Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI • Hacker News Board

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#121

Post by ghaff » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:04 PM UTC

esafak wrote: post #64

Aurornis wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought "fire fast" was a viable strategy until I joined a company that did exactly that. They didn't fire many people quickly, but it had a deeply chilling effect when someone was only at the company for a month or two before disappearing. One of the unspoken difficulties of firing fast is that the person does a lot of relationship building with people who don't work with their output. It was often the case that s…

You should be giving constant feedback; firing should not come as a surprise. And if someone is not delivering, the people who depend on that output will know. Totally unrelated people should reserve judgment.

You might be surprised how many totally oblivious and un-self-aware people there are out there.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#122

Post by mystraline » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:05 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #112

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 shou…

> Some people think it's perfectly normal to stretch the truth on a resume, and to lie in an interview.

So marketing works in the company's favor, and not the candidates? Its a tough pill to swallow, but bending the truth and lying seems to be the way folks get jobs now.

Perhaps not lying... But I've thought about the 1pt font white on white mega-tech-list attached to Workday resumes to get past THEIR ai-slop filters. And even had my SO get insta-rejected when whatever AI term wasn't explicitly there.

As a candidate, the market is horrific. Ghost jobs, fake jobs that gather market intelligence, scam jobs, blatantly lying candidates, AI blusters, and more. I can look at the usual places, or even HN. I've even applied to my share of HN jobs without so much as a 'no' as response.

It puts us who actually want to be honest at a pretty severe disadvantage.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#123

Post by PantaloonFlames » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:06 PM UTC

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…

> Fly where? Many companies don't have offices anymore.

Presumably to meet the boss. And maybe the key people on the team.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#124

Post by gwbas1c » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:07 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #11

Potentially important side points, since not everyone knows, and we don't want anyone to learn a mistake by example: 1. Don't use blur to redact documents. Whatever blur was used can probably be reversed. 2. Don't try to hide the identity of someone you're talking about by redacting a few details on their resume. With the prevalence of public and private resume databases, that's probably easy to match up with a name.

> Don't use blur to redact documents. Whatever blur was used can probably be reversed.

I just got mosquito noise when I sharpened. Are you confusing blurring with pixelating?

As long as the blur is strong enough, there's no way to get the text back.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#125

Post by Ylpertnodi » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #112

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 shou…

>I couldn't just make up new questions for every candidate.

Ask each candidate the same questions?

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#126

Post by eikenberry » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

creato wrote: post #117

eikenberry wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

No, but ignoring their disabilities and saying to just learn to do better is not good enough. It is no different from telling a deaf person to learn to hear with their other sense, it doesn't make sense as their disability is what prevents it. People do need to be able to interact with other people, it just doesn't work like it does with non-neurodivergent people. It takes an effort on both sides. Quit putting it all on the person who cannot do what you want. That is the bigotry.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#127

Post by roguecoder » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:10 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #85

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…

> - And yeah, you guys, it's time to buy a suit. No. Those are costumes that benefit no one but the seller of the costume. They wear the costume precisely once and never put it on again. It's an old classist ritual that forces people to spend money on clothes they dont want or need.

You assume we aren't going to end up wearing them daily in order to get promotions. The same elitist power trip that drove RTO is also likely to produce the "dress like us & be rewarded" dynamics that push for conformity.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#128

Post by gwbas1c » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:12 PM UTC

Ylpertnodi wrote: post #125

gwbas1c wrote: post #112

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 shou…

>I couldn't just make up new questions for every candidate. Ask each candidate the same questions?

Yes. It was a programming exercise that took me a few hours to create. It was not practical to re-make it for every candidate.

BTW, it's industry normal for companies to come up with a programming exercise and reuse it.

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#129

Post by mvdtnz » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:14 PM UTC

> The next stage of our interview process, had this candidate moved forward, is to implement a take-home project that we have specifically designed for prospective candidates to complete. Had we moved this candidate forward, I have no doubt that they would have been able to use AI to pass the take home project with flying colors.

So why bother with it?

Re: Interviewing a software engineer who prepared with AI

#130

Post by tartoran » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 9:14 PM UTC

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…

> - awkward and/or neurodivergent people are going to have to learn social skills again

It's not like these are skills that they haven't learned, these are things that they have a hard time with. Expecting them to be 'normal' is like asking a person of medium stature to be taller. They could mask them but ultimately it's not who they are and expecting everyone to be the same is a fools errand.