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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

#181

Post by rayiner »

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…

I had a professor who used to say: a great engineer should be able to answer any question in 30 minutes, at some level of precision. Her example was deriving the equations for the dynamics of the space shuttle. You should be able to do it in 30 minutes, even if it's an extreme approximation.

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

#182

Post by dasil003 »

inopinatus wrote: post #168
dasil003 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant "wouldn't". It's not pretentious per se, it just would be interpreted that way to an American because we wouldn't use that phrasing, therefore we can only imagine it being spoken in an upper-class English accent, pinky fully extended.

Quite so. Having been raised by the BBC World Service I actually do have a somewhat received pronunciation, albeit gently deflected by many years abroad. The disposition of my pinky, however, shall remain a mystery.

If only it were tea time in Australia. Blast, foiled again.

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

#183

Post by zellyn »

donohoe wrote: post #122
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.

We built Quartz to be as distraction free as possible - mind telling me what the "cruft" is?

On my iPhone, Chrome hides the browser location and other buttons when you start scrolling down. Scrolling up brings them back into view.

On that article, I was completely unable to bring the location/page-controls back into view -- I was stuck on that page, trying to figure out how to escape -- until I clicked a link - then the controls showed up while it was loading the new content.

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

#184

Post by jbapple »

donohoe wrote: post #127
tokenadult wrote: post #102

From the original New York Times article that Quartz has linkspammed here: "On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time. How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart." Long before this was reported in the New York Times, this was the fi…

From the original New York Times article that Quartz has linkspammed No, this is Linkspan: Link spam is defined as links between pages that are present for reasons other than merit.[9] Link spam takes advantage of link-based ranking algorithms, which gives websites higher rankings the more other highly ranked websites link to it. These techniques also aim at influencing other link-based ranking techniques such as the…

I think you should have made it clear in this comment that you work for Quartz.

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

#185

Post by ionforce »

Kurtz79 wrote: post #104
rdouble wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's just me or this kind of comment is one of the most common in HN lately, when any story about data analysis comes up ? We get it, big data it's not really "big" unless you talk giga(tera?)bytes. Do not take upon yourself to educate any single person that misuses the term. It's not worth it. :)

I guess it's a natural reaction to people wanting to jump on that "big data" bandwagon. Kind of like size envy I guess? So sad...

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

#186

Post by chinpokomon »

donohoe wrote: post #151
engtech wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. when I go to this link: http://qz.com/96206/google-admits-those-infamous-brainteaser... It shows several stories at once, not just the google brainteasers stories. 2. In general, people would rather read the real article instead of a summary of the article. When someone submits a summary of an article to a site like HN or reddit, it is usually flagged as blog-spam because we'd rather read/support the original cont…

1. ... It shows several stories at once, not just the google brainteasers stories. It shows one article initially. It will load the next one as you scroll down and approach the end. This is not counted as a Page View unless you actually continue down into it - you'll notice the URL change at that point) 2. In general, people would rather read the real article instead of a summary of the article. I would argue that th…

The pages also won't show in my favorite Android HN client: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airlocksof.... I always have to open in a browser.

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

#187

Post by mikestew »

bane wrote: post #119

I was contacted by a Google recruiter a few months ago, I had no intention of changing my day job at the time, but for shits and grins I went through a couple phone interviews. The position they were hiring for wasn't an area I have any experience in (the recruiter had made a mismatch), but I thought the questions were reasonable for somebody who works in that field and were kind of fun. They were quizzy, but could b…

"It was a management position so there weren't any coding questions"

Interesting; when I interviewed for a management position (test manager) it was nothing but coding questions, including the infamous "reverse a string" question. ("Would like that optimized for space or speed? In-place, or do I get a buffer? Can you tell I've heard this a zillion times before?") I can understand wanting a test manager to be more than an empty suit, but yoiks.

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

#188

Post by raverbashing »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #169
chris_mahan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it's 100 million rows. That's something a single beefy server with SQL Server 2012 can handle. That's not big data. Big data is a million times 100 million rows.

> Big data is a million times 100 million rows. [citation needed] This whole thread is pointless. There is no definition of Big data.

This may be a definition: https://twitter.com/DEVOPS_BORAT/status/288698056470315008

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

#189

Post by chinpokomon »

fduran wrote: post #106
Udo wrote: post #100

There are questions that are actually fun and I can sort of see them starting a conversation with the right kind of interviewer that tells both parties a lot about who they're dealing with. From the article: > How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle? Basic economics estimating - probably not that useful and a bit dull, but hey why not. At least the problem has several angles to it that might be…

> A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened? horrible question, it took me a few seconds to figure out they are talking about the game Monopoly.

Oh, that's what I was supposed to get out of that question? I was probably 5 the last time I played the actual board game. I've played computer versions since then, so pushing the car wasn't even a verb that I'd use to describe the game play. The only interesting aspects of the game for me are the studies about game balance for particular properties. I never aspired to be a great monopoly player, and that shows when I'd play my friends. As an interview question, this one seems pretty lousy.

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

#190

Post by chinpokomon »

Udo wrote: post #100

There are questions that are actually fun and I can sort of see them starting a conversation with the right kind of interviewer that tells both parties a lot about who they're dealing with. From the article: > How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle? Basic economics estimating - probably not that useful and a bit dull, but hey why not. At least the problem has several angles to it that might be…

I think Vaughn and Wilson had the best answer to the blender question in the Internship trailer I saw... just lie down. those blades will just spin over your head and the motor will eventually overheat and fail. I'm sure there is something about densities they are looking for, but it doesn't strike me as a great question. Manhole covers being round is more interesting, but not really a good indicator about how well you can code.
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