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Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

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Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#821

Post by 0xBDB »

thirdwhrldPzz wrote: post #771
sgtnoodle wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding in what interviewers are testing for. Interviewers at most companies aren't trying to evaluate or quantify a candidate's inherent value or general technical prowess. They're trying to determine whether or not the candidate can help solve immediate and real problems that the company has, while also trying to get a sense of whether the candidate has the potential to grow with…

There is no misunderstanding on my part. I never consented to this culture. I see little different here than a church, meat based tape recorders thinking the noises they emit are “the way” with little proof except “feudal capitalism” continues to “work”. We don’t owe deference and agency to CEOs, VCs, and founders. The syntax is different but the LARP of being sheep for “wise men” is the same. Only 13% of the country…

"If GME can be shorted to the extent it is despite that being illegal"

Shorting is only illegal if it's naked. When I ask people who say this what they mean, the answer is usually that the shorting must be naked because so many shares are being shorted. But that isn't how that works. If you have other evidence though, I'd certainly be interested.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/28/yes-a-stock-can-ha...

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#822

Post by mitchdoogle »

mabbo wrote: post #44

Having been an interviewer at a FAANG for many years, I can explain some of the logic behind it. I'm not saying this logic is valid , but it's how we got here, imho. First: we no longer trust the hiring manager alone, because probably they aren't a strong developer. We instead trust strong developers that are well trained at evaluating good devs. At the same time, we don't want to thrust a dev onto a hiring manager,…

> "Oh shit, Amazon does 6 interviews? We should do that too!"

Therein lies the problem. Doing things because someone bigger and better is doing it is not the right decision making process

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#823

Post by mitchdoogle »

prepend wrote: post #136
mylons wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get PIP’ed and fired routinely that make it through this process. I think there’s a lot of bias in your response. The process worked for you, you work at a large tech company and it gives you validation. It also makes you feel good to lord over the process and boosts your ego, reinforcing your priors.

> People get PIP’ed and fired routinely that make it through this process. Compared to what? I don’t think anyone is claiming this process is perfect. Just that it’s better than alternatives. People will always get PIP’d and fired. But the goal is to reduce that as low as possible.

My company has a phone interview with a developer to ask some technical questions and then whoever passes that is invited in for a single in-person interview with a developer and our supervisor. It has worked for us - every developer we've hired this way has done their job well and stuck around for a long time.

We make an effort to take up as little of the candidate's time as possible.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#824

Post by thirdwhrldPzz »

0xBDB wrote: post #821
thirdwhrldPzz wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no misunderstanding on my part. I never consented to this culture. I see little different here than a church, meat based tape recorders thinking the noises they emit are “the way” with little proof except “feudal capitalism” continues to “work”. We don’t owe deference and agency to CEOs, VCs, and founders. The syntax is different but the LARP of being sheep for “wise men” is the same. Only 13% of the country…

"If GME can be shorted to the extent it is despite that being illegal" Shorting is only illegal if it's naked. When I ask people who say this what they mean, the answer is usually that the shorting must be naked because so many shares are being shorted. But that isn't how that works. If you have other evidence though, I'd certainly be interested. https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/28/yes-a-stock-can-ha...

Here’s my investment advice; go back to the late 90s, load up on tech, use the gains to dabble in btc, use those gains to retire by 40.

Worked for me.

I know how the boring numbers game works and optimized for it. I’m being honest instead of equivocating in Anglo-babble reasons why a process is an acceptable measure for filtering some people. To see poetry in this is a bit weird. It’s the same old fundamental arithmetic operations applied to different geometry. Pretty routine for us been there done that’s.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#825

Post by renewiltord »

nickjj wrote: post #781
renewiltord wrote: post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m trying to feel out why it bothers me and I think it’s because: - I will probably exit an interview process in an hour if the company isn’t a good fit - We’re not talking about normal employment here. This is in addition to my job.

