Super disappointed that this isn't David Lynch the director.
I have a big thing on the front page of my site explaining that I'm not the director. I still get a surprising number of emails who think I'm him. :D
P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
21–30 of 73 posts
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#22That seems like a lot of work. The last thing I want to do when applying for a job is open up some random code and hack it. I have many other things I'd rather do, like sleeping or working on some code I care about. Google doesn't do it, Amazon doesn't do it, so if that's who you're competing against for developers, why would you do it?
I've never actually applied for a job at Google, but going to 7 interviews (or however many it is now) seems like a lot more work than what they're asking for. I'd rather spend 30 minutes writing code than 7 hours on interviews, and either way you're going to have to answer technical questions at some point in the process. Also, if you can't be bothered to spend 30 minutes proving that you can code, how much do you r…
All those interviews are done only after they're reasonably sure you're competent, rather than as an initial screening. By this time, they've decided to invest their time in you.
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#23My thoughts: 1. Another programming problem. Okay, if it doesn't take too long, I'd do it. 2. 60 day fuse. No way. I've worked under a Sword-of-Damoclese clause before, and I won't do it again. This is a deal-breaker, and it's probably sending a very bad message to a large group of good engineers, and you're missing out. Fire for cause, or whatever, if you have to. But I won't work in an environment like that, and (I…
I can understand not wanting to work with the trial period; that's why we're really up front about it. There's a whole "no, we're not kidding; are you sure you want to take the job even given this?" segment to the offer.
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#24That seems like a lot of work. The last thing I want to do when applying for a job is open up some random code and hack it. I have many other things I'd rather do, like sleeping or working on some code I care about. Google doesn't do it, Amazon doesn't do it, so if that's who you're competing against for developers, why would you do it?
I've never actually applied for a job at Google, but going to 7 interviews (or however many it is now) seems like a lot more work than what they're asking for. I'd rather spend 30 minutes writing code than 7 hours on interviews, and either way you're going to have to answer technical questions at some point in the process. Also, if you can't be bothered to spend 30 minutes proving that you can code, how much do you r…
It's four interviews and lunch. (Which is longer than the average interview, but if you are going to fly to another city and stay in a hotel, what's the difference between 2 hours and 5 hours? The actual interview is not the inconvenience, the travel is.)
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#25Super disappointed that this isn't David Lynch the director.
I have a big thing on the front page of my site explaining that I'm not the director. I still get a surprising number of emails who think I'm him. :D
I get the occasional email asking about "jrock recommendations". I have no idea why anyone would think that emailing me is a good idea; to find my email address from jrock.us you have to scroll past a page and a half of programming presentations I've given. People are weird.
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#26You have two steps round the wrong way: 1. Do the phone screen first. Frankly, in my experience, you can filter out a lot of people in the first minute; and 2. Then do the test. Speaking of the test, I had a quick look and it takes time. How much time? I'm not sure as I didn't look at the starting code, just the list of tasks. Maybe it only takes 30 minutes. Maybe it might take hours. I really don't know. Either way,…
It is possible, I believe, to test first and then interview. I think the greatest example of this is ITA Software's puzzles [1] I find it almost impossible not to stop what I'm doing and try to solve a few, because they are both interesting and difficult (even the more mundane ones). In this case these tests before interview would actually attract me to ITA, if everyone there has solved those problems you'd know you'd be working with pretty smart programmers, and your work would probably be pretty interesting.
The Deviant Art test however is something I would consider a dull day of work. If you want me to prove my worth by challenging me to an interesting combinatorial optimization problem, I'll bite. However if you want me to prove my worth by testing my ability to perform the kind of task that usually makes programmers think they should be looking for more challenging work, then good luck to you.
1. http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/work-at-ita/hiring-puzzle...
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#27You have two steps round the wrong way: 1. Do the phone screen first. Frankly, in my experience, you can filter out a lot of people in the first minute; and 2. Then do the test. Speaking of the test, I had a quick look and it takes time. How much time? I'm not sure as I didn't look at the starting code, just the list of tasks. Maybe it only takes 30 minutes. Maybe it might take hours. I really don't know. Either way,…
I agree re the test. I'm sure it would have been different if I was interested in the job, but I didn't even finish reading what they wanted me to do before I said "screw this".
Hate to be another "me too". But I also looked at the test and it was pretty obvious that (a) it's going to take more than 5 minutes and (b) it's not really clear how I demonstrate my knowledge to the potential employer.
Vague requirements like "add support for our new data format" mean nothing to me in this context. Am I supposed to add error checking? Should I automatically detect which format is used? I have no idea how much effort is expected, and so I'm not even going to try because some less talented person may have had more time to work on it than me.
The great thing about FizzBuzz is that it's the kind of thing a decent programmer can knock out in a minute or two (so they're not wasting too much time when they speculatively apply) and yet it's just sufficiently difficult that people who can't program at all are easy to screen out.
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#28You have two steps round the wrong way: 1. Do the phone screen first. Frankly, in my experience, you can filter out a lot of people in the first minute; and 2. Then do the test. Speaking of the test, I had a quick look and it takes time. How much time? I'm not sure as I didn't look at the starting code, just the list of tasks. Maybe it only takes 30 minutes. Maybe it might take hours. I really don't know. Either way,…
...a relatively efficient (at worst O(n) space and time) factorial function...
If you can do that, you'll win a Nobel prize. (Yes, I know there isn't a Nobel prize in computing: You'd win a Nobel prize in physics, for showing how to store Θ(n log n) bits in O(n) space.)
Heck, if you can compute n! in O(n (log n)^(2-x)) time for any x > 0 you'll probably win the Turing award. Such an algorithm would be really really big news.
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#29You have two steps round the wrong way: 1. Do the phone screen first. Frankly, in my experience, you can filter out a lot of people in the first minute; and 2. Then do the test. Speaking of the test, I had a quick look and it takes time. How much time? I'm not sure as I didn't look at the starting code, just the list of tasks. Maybe it only takes 30 minutes. Maybe it might take hours. I really don't know. Either way,…
There's a certain amount of selection bias here, given that I've obviously already gone through a similar sort of process to get hired there, but I don't think it's terrible to ask an applicant to do a small proof-of-competence task before you tie up a bunch of time in talking to them. For what it's worth, it's somewhere in the half hour range for that exercise, and I've certainly spent longer than that tweaking a resume + cover letter when applying for jobs in the past.
Ultimately "because we don't like you" is the reason you'll lose any job. The main thing that makes us decide someone isn't working out is if they're not performing, though. I don't think I've seen anyone get dropped after the trial for any other reason.
Re: P(we hire you) =~ 0.0016
#30That seems like a lot of work. The last thing I want to do when applying for a job is open up some random code and hack it. I have many other things I'd rather do, like sleeping or working on some code I care about. Google doesn't do it, Amazon doesn't do it, so if that's who you're competing against for developers, why would you do it?
I've never actually applied for a job at Google, but going to 7 interviews (or however many it is now) seems like a lot more work than what they're asking for. I'd rather spend 30 minutes writing code than 7 hours on interviews, and either way you're going to have to answer technical questions at some point in the process. Also, if you can't be bothered to spend 30 minutes proving that you can code, how much do you r…
With Google it seems though once your get to this stage they are fairly interested, in this case 90% of people who take some time to do the code exercise get no further.
The hiring process isn't one sided, especially with the demand for talented developers at the moment. So not just how much I want to work for the company but how much the company wants me to work there.