Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

gnfargbl wrote: post #14

The set up of this article doesn't make a lot of sense. It describes a case where "not a good fit" was in fact exactly that; the candidate wanted an open workplace where he could express opinions and grow his skills, the hiring manager wanted an experienced resource who would do as they were told and not rock the boat. Both types of workplace exist, and both types of candidates exist. The question for me is why the a…

> experienced resource who would do as they were told

That's a contradiction right there. If experience is important, the "resource" can't do as they are told. If they can, experience is not important.

> and not rock the boat

And that's a different kind of attitude that has absolutely no relation to independence.

Anyway, from the article:

> He said: “He asked us a ton of questions that the team didn’t have the answers to.”

If you don't have the answers, you are clearly unfit to manage "resources". If you want blind followers, you better have all the answers.

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

#112

Post by commandersaki » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

francoisdevlin wrote: post #62

eterm wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a data leak could literally destroy a company overnight Source? I'm sure we "wish" that were true, but data leaks haven't even destroyed companies whose entire existence is predicated on storing data such as Equifax.

A data point - the capital one AWS breach ended up costing $270M[1]. While they weren't destroyed, it wasn't cheap either. 1. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/capital-one-...

probably a fraction of a percent of their net worth

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

#113

Post by hahamrfunnyguy » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:32 PM UTC

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. :)

I did recruiting for Full Stack developers for a number of years. I only gave two programming problems, one to be completed before an initial phone screen and one to be completed in the first part of the interview.

Myself and another team member worked on the questions, and we gave them to the team. Everyone was able to complete the exercises in a reasonable period of time, so we knew they weren't going to be too challenging.

Pre-screen question: For the numbers 1 to 99, print the number if its digits do not add up to ten. Otherwise, print the number and its digits 91 (9,1) if it adds up to ten. Download the file quiz.txt and use it a starting point for your program, keep it simple and make sure your output matches sampleoutput.txt exactly. When you've completed it, rename it to yourname.txt and email it to quiz@company.com with the subject of "Your Name: Completed Exercise".

A lot of people would just use convert the strings to numbers and then do the test to see if it adds up to ten, in this case I would kick it back to them and ask it to be solved mathematically. Usually, we'd get a response back right away with the "best" solution. Candidates that completed the exercise correctly and followed the directions got 15 minute phone screen to see if they had the technical background required.

For the in-person (or Zoom) interview question, we had a problem that required modifying HTML, CSS and JavaScript to come up with a solution. We stated this up front, and tell the candidates to use web resources to look up anything they need to. It also requires using modulus which they should already know (or figured out how to use!) in the screener exercise. If someone got stuck on something we felt they probably knew we'd give them some hints and they'd relax a bit. Most people solved it within 5-15 minutes, but there have been people that couldn't do it at all event with lots of hints.

In that case, we'd usually just end the interview and thank the candidate for their time.

From here we'd do some database exercises if their role called for database, and move onto an deeper assessment of technical background. That process worked well, and they're still following it today.

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

#114

Post by ijk » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:33 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #78

slekker wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet developers go through the most ludicrous interviewing processes, having to prove time and time again that they have enough technical skills, while having 10 years of experience in their CV :^)

If you enjoy technical stuff and you want a job doing it every day, what’s wrong with doing it during an interview? I’ve never quite understood the complaints about having to prove technical skills in an interview. CVs don’t prove anything about skills, even when they’re 100% truthful, and your 10 years is definitely different from my 10 years. Interviewers need a way to compare candidates so they can pick the best o…

I think the most common complaint is that the interviews don't test technical skills, they test things that look like they're adjacent to technical skills but aren't the kind of work that you'd actually be doing.

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

#115

Post by BiteCode_dev » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

anonzzzies wrote: post #96

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lots of employers will not answer to that request for various reasons. So you may get a phone number of a buddy of the candidate that will tell you he was stellar.

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

#116

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #88

francoisdevlin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A data point - the capital one AWS breach ended up costing $270M[1]. While they weren't destroyed, it wasn't cheap either. 1. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/capital-one-...

That is peanuts for AWS. The OPs point stands: pretty much no engineer or software company suffered serious consequences over their security practices. The worst was some internet drama and slightly lower *profit*.

It’s CapitalOne, not AWS, who had the flaw and suffered the loss. (And survived it, as is the main point of the thread.)

