I will not do a tech interview • Hacker News Board

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#471

Post by CaveTech » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 3:45 AM UTC

ballard wrote: post #456

tiglionabbit wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried that. The response is always, "This is how we do our interviews. If we changed it for you, it would be hard to compare you to our other applicants".

Yup. Business theater continues despite evidence it doesn't work. [1] Consider this a signal everything else is broken too. Notice their signals to show you are more than a technical automata to "fill a process void in the value chain". The best interviews are as casual as possible, and not called interviews. Good interview process looks like: - 2 phone screens (recruiter||hr and then hiring manager && closest cowoke…

Surely you don't mean do all those steps? That's an incredibly long process that I definitely wouldn't put up with. If I want to check out 10 companies, I simply can't scale with this unless I'm unemployed.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#472

Post by RogerL » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 3:59 AM UTC

archangel_one wrote: post #399

misiti3780 wrote: post #16

I have passed a bunch of job interviews in the past - but I feel the exact same away and hire this way these days. I really do not see the point of brainteasers or white board coding questions if you have a budget where you can just pay out a contract like this. Also, I believe there was an article posted here a few weeks back that indicated Google's brainteasers did not lead to quality candidates - I know I am cherr…

> Google's brainteasers did not lead to quality candidates This is why we at Google don't (or shouldn't, at least - it's widely discouraged) ask brainteaser questions in interviews. I disagree on whiteboard coding though. I don't find it that easy, but I think it's reasonable to expect a demonstration of relevant skills before you hire a candidate. Any sensible interviewer won't expect syntax-perfect code on a whiteb…

Well, the person that referred to the article used the wrong term. Certainly brainteasers don't work, and they have been prohibited at Google for awhile. But the recent article stated that there was no correlation between interviewers and job performance. That the beloved hash table, distributed computing, priority queue, red-black tree questions that you pepper people have nothing to do with the quality of the person you hire.

Which I have argued many times on here, should be glaringly obvious. Measure what you want to measure. I have never said "I'm so happy we hired Jane, she just tore up that smart pointer implementation yesterday". I like and dislike colleagues based not on comp sci algorithms, but whether their code is readable, how many bugs are in it, how quickly they can produce production quality code, whether they are responsible and hit deadlines, if they ask for help when they need it, if they offer help when other need it, if they are creative, if they are doers and achievers, if they take baths (seriously), if they step out of their office and interact once in a while, if they are problem solvers, if they read and keep up with their field, if they are capable of learning, if they write good documentation, if the client likes them, if I like them, if younger people look up to them, if older people feel some pressure because here is somebody up and coming, if when I go to modify their code I only need to change it in one place, and my change fits in naturally without breaking 15 different things (because it is designed with extensibility in mind), and that my heart beats a little faster because their code is just so beautiful. And so on.

Google doesn't try to measure any of that. At all. And then you (google, not you archangle_one) express mystification at why your interviews do no better than chance. There's a clue there, I'd say. If you don't measure job performance, why do you think your measure say anything about job performance?

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#473

Post by mmorett » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:19 AM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #121

maxk42 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just replying to state my shock at how many people are defending poor interview performance. If you freeze up during interviews because it's "high stress" then maybe you need to practice going on more interviews until it doesn't bug you any more. When you're a developer -- especially at a senior level -- you need to be able to work well under stress. Hell -- you need to be able to do that for nearly any job in the wo…

This seems false to me. Interview stress isn't deadline stress isn't code review stress. This is like saying "all drivers need to be able to drive well under stress, so let's test them while blaring a foghorn in their ear". Context is important. I don't want to hire someone who is good at interviewing, I want to hire someone who is good at what I need them to do. While it may behoove the individual to train themselve…

"so let's test them while blaring a foghorn in their ear"

I hope I don't get yelled at, but damn that was funny. That stated it so perfectly.

The only "stress" in software development that I see on the job is trying to meet deadlines that either aren't realistic, or now moot due to (substantial) changes in requirements.

Bugs are normal. Prod issues are normal. Code that won't work as you envisioned or intended is normal. Problems that are hard to solve are normal. Any or all of the above sometimes require extra hours to resolve but that's not even in the same ballpark as "will I be homeless soon".

Phrased another way: being without money is not that stressful. Being without a way to make money is extremely stressful.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#474

Post by lsc » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:21 AM UTC

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #461

lsc wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Really? I disagree. There even exist situations (in the case of some positions) where you will be talking to a client of the company you're working for, effectively interviewing with the client, representing the company. And interviewing is a subset of "sales", which is important for working on many teams -- including selling management on changes that would improve the user experience, for example. If you are using…

I meant "sales" in the sense that "all jobs are sales jobs." Selling your team on a particular technical approach. Selling your boss on a raise. Heck, even selling a member of the appropriate gender on hooking up is "sales"; you're just the product you're selling in that case.

>"all jobs are sales jobs."

some jobs... more than others. If an employer can find a programmer or sysadmin who can't get a job elsewhere because of poor sales skills, well, it sounds like they could either pay less or get someone with better technical skills than they could otherwise.

(That and my personal feeling? the guys who are 'always selling' are hard to deal with. I can handle maybe one day a week, if that, dealing with those folks.)

Seriously. Not everyone needs to be the team lead. The kid in the corner who is really good technically, who solves technical problems has a lot of value even if his or her social skills are poor.

I mean, sure, they'd be /more/ valuable with social skills, too... My whole point is that you can't get the perfect candidate. Quite often it makes sense to take a hit on social skills if it gets you someone who is better technically. (and sometimes the converse makes sense, too.)