You'd be able to exit the process if it's not a good fit using this method too. Perhaps even during an initial call before there's any type of contract mentioned. Going for interviews while you're currently employed is also in addition to your job. It's just you're doing "real world" things in the contract based interview instead of answering technical questions or whiteboarding implementations.

Would that be fun? I’m thinking of the idea here and it just sounds like such a chore to me. At least whiteboard interviews are fun.

Setting up your IDE and all that boring stuff.

But you know what, man, maybe I’m just status quo biasing and it would be better. I can’t nail down why I don’t like it after all.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#826

Post by cloverich »

SauciestGNU wrote: post #209
vsareto wrote: post #26

>I was told "5 to 7 interviews is normal" Be suspicious when anyone says something is normal in tech that tries to speak about the operations and culture of a vast array of companies, especially recruiters and very especially recruiters who work for recruiting companies. Tech is a massive industry, and there's enough companies that don't do the normal thing that you can spend only a year at those companies and still…

What I'm wondering is whether people are including phone screens and introductions as interview rounds. I'm going through the process now and with those I'll probably have 7 if I get an offer, but without it's more like 4 (online assessment, in person whiteboard, system design, behavioral). I haven't interviewed in 7 years prior to this, so I'm out of the loop with what's standard.

I do count the initial call if its screening in nature (usually is, its just automatic if you are an experienced dev). But compared to what you listed, I see 3 coding (including "tech screen"), 1 behavioral, and 1 architectural. Based on about 10 companies I interviewed with last month.

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#827

Post by dharmab »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #544
paxys wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who complain about software interviews being a high barrier to entry have never dealt with any other high-skilled high-paying profession. Want to become a doctor? Study for 12-15 years. Lawyers, accountants, pilots, actuaries all have similar multi-year licensing requirements. Places like investment banks and consulting firms will put candidates through a multi-week interview process involving stuff like case…

> Want to become a doctor? Study for 12-15 years. Yeah, and all of those years are filled with constant punishment. In my experience it was common for medical students to have depression, severe anxiety, panic attacks before and after tests and exams. Binge drinking was extremely common after. At least two students committed suicide. A glimpse into US medical school life: https://web.archive.org/web/20101218031844/ht…

Fun fact: Residencies are modeled on a doctor who dedicated his life to hospital work and routinely worked long shifts with no sign of fatigue.

Turns out he was addicted to cocaine.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7828946/

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#828

Post by hirako2000 »

gcheong wrote: post #667
rascul wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're employed it's more likely you don't have time for 12 interviews because you're working.

True but being employed goes a long way to giving the perception that you are employable so in the cases that the decision is a toss-up between an unemployed person and an employed one I’d be willing to bet the employed one wins almost every time.

exactly my point, well said for me :)

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#829

Post by hirako2000 »

rascul wrote: post #622
hirako2000 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would think the opposite is more likely.If you are employed, there is no pressure. You may go through 12 interviews for a 12 different jobs and be only so slightly offended. For the unemployed, time is most likely ticking, if not financially, at least emotionally. A relative slowness at any step of the process affects the unemployed mindset. Stress alone lowers interview performance, especially on the soft skills s…

If you're employed it's more likely you don't have time for 12 interviews because you're working.

You do have time. those interviews are scattered across multiple weeks, if you work place doesn't let you take a couple of hours of working hours away for personal matters, you got to quit even before having a lined up job as you don't want to stay there for far more important reasons than inability to take even 5 interviews

Re: Ask HN: When did 7 interviews become “normal”?

#830

Post by flashgordon »

prepend wrote: post #136
mylons wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get PIP’ed and fired routinely that make it through this process. I think there’s a lot of bias in your response. The process worked for you, you work at a large tech company and it gives you validation. It also makes you feel good to lord over the process and boosts your ego, reinforcing your priors.

> People get PIP’ed and fired routinely that make it through this process. Compared to what? I don’t think anyone is claiming this process is perfect. Just that it’s better than alternatives. People will always get PIP’d and fired. But the goal is to reduce that as low as possible.

Umm how is this normal when you have stack ranking (sorry curve fitting) to identify the yo-be-fired?
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