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In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

nytimes.com

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Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#21

Post by ig1 »

goblin89 wrote: post #17
edent wrote: post #3

The original article - http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-huntin... Distraction free reading and without all the annoying cruft of Quartz. Fascinating use of "Big Data" to cut through the bullshit. Wonder if it will change anything. I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR.

Their findings wrt. formal education are interesting, too. The first time I see a big company's representative saying “test scores are worthless.”

Actually they say they're giving less weight to them (historically Google has weighted them very heavily) which is significantly different from "test scores are worthless".

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#22

Post by hkmurakami »

rorrr2 wrote: post #12
Jabbles wrote: post #8

I don't understand people's problem with estimating. It's a useful skill. Perhaps it would be better if the questions actually related to technology, rather than golf balls - but the principle is the same. For instance - "how many hard drives does Gmail need?" requires a rough guess of how many users Gmail has (if you're interviewing at Google, you should know it's 1e8-1e9). How much space each one takes (probably no…

The problem is, the interviewers often judge how accurate your estimation is, and not the fact that you know (the highly flawed) Drake Equation. These estimates are completely useless in real life, because in real life nobody guesses how many drives you need for GMail, or how many gas stations there are in LA.

In every situation I know of, it's not the accuracy of the answer that is being judged but rather the thought process and basic math and assumptions chosen to get there.

In any case it's one of those things where you tend to do well if you've prepared for it and do pretty poorly if you face it for the first time. Probably a better fit for interviewing management consultants than programmers for sure though

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#23

Post by ig1 »

rorrr2 wrote: post #12
Jabbles wrote: post #8

I don't understand people's problem with estimating. It's a useful skill. Perhaps it would be better if the questions actually related to technology, rather than golf balls - but the principle is the same. For instance - "how many hard drives does Gmail need?" requires a rough guess of how many users Gmail has (if you're interviewing at Google, you should know it's 1e8-1e9). How much space each one takes (probably no…

The problem is, the interviewers often judge how accurate your estimation is, and not the fact that you know (the highly flawed) Drake Equation. These estimates are completely useless in real life, because in real life nobody guesses how many drives you need for GMail, or how many gas stations there are in LA.

I'm not sure where you've worked, but doing resource estimation for projects has been pretty important for most greenfield projects I've worked on.

It's also good for sanity testing, it's a useful skill to be able to spot that something is out by an order of magnitude as it can allow you to catch problems early on.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#24

Post by inopinatus »

litewulf wrote: post #7

When I interviewed at Google 5 years ago they weren't using those brainteasers. There are many posts online about the actual, CS-y questions that you can expect in a Google interview, I had just assumed that the mentions of brainteasers were merely urban legend.

I've interviewed at Google. Years, years ago. I didn't get the job. Similarly, no brainteasers, but something worse: they made me write syntactically correct code on a whiteboard. I have never written code without using a keyboard; turns out, I just didn't have the neural pathways for anything else. My brain kinda seized up. I specifically recall failing to recognise the fibonacci sequence (especially horrifying given that I read mathematics at Edinburgh). Things went downhill from there.

Ever since, whenever I've interviewed someone, I ask them to demonstrate their strengths to me first.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#25

Post by rdouble »

edent wrote: post #3

The original article - http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-huntin... Distraction free reading and without all the annoying cruft of Quartz. Fascinating use of "Big Data" to cut through the bullshit. Wonder if it will change anything. I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR.

Is Google's HR data set really "Big Data" or just "data?"

Seems like it would fit into a normal database. Or maybe even an unwieldy Excel spreadsheet.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#26

Post by mtgx »

edent wrote: post #3

The original article - http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-huntin... Distraction free reading and without all the annoying cruft of Quartz. Fascinating use of "Big Data" to cut through the bullshit. Wonder if it will change anything. I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR.

Mobile NYT must be one of the very few sites that don't look absolutely horrible when used on a PC browser. I usually hate it when people post the mobile version of a page.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#27

Post by objclxt »

ig1 wrote: post #21
goblin89 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their findings wrt. formal education are interesting, too. The first time I see a big company's representative saying “test scores are worthless.”

Actually they say they're giving less weight to them (historically Google has weighted them very heavily) which is significantly different from "test scores are worthless".

You've skipped over the original NYT article, which the qz.com article being linked to here quotes from. He does say they're worthless. Here's the complete quote:

One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation

This chimes with my understanding and experience that Google only really use test scores and GPA's right now as a filter to manage the vast number of internship/entry-level applicants they get.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#28

Post by mixedbit »

mossplix wrote: post #15

So how useless exactly were they? As long as you are looking for a "right" answer not a correct one, they are a very good metric for testing problem solving skills.

If a candidate solves a puzzle, it tells you a bit about the candidate, but if the candidate fails to solve the puzzle, it tells you more or less nothing, and a large part of the interview is wasted.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#30

Post by eternauta3k »

inopinatus wrote: post #24
litewulf wrote: post #7

When I interviewed at Google 5 years ago they weren't using those brainteasers. There are many posts online about the actual, CS-y questions that you can expect in a Google interview, I had just assumed that the mentions of brainteasers were merely urban legend.

I've interviewed at Google. Years, years ago. I didn't get the job. Similarly, no brainteasers, but something worse: they made me write syntactically correct code on a whiteboard. I have never written code without using a keyboard; turns out, I just didn't have the neural pathways for anything else. My brain kinda seized up. I specifically recall failing to recognise the fibonacci sequence (especially horrifying give…

What do you mean by "read mathematics at Edinburgh"?
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