Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interviewing in Silicon Valley

symbo1ics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 117 posts

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#61

Post by libria »

bane wrote: post #51

I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle. I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to a…

> I made it through the interview gauntlets and finally got to the compensation round

Unless they have a rigid compensation banding structure or are on Glassdoor, recruiters/HR usually ask ballpark salary requirements at first contact to avoid this kind of thing, which I think is a legitimate inquiry. Though, if they insist on current salary they're probably looking to low-ball you.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#62

Post by throwaway1979 »

I wonder what would happen if perspective job seekers just say that they won't do coding questions in interviews? Moreover, if they insist that interviews can't be longer than 1 hour total, with a maximum of 1 phone screen. Oh .. to top that off, candidates insist they get told their fate within a week or less by email. If only ...

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#63

Post by [deleted] »

ecspike wrote: post #25
nilkn wrote: post #22

I personally would quite like an interview where I work with the interviewer to solve a problem or puzzle that he himself has not solved--as opposed to the traditional setup where the interviewer acts as the all-knowing oracle who happens to withhold the solution to this one problem. This could be difficult to set up on a regular basis, though. I actually had an interview somewhat like that recently. The team was abo…

I think all take-home projects should pay market rate.

[deleted]

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#64

Post by dionidium »

tptacek wrote: post #59
bane wrote: post #51

I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle. I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to a…

This is a good comment. Some nits I'd like to pick: * Companies aren't required to provide a level playing field to applicants. I think you've alluded here to discrimination against protected classes; that is, you're suggesting that someone could get an unnecessarily hard interview and use it as evidence that they were constructively rejected for their race or gender. That could happen, but most companies probably us…

That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful.

Wait, why is it unethical? It's frustrating and inconvenient and sucks for everyone but their friends. But, unethical? On what grounds? I don't have an obligation to give strangers the same favors I give my friends, do I?

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#65

Post by eclipxe »

reikonomusha wrote: post #43
ecdavis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "well, it can be solved by doing $NAIVE_SOLUTION, just to get that out there, and I know you're looking for a better one." I'm at the very beginning of my career, having just accepted a new grad position, but I thought I'd offer my opinion on this: just implement the naive solution. If you're really unsure, ask them if they're OK with you doing that. In my very first interview I took the approach you just described…

If they request I spell out the naive solution, I certainly oblige. But if it's clear to both the interviewer and me that they are looking for that particular solution, then I won't spend time writing it out. So far, this approach of assuming they want the best solution—while acknowledging the simple solution exists along with a brief sketch of it—seems to be agreeable.

Your posts leads us to believe that this is in fact, not agreeable.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#66

Post by negrit »

libria wrote: post #61
bane wrote: post #51

I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle. I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to a…

> I made it through the interview gauntlets and finally got to the compensation round Unless they have a rigid compensation banding structure or are on Glassdoor, recruiters/HR usually ask ballpark salary requirements at first contact to avoid this kind of thing, which I think is a legitimate inquiry. Though, if they insist on current salary they're probably looking to low-ball you.

It never happened to me. The compensation round is always at the end.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#67

Post by stevewilhelm »

walshemj wrote: post #47
stevewilhelm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> yet companies make it really, really hard to get a job. It is much better to filter out some perfectly good candidates than accidentally hire the wrong candidate. The wrong hire can be very disruptive, and in some cases fatal for a company. Firing the wrong hire is very, very hard. >> but it seems it's almost easier to raise money for your startup than to get a job Raising money is like interviewing for three jobs…

Oh come one firing people is easy both in the UK and USA. The USA is at will and in the UK the first two years are effectively at will.

>> Oh come one firing people is easy

In California, to avoid litigation lawyers get involved, the whole process gets documented, orchestrated, and some kind of separation agreement is negotiated.

But mostly it's emotionally very hard and very stressful. The decision is not taken lightly.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#68

Post by leklund »

robmil wrote: post #45

I've long since abandoned trying to do programming tests when interviewing coders. Instead, I work through a problem with them in a sort of socratic method; I play devil's advocate to them while they flesh out how they'd approach the problem. It's far more illuminating, and a far better reflection of their worth as a candidate, than their ability to go off into a room somewhere and work through a problem alone. I'm m…

This is the same approach we've taken with candidates. We start with a phone screen and then a simple coding problem submitted via email. When we bring them in for an interview they spend time with with a few developers working collaboratively on a problem. If possible, it's a bit of work from the current iteration. Working together on real-world code has been surprisingly effective. I was skeptical at first, but it has been very helpful in weeding out candidates who had good cv's and probably could have coded a really great algorithm to traverse a binary tree but weren't great with solving real world problems.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#69

Post by bane »

tptacek wrote: post #59
bane wrote: post #51

I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle. I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to a…

This is a good comment. Some nits I'd like to pick: * Companies aren't required to provide a level playing field to applicants. I think you've alluded here to discrimination against protected classes; that is, you're suggesting that someone could get an unnecessarily hard interview and use it as evidence that they were constructively rejected for their race or gender. That could happen, but most companies probably us…

> problems that are representative of the work

bingo. I know you're a big advocate of this approach and it's worked well for you in the past and it's probably because you keep it relevant.

Re: Interviewing in Silicon Valley

#70

Post by bane »

libria wrote: post #61
bane wrote: post #51

I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle. I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to a…

> I made it through the interview gauntlets and finally got to the compensation round Unless they have a rigid compensation banding structure or are on Glassdoor, recruiters/HR usually ask ballpark salary requirements at first contact to avoid this kind of thing, which I think is a legitimate inquiry. Though, if they insist on current salary they're probably looking to low-ball you.

It's almost always at the end. I wish it were closer to the beginning to save everybody time and hassle.

For regular 'ol companies it's more about seeing what you want, most places will actually try and hit your desired salary so long as they can make some money on you.

For SV-style companies it's different. It feels different. When you get to that point, it's almost like the tone of the conversation becomes "now that you're really impressed with us, and we've decided that we'll let you into our exclusive club, how low can you go? We'll reward lower salaries with more options that'll probably not be worth anything by the time we hit a point where you can exercise them. It'd be even better if you could pay us for the honor of working here."

Post reply on HN