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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?

#51

Post by rmc »

pixeloution wrote: post #6

Just curious if you expect perfect code on a sheet of paper or give them an IDE and say go for it. As I remember fizzbuzz (print numbers 1 thru x, then fizz if divisible by 3, buzz if divisible by 5, fizzbuzz if divisible by both) I did it in a text editor in under a minute. Got two errors because I did it without thinking, fixed it, and had a working solution in 90 seconds. It's taking me longer to write this respon…

I can't imagine anyone who writes code daily who couldn't get this right in under 5 minutes

Yes there are people who apply for programming jobs and do not write code daily, or even cannot code at all. FizzBuzz is designed to quickly identify them and filter them out.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#52

Post by wpeterson »

The percentage of people who can complete a basic coding challenge during interview is more a testament to your phone screening than to the population of candidates.

If you're not weeding out these people with a 10-15 minute phone call you'll waste a lot of your and their time.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#53

Post by patio11 »

For folks who doubt the numbers people are quoting here: remember, if half the pool can't program to save their lives, guess which half of the pool will still be sending out job applications next week.

At a previous company where, for cultural reasons, lack of programming skill was not a barrier to being hired as a software engineer, approximately half of our software engineers could FizzBuzz. Of our outsourced coders, I'd put the number at one of the twenty I knew, and he would need extensive coaching to make it happen.

Some of these folks were at least moderately productive at tasks which you and I do every day which theoretically happen in an IDE but do not require much abstract thinking, such as changing labels on UI elements, adding new columns to tables (by copy/pasting a line which worked and tweaking it until output matched expectations), and the like.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#54

Post by eropple »

pp13 wrote: post #49
aplusbi wrote: post #31

I've never asked FizzBuzz but I do regularly ask coding/algorithm questions. They are usually more difficult than FizzBuzz. I'd say around 80-90% can at least come up with a solution in 45 minutes with some help. Probably less than 10% can come up with a good solution entirely on their own. I attribute this to two things, first I think our phone screenings work well enough to keep out people who really can't do FizzB…

@aplusbi Let's say I interviewed you. I had asked to implement the fastest algorithm to give back the largest palindrome of words in English dictionary and compare it the largest palindrome of the french language. What the best solution you can come up with in 45 minutes. After, that I asked you, write a simple ftp server, in the language of your choice. With your first solution, I asked you implement a SSL library a…

His first question is very straightforward if you've ever encountered permutations in a math class (and you should have, if you're a programmer). Even if you haven't, it shouldn't be that difficult.

His second is trickier, but solvable. And, no, I've never seen that (particular) question before.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#55

Post by rmc »

ericb wrote: post #2

In 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…

a word-problem about performance

Would you be able to share that? Simple programming/algorithm questions are a dime a dozen, but I'm curious what a word probably that's appropriate to coders would look like.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#56

Post by davewasthere »

Of people who get to the interview stage, I'd say around %75 at least successfully do the FizzBuzz question on our test.

But we've cherry picked the CVs a little. And probably only interviewed 50 people over the past couple of years. (And hired 5)

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#57

Post by cantastoria »

mikereedell wrote: post #34

While we don't ask FizzBuzz in particular we have a question my manager asks: If you could fold a piece of paper 50 times, how tall would it be (very rough ballpark figure)? Our success rate is surprisingly low.

This is a pretty abrupt way to start off an interview. And I don't understand the point of this question w.r.t assessing someone's coding ability. Though I'd be curious to see if the success rate on that question and on a fizz buzz correlate.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#58

Post by rmc »

corin_ wrote: post #36

Can anyone explain how it is possible for people applying for these jobs to fail? I dabble in code, but am no where near the level I would have to be to do any job in this area, I mean seriously. Took my two minutes to do it with a pen and paper in PHP, same with in JS, same in bash scripting. How can anyone who isn't able to do this pretend to even have an interest, yet alone the ability to do the job?

Yes they apply. Yes, when you send you CV into companies you are competing with these people.

There are people with degrees in Computer Science who can't pass FizzBuzz. They think they aren't very good at programming, but think that the company will train them. There are all kinds of reasons why people who can't FizzBuzz apply for programming jobs.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#59

Post by pp13 »

mikereedell wrote: post #34

While we don't ask FizzBuzz in particular we have a question my manager asks: If you could fold a piece of paper 50 times, how tall would it be (very rough ballpark figure)? Our success rate is surprisingly low.

Obviously, your rate would be low. The implied domain of the question would throw people off. The question isn't a good indicator if someone can program.

Why don't you ask your manager the following.

If 1/2x +1/2(1/2x + 1/2(1/2x +1/2(1/2x + ... = y, then x = ?

If can't get it in 5 minutes, he is not fit for his job.

Re: Ask HN: What % of your job interviewees pass FizzBuzz type questions?

#60

Post by rmc »

cantastoria wrote: post #9

I'm curious what candidates are getting stuck on. Is it the testing for divisibility that's tripping them up?

If you cannot programme, you would not be able to do this problem. There are people who cannot programme applying for programming jobs. Shocking, but true.
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