3 == 0:
print 'fizz'
elif i % 5 == 0:
print 'buzz'
elif (i % 3 == 0) and (i % 5 == 0):
print 'fizzbuzz'
else
print i
Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We are looking for a Rails or PHP dev in waltham (near boston) currently without a lot of luck. The job has a lot of pros, but probably doesn't do itself justice on-paper. Are you attending local PHP and Ruby/Rails meetups and user groups? If none are available, consider starting one.
That is good advice. We are at just about every Boston Ruby Group meeting, though...
If you're considering remote employees or contractors I'd like to get in touch.