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

#117

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

slekker wrote: post #54

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #47

I see a lot of geeks giving advice on how to hire other geeks, but I'm guessing most of them had never being involved in the hiring process. In fact, if you sum up all the recommendations of people online about recruitment, you can't hire anybody, because every single move is something you should not do according to one of the self-proclaimed new expert. Once again, as a developer, I can only notice how much of a div…

And yet developers go through the most ludicrous interviewing processes, having to prove time and time again that they have enough technical skills, while having 10 years of experience in their CV :^)

[deleted]

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

#118

Post by danaris » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:41 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #78

slekker wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet developers go through the most ludicrous interviewing processes, having to prove time and time again that they have enough technical skills, while having 10 years of experience in their CV :^)

If you enjoy technical stuff and you want a job doing it every day, what’s wrong with doing it during an interview? I’ve never quite understood the complaints about having to prove technical skills in an interview. CVs don’t prove anything about skills, even when they’re 100% truthful, and your 10 years is definitely different from my 10 years. Interviewers need a way to compare candidates so they can pick the best o…

The problems are (non-exhaustively):

- Many interview coding problems are very unlike what we have had to do in our daily tasks, and very unlike what will be required if we get the job.

- If the company is trying to avoid that problem by making the coding part of the interview working on actual problems they're having, then that means the interviewee is giving the company work for free. (Unless the company pays for it, but that's vanishingly rare.)

- Even if they manage to thread the needle and have the coding part of the interview be relevant to the job, but not actually getting free work out of candidates, it's very hard to make it representative of the environment in which the candidates are used to or will be working. It's time-limited, very high pressure, with unfamiliar tools, often without the ability to consult online sources—or they make it a take-home assignment, and run the risk of having the candidates just get someone else to do it for them.

- Most other types of jobs don't require you to prove your skills. They read your resume, they take it at face value, they check your references, and if it turns out you lied on your resume and got the job, you get fired. ...Or they don't do their due diligence, and end up with terrible employees.

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

#119

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:46 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #109

anonzzzies wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are, but I (and many seniors) am easy to verify. If you know who I am and talked to previous employers (probably friends or at least people you met at conferences or fairs) or know me already from meet-ups but the rigidity of the hiring process has me do some dance, then please, find some other stooge.

> I am easy to verify. If you know who I am an talked to previous employers Wasn’t parent complaining about being verified, because he assumes that implies he’s lying? If your problem with the process is whether your word is believed without verification, or verified, then what’s the difference between a code test in an interview and talking to a previous employer? (BTW there’s a lot of reasons I might prefer the cod…

I don’t mind talking about code and in depth tech discussions; what I do mind is getting a calendar invite with 6 weeks of interviews and take home work. I have no issues getting jobs without any interviewing, but sometimes I get these weird things. I hire myself at the current company (and many previous) and I know within 15 minutes if someone is ok or not. Haven’t been wrong so far and the past 25 or so years. But I do have the luxury of only having ever have to pick senior devs; juniors I would not really know how to do.

Interviews that don’t involve code are usually fine but not 6-12 of them. I usually start with (and we do not look for Haskell, ocaml, idris or prolog devs); do you know what Haskell is, what are some of the differences between Haskell, Idris and Ocaml. What’s the difference between prolog and Haskell. If they throw huge ‘i have no idea about any of this’ then I know they are going to be people we cannot use. What do lisp and prolog have in common. You cannot really fake knowing any of these and not having had hands on experience. It takes 15 minutes to filter out people who wouldn’t fit our team. But again: I hire seniors only and we work with very specialised financial software. I do apply for similar jobs where this applies as well and then I get a calendar invite with 12 interviews etc. No thanks.

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

#120

Post by hahamrfunnyguy » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:48 PM UTC

slekker wrote: post #54

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #47

I see a lot of geeks giving advice on how to hire other geeks, but I'm guessing most of them had never being involved in the hiring process. In fact, if you sum up all the recommendations of people online about recruitment, you can't hire anybody, because every single move is something you should not do according to one of the self-proclaimed new expert. Once again, as a developer, I can only notice how much of a div…

And yet developers go through the most ludicrous interviewing processes, having to prove time and time again that they have enough technical skills, while having 10 years of experience in their CV :^)

I agree that some of the hiring processes out there are pretty nuts! On the other hand, there are people out there that have a CV that looks good on paper but are incompetent. One of my colleagues used the phrase one year of experience ten times.

I've worked with a few of these folks over the years. No one wanted them on the team and they contributed nothing, but somehow they managed to retain their job. These types were the first ones to go whenever there were staff cuts.

I've come across this interviewing too. We had a guy say "I can't do this.". I said, it's OK if you can solve it...let's just start it and work through it together. It's more important that we see how you approach problems and work through them. "No...I don't think I can."