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Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

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Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#111

Post by usefulcat »

masfuerte wrote: post #53
crooked-v wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rejected an applicant earlier this year who was obviously reading off another screen for every answer (as in, blatant pauses while I could literally see their eyes moving back and forth). I don't understand if they thought I wouldn't notice or what.

You can get an AI tool now to fix the eye movement. Sadly. I enjoy remote work but I wouldn't want to start working for a company where I had never met anyone. It seems like a great way to get scammed. One real-life interview would surely be beneficial for both sides.

I'd be very curious to see exactly what 'fixing' the eye movement actually looks like. Like are they always staring directly into the camera? Or are they sometimes randomly looking around all over the place? Cause that would look totally normal..

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#112

Post by gwbas1c »

Some people think it's perfectly normal to stretch the truth on a resume, and to lie in an interview. Other people think an interview is just a matter of finding the "magic words" to get the job.

What I don't understand is, what did the candidate do with AI? Did they use the AI as a coach? Did they use it to suggest edits to the resume?

---

I once interviewed a candidate who was given my questions in advance. (I should point out that it was quite time consuming for me to design an interview, so I couldn't just make up new questions for every candidate.)

When the candidate started taking the "schoolboy" tone of a well-rehearsed speech, I realized that they had practiced their answers, like practicing for an exam. I immediately threw in an unscripted question, got the "this wasn't supposed to be on the test" response, and ended the interview.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#113

Post by tetromino_ »

I had done a few remote coding interviews in recent months where I suspect the candidate was cheating using AI. It's a bizarre experience: each individual answer is produced confidently and quickly, makes sense in isolation, occasionally is even optimal, but the different answers don't connect into a coherent whole. Contrived example: the candidate confidently states that one should use algorithm X to solve a particular type of problem because of such and such reason - and then five minutes later when it comes time to write some code, they rapidly type in, with no erasing or backtracking, a solution which uses algorithm Y, and seemingly no awareness that they switched from X to Y...

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#114

Post by 9rx »

ghaff wrote: post #97
9rx wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But some practices should be the default even if some candidates don’t really like them Employers didn't have a whole lot of choice in that matter for a long time. Candidates wouldn't show up if you tried to impose that upon them. Granted, nowadays it does appear that the tide has turned back to employers getting to call the shots, especially for lower-level positions. It is less clear how desperate the top talent…

Seems pretty alien to my experience. A lot of senior talent was accustomed to traveling a lot anyway. I’ve certainly always interviewed in person and would probably turn down any company that didn’t offer as an option aside from COVID. But maybe there were a lot of companies that were willing to compromise on face to face so they could get any supposed talent to sign on the dotted line. Of course, they didn’t have mu…

> A lot of senior talent was accustomed to traveling a lot anyway.

Where there was clear benefit to the trip, perhaps. Otherwise no – senior talent time is way too valuable to be jetting around the world on wild goose chases.

The interview is the time to discuss if there is any benefit to be had. Maybe you'd consider the trip after everyone is generally happy, offers are on the table, and you feel the need for final due diligence. But you are past interview territory at that point.

They'll come to you if face-to-face during the interview is deemed important.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#115

Post by roguecoder »

Joeboy wrote: post #81
Aurornis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is, none of these things really changed with AI I agree that lying was possible before AI, but something about AI has emboldened a lot more people to try to lie. Something about having the machine fabricate the lie for you seems to lessen the guilt of lying. There's also a growing sentiment online that using AI to cheat/lie is "fair" because they think companies are using AI to screen candidates. It's not…

I suspect the people saying nothing's changed are not people who've been conducting interviews recently.

I have seen wild things in the last year.

People taking minute-long pauses before answering questions. People confidently saying things that are factually incorrect and not being able to explain why they would say that. People submitting code they don't understand & getting mad when asked why they wrote something that way.

I get that candidates are desperate for jobs, because a bunch of tech companies have given up on building useful software and are betting their entire business on these spam bots instead, but these techniques _do not help_. They just make the interview a waste of time for the candidate and the interviewer alike.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#116

Post by Tijdreiziger »

no_wizard wrote: post #52
OptionOfT wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had situations where I submitted a take-home exercise, only for me to get feedback that it didn't match their required level. After some back & forth I was able to (politely) prove their feedback was not correct, which actually granted me a follow-up interview. Unfortunately, this was a unicorn, most companies don't give feedback, let alone admit they were wrong. But, take-home is preferred, I want to use my IDE…

>When an HVAC company hires a new tech HVAC has certifications you can get. We should strongly consider this in our industry. I don't think its an unreasonable compromise, especially now with the advent of LLMs.

Some parts of the IT industry do lean on certs.

IIUC, network engineering in particular is an area where vendor certs play a big role (mainly Cisco).

AWS, Azure and GCP all have certs. There are certs for Windows and Linux administration. Java has certs.

(I don’t know if anyone cares about the Java certs, but they do exist.)

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#117

Post by creato »

eikenberry wrote: post #107
no-dr-onboard wrote: post #45

I keep coming back to this phrase used in this post: "it was scary". Yeah, hiring is scary. Hiring is insanely expensive on all fronts. Firing people is difficult, it's expensive and legally exposing. Hiring the wrong person, allowing them access your systems and potentially exfiltrate your IP to them is a hazardous but necessary venture. The thing is, none of these things really changed with AI. People have been lyi…

You are right about hiring not being that much different but your prognostications are way off IMO. > - people are probably going to have to fly out for interviews, again. Fly where? Many companies don't have offices anymore. > - awkward and/or neurodivergent people are going to have to learn social skills again. Ahh... the age old, "just do better" position for neurodivergent people. Classic bigotry. > - And yeah, y…

Requiring people to be able to interact with other people is not "bigotry".

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#118

Post by roguecoder »

ghaff wrote: post #97
9rx wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But some practices should be the default even if some candidates don’t really like them Employers didn't have a whole lot of choice in that matter for a long time. Candidates wouldn't show up if you tried to impose that upon them. Granted, nowadays it does appear that the tide has turned back to employers getting to call the shots, especially for lower-level positions. It is less clear how desperate the top talent…

Seems pretty alien to my experience. A lot of senior talent was accustomed to traveling a lot anyway. I’ve certainly always interviewed in person and would probably turn down any company that didn’t offer as an option aside from COVID. But maybe there were a lot of companies that were willing to compromise on face to face so they could get any supposed talent to sign on the dotted line. Of course, they didn’t have mu…

I have had executives fly to meet me more often than the other way around.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#119

Post by 9rx »

ghaff wrote: post #101
9rx wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm not that interested in a company, I won't waste my time to contact them (or pay attention to their efforts to contact me). Having interest in them does not imply that I have an interest in travel, however. If I had an interest in travel, I'd have become an airline pilot or something like that instead. But if they think they need someone who has a secret desire to man a ship or be a touring musician – cool. A g…

It’s fine to have quirks. And yes that is largely a quirk. And it’s fine for others to decide that’s it’s more trouble than they want to deal with. I would probably be one of those people-/absent compelling reasons.

> It’s fine to have quirks.

Of course. If a company wants to be quirky, that is their choice to make.

> I would probably be one of those people-/absent compelling reasons.

Agreed. A job isn't usually all that compelling – there are jobs everywhere – but for the right business deal you can look past certain things.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#120

Post by cynicalsecurity »

The company cheats by being a tightwad and by conducting an online interview (which have always been prone to cheating or embellishing, and companies perfectly know it) and the candidate cheats by using this opportunity.

I can't stop repeating it, just invite the candidate to your office. That's it, that's how simple the problem is solved.

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