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Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

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Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#11

Post by kadhirvelm »

We’ve added collaboration and communication as big facets in our hiring loop rubrics, and reduced the complexity of our questions. We also tell candidates this ahead of time - been honestly working pretty well so far, it indexes more on those soft skills and gives us just enough insight into the hard skills to make a call.

We’ve also been increasingly finding very few candidates know how to solve a complex question these days without LLM support lol. How are other folks changing their loops these days?

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#12

Post by dangus »

zipy124 wrote: post #7

The main problem is good engineers have no need to sit through your 12 step process. It actively selects only for the most desperate or money driven people (if you pay very well).

This point gets repeated a lot as if we are supposed to coddle engineers by making interviews wildly easy.

At some point as an employer you do want someone who is motivated enough to take some time out of their day to prepare for an interview.

Do you really want an employee who gives so little of a shit that they refuse to use their brain to get a job?

This isn’t exactly a hot labor market in tech. Companies have a good selection of quality talent available right now.

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#13

Post by root-parent »

kadhirvelm wrote: post #11

We’ve added collaboration and communication as big facets in our hiring loop rubrics, and reduced the complexity of our questions. We also tell candidates this ahead of time - been honestly working pretty well so far, it indexes more on those soft skills and gives us just enough insight into the hard skills to make a call. We’ve also been increasingly finding very few candidates know how to solve a complex question t…

>> few candidates know how to solve a complex question these days without LLM support lol

Please tell me you are joking.

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#14

Post by newtonianrules »

dangus wrote: post #12
zipy124 wrote: post #7

The main problem is good engineers have no need to sit through your 12 step process. It actively selects only for the most desperate or money driven people (if you pay very well).

This point gets repeated a lot as if we are supposed to coddle engineers by making interviews wildly easy. At some point as an employer you do want someone who is motivated enough to take some time out of their day to prepare for an interview. Do you really want an employee who gives so little of a shit that they refuse to use their brain to get a job? This isn’t exactly a hot labor market in tech. Companies have a g…

I don’t want to put my future coworker through six rounds of interviews. If it takes more than three rounds + a phone screen to figure out if someone is a good fit then the process is broken.

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#15

Post by ninininino »

dangus wrote: post #12
zipy124 wrote: post #7

The main problem is good engineers have no need to sit through your 12 step process. It actively selects only for the most desperate or money driven people (if you pay very well).

This point gets repeated a lot as if we are supposed to coddle engineers by making interviews wildly easy. At some point as an employer you do want someone who is motivated enough to take some time out of their day to prepare for an interview. Do you really want an employee who gives so little of a shit that they refuse to use their brain to get a job? This isn’t exactly a hot labor market in tech. Companies have a g…

> an employee who gives so little of a shit that they refuse to use their brain to get a job?

Many many folks are the type that is willing to hard grind/suffer short-term to get through a hoop, but as soon as they are inside they turn that 'optimizer' mindset towards 'how can I do the minimum necessary to coast and collect my paycheck'.

And many many folks who are highly motivated to work hard every day at their job are not highly motivated to prepare for jumping through a hoop like a circus clown.

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#16

Post by andrewstuart »

dangus wrote: post #12
zipy124 wrote: post #7

The main problem is good engineers have no need to sit through your 12 step process. It actively selects only for the most desperate or money driven people (if you pay very well).

This point gets repeated a lot as if we are supposed to coddle engineers by making interviews wildly easy. At some point as an employer you do want someone who is motivated enough to take some time out of their day to prepare for an interview. Do you really want an employee who gives so little of a shit that they refuse to use their brain to get a job? This isn’t exactly a hot labor market in tech. Companies have a g…

If I think your interview process is onerous, I’ll ditch your company.

I’m not interested in companies arrogant enough to think people should want to work there so much that they will endure your hoop jumping.

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#18

Post by dkarl »

This article repeats what we've long known about how technical interviews aren't great at evaluating technical skills and inadvertently filter for things that aren't important. But it doesn't offer a better way of evaluating technical skills. It talks about how to evaluate other things that do matter but aren't substitutes or proxies for technical skills.

Also, this argument is some grade school smarty pants "I'm too smart to show my work" bullshit:

> And because the interviewer can’t distinguish “skipped steps due to incompetence” from “skipped steps due to operating at a higher cognitive level,” they default to the interpretation that protects their ego.

I thought the days of hiring toxic "so smart I can't communicate" superstars was over?

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#19

Post by zipy124 »

dangus wrote: post #12
zipy124 wrote: post #7

The main problem is good engineers have no need to sit through your 12 step process. It actively selects only for the most desperate or money driven people (if you pay very well).

This point gets repeated a lot as if we are supposed to coddle engineers by making interviews wildly easy. At some point as an employer you do want someone who is motivated enough to take some time out of their day to prepare for an interview. Do you really want an employee who gives so little of a shit that they refuse to use their brain to get a job? This isn’t exactly a hot labor market in tech. Companies have a g…

I am not talking about difficulty but length and bureaucracy.

Re: Technical Interviews Reject the Wrong Engineers

#20

Post by pelagicAustral »

I don't understand why can't someone just come up with an interview where they propose an issue that is truly something that can be expected in the role, give the applicant a few hours to come up with an action plan and a solution architecture, put it down in writing, sketch some graphs, and then present it...

Why is that so groundbraking? wouldn't that immediately tell you a lot about the applicant, regardless of the final implementation being a 10 or not?

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