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An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

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Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#31

Post by 4dregress »

xandrius wrote: post #22
colinb wrote: post #10

I’m reasonably certain that I interviewed someone using this or something like it in the last few days. Lots of eye scanning while looking above the window they’d been typing into. Pauses. Big pastes. One of my excellent colleagues noticed that the candidate made use of exciting C++ casts before ever defining the variable’s types. Complete inability to explain or debug the code just written. So. Frustrating in two di…

It sounds like you want sympathy but it just shows that some people just don't understand the power dynamics of an interview. I believe live coding is a scourge and we should get rid of it altogether. Get a tiny open ended project, which requires more design/architecture skills than actually finishing the solution. You do it at your own time and shouldn't take more than 1-2h. You submit it and provide your mental pro…

100%

Another one I like was having to code review a repo which had specific issues in it.

Then add some new features.

Then in the final stage of the interview you go through it.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#32

Post by qwer1234321 »

I might be calling obvious but if candidate uses something like this, is this not lying to potential employer?

I'd rather be rejected than got job I'm not qualified to do, that's why I never prepare for interview above studying the actual company- and that is more to give me proper signal if I want to work for them, I want to be motivated to make move on more than just money.

I also have never done leetcode, though I like competitive programming problems, especially bot programming contests on codingame.com

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#33

Post by 4dregress »

vanhakoira wrote: post #9
mog_dev wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technical interviews are useless and its normal that their victims fight back

I heavily disagree with this. Technical interviews are great if done correctly. Or do you think that technical interviews hold such trait that is always present, that you can label all of them useless?

I think they’re useless unless they touch some part of the domain you’re howling to work in.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#34

Post by colinb »

xandrius wrote: post #22
colinb wrote: post #10

I’m reasonably certain that I interviewed someone using this or something like it in the last few days. Lots of eye scanning while looking above the window they’d been typing into. Pauses. Big pastes. One of my excellent colleagues noticed that the candidate made use of exciting C++ casts before ever defining the variable’s types. Complete inability to explain or debug the code just written. So. Frustrating in two di…

It sounds like you want sympathy but it just shows that some people just don't understand the power dynamics of an interview. I believe live coding is a scourge and we should get rid of it altogether. Get a tiny open ended project, which requires more design/architecture skills than actually finishing the solution. You do it at your own time and shouldn't take more than 1-2h. You submit it and provide your mental pro…

[flagged]

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#35

Post by kstenerud »

thesaintlives wrote: post #3

So cheat to get a job then get fired when they see you are useless? Genius..

It's starting to feel more like "cheat the job interview because the cat-and-mouse game has pushed everything to the point where you can't legitimately get an offer for a job you're actually fully qualified for anymore"

That's not quite where things are now, but the initial phases are beginning to show.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#36

Post by xandrius »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #29

I don't get why companies waste time with this sort of interview that just turns into this stupid cat and mouse game. Even ignoring this sort of software, someone cramming leet code exercises is the same thing in my view (they won't remember or use in their work 99% of that stuff). Just talk to the person, talk about the sorts of problems you expect them to solve. Can they understand the problem? Do they have ideas o…

Same! This topic gets me soo irritated. If someone is supposed an expert in a field (hence them being an interviewer) how can an average joe fool them into thinking they know more than they actually do during a conversation?

Even now with LLMs generating almost real time, there is always a slight delay and we all know that LLMs are far from perfect.

It seems the tech community on one hand complains at how bad LLMs are for doing deep tech while at the same time fears them as they can make any candidate pass interviews. So which one is it?

Also, the simplest trick even old-timers professor already know:

1) Prepare an open ended question about X

2) Ask it to ChatGPT, Claude, etc.

3) Take note of the titles, keywords used, etc.

4) Ask it to the candidate

5) Compare responses

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#37

Post by philsnow »

herghost wrote: post #19
bartread wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d say chances of getting busted are high as well. The invisibility of the window to common interview software won’t do anything mask candidates’ own suspicious behaviour. I was doing a 45 minute screener interview with a guy the other day who I could see kept glancing over at another window or screen as he was typing in code. Every couple of characters or so he was pausing looking over, then he’d type a handful mor…

Gong back about 20 years we had to introduce a "pre-screening" interview for infosec roles because of the calbire of candidates we were getting through. They'd made it through the HR "sift" by having the right words on their CVs but we found that a huge majority of these candidates didn't know even entry-level basics. There was initially a "quick fire" round where we did some real basic definitions - Confidentiality,…

RAID 45 strikes again

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#38

Post by fasthandle »

thesaintlives wrote: post #3

So cheat to get a job then get fired when they see you are useless? Genius..

There's a positive association between 1337code interview hurdles and lack of management competence.

Someone without the confidence to hire someone without going through a bunch of hoops to justify themselves is even less likely to admit humility and say they were wrong. Which makes places that employ these interview techniques terribly passive aggressive places to be.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#39

Post by gzer0 »

xandrius wrote: post #22
colinb wrote: post #10

I’m reasonably certain that I interviewed someone using this or something like it in the last few days. Lots of eye scanning while looking above the window they’d been typing into. Pauses. Big pastes. One of my excellent colleagues noticed that the candidate made use of exciting C++ casts before ever defining the variable’s types. Complete inability to explain or debug the code just written. So. Frustrating in two di…

It sounds like you want sympathy but it just shows that some people just don't understand the power dynamics of an interview. I believe live coding is a scourge and we should get rid of it altogether. Get a tiny open ended project, which requires more design/architecture skills than actually finishing the solution. You do it at your own time and shouldn't take more than 1-2h. You submit it and provide your mental pro…

The core issue here is the sheer volume of applicants. Microsoft opened 30 new-grad software engineering positions. Care to guess how many applications they got within 24 hours? 1,000? 10,000?

Nope.

100,000 applications. In under a single day.

With that kind of applicant pool, I’m honestly not sure what the best approach is—even though, in a perfect world, your suggestion would be the more appropriate route. The reality, however, is that these numbers are just absurd.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#40

Post by qwer1234321 »

andai wrote: post #12
thesaintlives wrote: post #3

So cheat to get a job then get fired when they see you are useless? Genius..

Obligatory "I don't agree with this and think it seems like a pretty depressing way to live", but: A colleague yesterday was telling me about how much he and all his friends lied to get their jobs, and he suggested I do the same, because if I don't, I'm competing against people who do, and said that's unfair (for me). It wasn't even an office job, but I've seen the same thing there too. (Also at university...)

I'm not under pressure so it's easy to say this, but I'd rather not get a job than lie during interview.
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