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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

#31

Post by robbiep »

rdouble wrote: post #25
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.

But then you have a tech company that isnt sprucing a buzz word

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

#32

Post by objclxt »

lobotryas wrote: post #4

Sounds great, although like with any retraction I doubt this will be enough to stop the spread of interview puzzles. Even I'm guilty of asking my share before I realized that the only thing that matters about the candidate is whether they can sit down and start writing code (and the quality of said code).

Google still ask puzzles: they just don't ask brainteasers.

For example, write a program to find every possible word in a given Boggle board is a puzzle, but one you're going to solve by coding...rather than "how many piano tuners are there in New York", which is a rather different matter. I've interviewed on-site with Google several times, and always found the CS puzzles to be challenging but fair.

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

#33

Post by darrellsilver »

The best book on hiring, no doubt, is Who: http://www.amazon.com/Who-The-A-Method-Hiring/dp/0345504194

We used it to build our hiring process for http://www.thinkful.com/ and it consistently proves valuable.

We also use it to help our students prepare for job interviews.

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

#35

Post by pathy »

eternauta3k wrote: post #30
inopinatus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

I presume he means studying Mathematics at University of Edinburgh.

A quick googling sessions confirms this, inopinatus studied maths in Edinburgh according to his Linkedin.

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

#36

Post by skrebbel »

hkmurakami wrote: post #18
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.

>I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR. from: "The trick Max Levchin used to hire the best engineers at PayPal" Levchin realized the best engineers wanted to be challenged both in their jobs and in the interview process. “We cultivated a very public culture of being incredibly hard to get in. Even though it was actually very hard to get good people to even interview, we made a point of broadc…

That does filter out the genius engineers who aren't also arrogant, doesn't it?

(which might not be a problem)

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

#37

Post by kingofspain »

eternauta3k wrote: post #30
inopinatus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

Studied

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

#38

Post by [deleted] »

eternauta3k wrote: post #30
inopinatus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by lmm »

eternauta3k wrote: post #30
inopinatus wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

It's standard (or slightly pretentious) British English; I guess the US equivalent would be "majored in math at Edinburgh" (which would be equally incomprehensible to a Brit)

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

#40

Post by objclxt »

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…

> Similarly, no brainteasers, but something worse: they made me write syntactically correct code on a whiteboard

Interestingly, I believe Google are slowly moving over all their coding interviews from whiteboards to Chromebooks - this is what I was told by my Google recruiter when I last interviewed with them, anyway.

The whiteboard can be a bit polarising...I love whiteboarding code, but I suspect many people detest it with a passion (I used to teach CS, so it's something I picked up on the job). I do think it is rather unfair to have candidates whiteboard and demand syntactically correct code, especially when under pressure. There's room for flexibility.

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