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AI Broke Interviews

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Re: AI Broke Interviews

#91

Post by qiu3344 »

Companies being forced to overhaul their interview processes is certainly an unexpected side-effect of the insurgence of LLMs.

On the other hand, encouraging employees to adopt "AI" in their workflows, while at the same time banning "AI" on interviews, seems a bit hypocritical - at least from my perspective. One might argue that this is about dishonesty, and yes, I agree. However, AI-centric companies apparently include AI usage in employee KPIs, so I'm not sure how much they value the raw/non-augmented skill-set of their individual workers.

Of course, in all other cases, not disclosing AI usage is quite a dick move.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#92

Post by Esophagus4 »

nunez wrote: post #72
neilv wrote: post #8

> Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and system design rounds. Before that, it was brainteasers. Before Google, AFAIK, it was ad hoc, among good programmers. I only ever saw people talking with people about what they'd worked on, and about the company. (And I heard that Microsoft sometime…

Casual interviews definitely still exist, though the companies those jobs are attached to are typically not tech and pay less. Consulting positions also don't have much leetcode BS. These have always focused much more on practical experience. They also pay less than Staff+ roles at FAANGs.

Most of the consulting positions I’m aware of also hire a far lower talent caliber than FAANG, so they need bodies, not top talent.

I have worked at a company who had a casual, experienced-based, conversational interview. The engineering there was atrocious, and I left as soon as I could.

If you can talk your way into a position, that says a lot about the level of talent there. Top talent wants to work at a place that has a transparent and merit based performance bar, and you can’t smooth-talk your way into a job.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#93

Post by Esophagus4 »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #34
neilv wrote: post #8

> Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and system design rounds. Before that, it was brainteasers. Before Google, AFAIK, it was ad hoc, among good programmers. I only ever saw people talking with people about what they'd worked on, and about the company. (And I heard that Microsoft sometime…

> And we could interview like adults, instead of like teenagers pledging a frat. I think you're viewing the "good old days" of interviewing through the lens of nostalgia. Old school interviewing from decades ago or even more recently was significantly more similar to pledging to a frat than modern interviews. > people who are genuinely enthusiastic This seems absurdly difficult to measure well and gameable in its own…

Absolutely.

The amount of times I’ve seen a “do you want to have a beer with them?” test in lieu of a simple programming exam is horrifying. (And it showed in the level of talent they hired.)

Fortunately, most of those have been left by the wayside, roadkill of history.

Because that is really the alternative if we don’t have rigorous, systematic technical interviews: cognitive bias and gut-feel decisions. Both of which are antithetical to high performing environments.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#94

Post by Esophagus4 »

I agree with the article. Sadly, I have seen candidates cheating, and have hired those I suspected were cheating in hindsight.

It is a horrific drag on the team to have the wrong engineer in a seat.

If we can’t sus out who is cheating and who is legitimate, then the only answer is that we as a field have to move towards “hire fast, fire fast.”

Right now, we generally fire slow. But we can’t have the wrong engineer in a seat for six months while you go though a PIP and performance cycle waiting for a yearly layoff. Management and HR need to get comfortable with firing people in 3 weeks as opposed to 6 months. You need more frequent one-off decisions based on an individual’s contributions and potential.

If you can’t fix the interview process, you need more PIP culture.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#95

Post by neilv »

nunez wrote: post #73
danpalmer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prepping for interviews has been a big deal forever in most other industries though. It's considered normal to read extensively about a company, understand their business, sales strategies, finances, things like that, for any sort of business role. I think tech is and was an exception here.

I remember being told this during my interview prep classes in college in 2008. Interviewing was so much more formal even then (in the NYC area): business casual attire, (p)leather-bound resume folios, expectations of knowing the company, etc. I definitely don't miss any of that nonsense.

I recently showed up to a new startup interview, with a similar folio (with printed copies of my resume, and a tablet of graph paper), and it paid off.

I was in a small conference room with the two co-founders, and of them hadn't seen my resume, and was trying to read it on his phone while we were talking.

Bam. I whipped out printed copies for both of them, from my interview folio.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#96

Post by cudgy »

bluGill wrote: post #39
artyom wrote: post #19

The article implies that somewhat, before AI the leetcode/brainteaser/behavioral interview process had somewhat acceptable results. The reality is that AI just blew up something that was a pile of garbage, and the result is exactly what you'd expect. We all treat interviews in this industry as a human resources problem, when in reality is an engineering problem. The people with the skills to assess technical competen…

The results did filter out a few people who could not think. i reciently interviewed someone who was a senior engineer on the space shuttle, but managed a call center after that. Can this person still write code is a question we couldn't figure out and so had to pass. (We can't prove it but think we ended up with someone who outsourced the work to elsewhere - but at least that person could code if needed as proved by…

Ageism

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#97

Post by neilv »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #34
neilv wrote: post #8

> Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and system design rounds. Before that, it was brainteasers. Before Google, AFAIK, it was ad hoc, among good programmers. I only ever saw people talking with people about what they'd worked on, and about the company. (And I heard that Microsoft sometime…

> And we could interview like adults, instead of like teenagers pledging a frat. I think you're viewing the "good old days" of interviewing through the lens of nostalgia. Old school interviewing from decades ago or even more recently was significantly more similar to pledging to a frat than modern interviews. > people who are genuinely enthusiastic This seems absurdly difficult to measure well and gameable in its own…

> > people who are genuinely enthusiastic

> This seems absurdly difficult to measure well and gameable in its own way.

True, and it is gamed currently (some prep books tell you to feign enthusiasm).

But let's whimsically say that the hypothetical of software development no longer being the go-to easy lots-of-money career meant that the gaming people would go to some other field instead, leaving you with only the people who really want to do this job.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#98

Post by bluGill »

cudgy wrote: post #96
bluGill wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The results did filter out a few people who could not think. i reciently interviewed someone who was a senior engineer on the space shuttle, but managed a call center after that. Can this person still write code is a question we couldn't figure out and so had to pass. (We can't prove it but think we ended up with someone who outsourced the work to elsewhere - but at least that person could code if needed as proved by…

Ageism

We have interviewed and hired plenty of people even older (age is not something ever known/discussed and illegal to factor in - but it isn't hard to make a good guess anyway)

senior engineer could be a project manager who never wrote code.

i remember this because it is one of the faw 'no' I have had where it wasn't proved the person would be bad at the job. Normally the no hire signal is because the person would obviously be bad.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#99

Post by cudgy »

nunez wrote: post #71

If companies are going back to physical onsites but are using remote interviewers, then maybe it makes more sense to have interview centers. They'd be like testing centers --- device lockers, multiple cameras, nearby proctor, shitty desktops from the 2010s with even worse keyboards --- but just for interviews.

Ironically, these centers will use AI to interview.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#100

Post by cudgy »

nradov wrote: post #68
storus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 3) could scale but then those exam takers not using AI would fail unless they are geniuses in many areas. 1) and 2) can't be done when you have 50-70% of your course consisting of online students (Stanford mixes on-campus with CGOE external students who take the exams off-campus), who are important for your revenue. Proctoring won't work either as one could have two computers, one for the exam, one for the cheat…

Well realistically exam takers not using AI will fail in any sort of real world technical / professional / managerial occupation anyway. They might as well get used to it. Not being able to use LLMs effectively today is like the equivalent of not knowing how to use Windows 20 years ago.

Has AI advanced that far? How do managers use AI in their daily work? To generate emails? Most managers spend all day in meetings. How do they utilize AI for that? Inaccurately Compile the minutes of the meeting and summarize them?
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