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Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

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Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#91

Post by BiteCode_dev »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #86
anonzzzies wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be treated like a scammer; if you assume I am lying then I don’t want to work for you anyway.

I mean, I have never done or assigned a take-home or standardised test and never willingly will. But at the first line, either CVs of unvouched-for engineers are pretty ruthlessly culled by active engineers based on "I don't think these skills are even genuine" or its done by others like HR or management based on some kind of universal system everyone takes. I don't agree with the second method, but I can see why it'…

So you have one job offer, 200 candidates, 170 sucks at coding but you don't know which ones, and you have 15000 euros (including man-hours and marketings) and 3 months to figure out the right one, convince to join, negociate and sign.

Oh, and your dev team is on a dead line and can spare very little time validating candidates, one is sick and you just hired an intern that needs baby sitting.

What's you magical solution?

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#92

Post by voytec »

panxyh wrote: post #43
willcipriano wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always some nonsense like: "He used his left foot to enter the room. A good candidate will use his right as they will put their best foot forward."

The salt thing isn’t in the same league of nonsense as the foot thing. It does tell something about the person.

The salt thing can tell you that a person may be well-hydrated due to high sodium intake. Dumb test for "didn't tried it first".

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#93

Post by karmakaze »

pessimizer wrote: post #55
karmakaze wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do as they were told and not rock the boat This is a problem. It means the best output you're going to get is that of the level of the person doing the telling rather than the person who's first-hand doing and learning. I see this all the time. I once wondered why sometimes a new club/bar would open up, sparing no expense, but then the music would sound like shit. Not the sound system, but the DJ. It's because they…

People being bad at at hiring is really orthogonal to whether people want someone who just does what they're told, or who also partially controls the direction of their work. You're making the assumption that it's some idiot owner hiring people, when it could just as easily been that the owner has hired someone with a particular vision to run their company, and that person needs you not for your creativity, but your…

Any place I work would offer more autonomy than being cog in the company. Somewhat more like as an interior designer than as a painter. It's hard to imagine a painter as executing a vision. I certainly agree that the degree varies by level of role.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#94

Post by [deleted] »

Frost1x wrote: post #60
willcipriano wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always some nonsense like: "He used his left foot to enter the room. A good candidate will use his right as they will put their best foot forward."

Plot twist: they're left handed/footed and your biased assumptions failed you.

[deleted]

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#95

Post by bee_rider »

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #80
panxyh wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The salt thing isn’t in the same league of nonsense as the foot thing. It does tell something about the person.

What does it tell you?

I believe the intention is that it tells you they’ll make a modification without checking if it is necessary first. Some kind of impulsiveness.

Although, it seems pretty silly to me.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#96

Post by anonzzzies »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #81
anonzzzies wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be treated like a scammer; if you assume I am lying then I don’t want to work for you anyway.

I wish there were no detector guarding supermarket doors and google would not make me go through shenanigans every time I use a different device to login as well. But we can't have nice things because of the proverbial bad apples. You are free to reject the job offer, but thinking it will make any difference and that employers won't keep trying to protect themselves against being scammed is wishful thinking.

If you have no standing (as a junior) then sure, but as a senior, you can simply ask previous employers. If that’s not enough then indeed, I will refuse. I am not going to solve some crappy leethcode crap just because they are paranoid.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#97

Post by dahart »

anonzzzies wrote: post #71
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And somehow you still get very many people who claim to be experienced developers in $LANG and are unable to write or explain even basic things. Usually engineers can spot the CVs talking around the fact they can't actually do what they claim well before it even comes to interview, but HR often can't and the recruiters will try it on anyway to get paid!

I don’t want to be treated like a scammer; if you assume I am lying then I don’t want to work for you anyway.

Isn’t it a total assumption to jump to the conclusion that being asked to write code in an interview means people think you’re lying? Try thinking about this from the interviewer’s perspective. They need to find out how good you are, and they need to know if your self-assessment is even using the same units as the next candidate’s self-assessment. Spoiler alert: they are different scales. Your idea of you having experience and doing well is very different from my idea of me having experience and doing well.

BTW don’t forget that some of the candidates you’re competing against are actually lying, and they’re claiming things on their resume that if taken at face value will get them the job over you. Do you really want employers believing and hiring based on what people can say rather than what they can do? Be careful what you wish for, because if that came true, getting hired would be harder than it is now.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#98

Post by whywhywhydude »

rr808 wrote: post #22

For my current job I got grilled with leetcode style questions. Lucky I'd done a few before so knew the tricks. Now I work there the job is basic crud style work, nothing fancy required. Employer also hires grads almost exclusively from Ivy League universities and they mostly suck. Makes me look good. :)

Writing correct distributed CRUD is hard. I have interviewed quite a few people who didn’t have a clue about how to insert into a table without creating data races.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#100

Post by e3bc54b2 »

Redoubts wrote: post #77
logicalmonster wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For my current job I got grilled with leetcode style questions. I don't mind being asked a leetcode style question or two in an interview. Even if somebody struggles with solving an unfamiliar problem off the cuff, you can see if they they take some logical problem solving approaches. But it's frustrating that no practical web-development questions are ever asked for those kinds of jobs. For instance, security is r…

> Even if somebody struggles with solving an unfamiliar problem off the cuff, you can see if they they take some logical problem solving approaches. I hear this a lot, from the likes of Google on down, but does any interviewer ever take away anything positive from "almost" solving an interview question? In my experience, most interviews are pass/fail and getting close isn't a pass.

They do. I do, and the interviewer who hired me for current job also did.
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