I'm just saying, there is a place in the workplace for the introverts who don't interview or argue well. As an employer, if you only hire technical people who can get dates, well, you are limiting yourself.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#475

Post by reeses » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:30 AM UTC

jimbobimbo wrote: post #311

untog wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe somebody can explain this better to me -- but if you freeze up in interviews, are you also going to freeze up in developer meetings? During code reviews? When you're in the room with clients? Of course not. Interview situations are very, very different than the others. Meetings and code reviews are with co-workers, whom you know and trust. Meetings with clients could be nerve-wracking for other reasons, but the…

I can't speak for the particular interviewer at hand, but when I was interviewing people with whiteboard questions, I was interested not in the result, but in the way they think and approach the solution. So, if I were you in that particular situation, I'd start with simply laying out how do I think CSS rules will work out for the problem at hand, maybe used a marker to draw a simple style inheritance diagram for the…

Thisity this.

You're not going to find out in six hours if you're willing to marry someone, but you may find out that they leave their dirty underwear on the floor, never wash dishes, have sex with goats, and don't think fart jokes are funny.

When they're standing there apparently thinking, I want them talking.

"What's going on?"

"Well, I can't remember the exact method name for this..."

"Eh, make one up that sounds close enough."

Then, if we have time, we talk about implementing MagicBeanFactory#dwim, but that's usually after my anti-pep speech of,"These are the things that may or may not piss you off about working here..."

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#476

Post by desireco42 » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:41 AM UTC

mkramlich wrote: post #170

The traditional recruiting/hiring pipeline in the software industry is clearly non-ideal. The current tradition favors superstitious meta indicators & ritual over realism, it often features under-qualified or too-young interviewers asking/doing stupid/irrelevant things, it favors unpaid unilaterally-imposed work and bureaucratic hoop-jumping (and mindless paperwork and not-work-related personal snooping), over profes…

What you wrote above, I am signing it. I couldn't said it better.

On one hand, you are valuable developer, they went through a lot of trouble to find you. What you are faced in the interview is often far from ideal. I did ran into exceptions, but it is still more a standard then exception to encounter what you eloquently described.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#477

Post by phamilton » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:42 AM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #417

untog wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an interview is a negotiation, then why interview somewhere that I'm going to have to start off at a weak negotiating standpoint? Obviously this is predicated on the dev job market being as good as it is, but still. I can just go elsewhere.

If your desirability as an employee is roughly constant, then if you start at a weak negotiating standpoint it's usually because the company's desirability as an employer is high. Now, it could be that the employer is desirable because they provide a lot of perks that you don't really care about, in which case it's perfectly legit to eschew those perks and interview elsewhere. But oftentimes it's because they provide…

I recently went through that process.

Given two options, one out of my comfort zone and one in my comfort zone, I chose to be comfortable.

I realized that the value I add is not being able to complete tasks. The true value I add comes in looking beyond the task and figuring out how to address larger problems.

I've noticed in the past that when I continually don't know what I'm doing, I miss out on opportunities to really add value. While I'm able to figure stuff out and get the assigned task done, at best I come across as competent.

It was a great choice. There are still ample opportunities to learn. At the same time, I feel like I have time and mental capacity (freed up by not continually playing catch up with the team) to find and explore new ideas and improvement.

So when people say "Don't be the smartest person in the room" I would say it is also important to not put yourself in a situation you can barely handle. Having some breathing room will make you better at your job and make you far less stressed out.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#478

Post by dangero » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:46 AM UTC

300bps wrote: post #27

misiti3780 wrote: post #16

I have passed a bunch of job interviews in the past - but I feel the exact same away and hire this way these days. I really do not see the point of brainteasers or white board coding questions if you have a budget where you can just pay out a contract like this. Also, I believe there was an article posted here a few weeks back that indicated Google's brainteasers did not lead to quality candidates - I know I am cherr…

I guess I do not see how you can lose if you take the contract-to-hire approach I agree with most of what you said, but one way you can lose if you insist on contract-to-hire is that you are filtering out a portion of the highest quality candidates who are only interested in immediate full time hiring.

Good point. Maybe the best approach would be to let the interviewer choose the approach that works best for them. It would be sooo refreshing for a company to present me with interview options that will showcase my skills the best.

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#479

Post by mbrock » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:50 AM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #403

crazygringo wrote: post #62

Granted, there are a lot of bad tech interviews out there (asking about algorithms that nobody ever uses) ... but I do not understand this. Imagine someone's being hired for a front-end position, and we don't have months to get them up to speed. I'm going to ask them to explain how a closure works. How they deal with AJAX. What they think about "!important". Things to be careful about with floats. How CSS precedence/…

If you freeze up in interviews, then it doesn't seem like the problem is with interviews -- the problem is with you freezing up If a person is interviewing for an air traffic controller position or any position with continuous stress and confrontation, well yes. But if the job isn't a constant stress, constant demand affair but rather an affair of creative, constructive activity, then no. Now, I suspect one problem m…

This is also an example of the "extraversion bias" in company culture. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/01/susan-cain...

Re: I will not do a tech interview

#480

Post by semiel » Thu, Aug 22, 2013, 4:59 AM UTC

alttag wrote: post #419

bad_user wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It may be a negotiation but it is a very asymmetrical one Not really - some interviewers may not get that an interview goes both ways, but it really is very much symmetrical. For me at least an interview is the perfect chance to evaluate a company and until now I've declined about 3 job offers simply because I didn't like the conversations I've had with the people doing the interviewing.

The view of (a)symmetry in an interview is very generational. Those who turned 20 in the 90s or earlier are more likely to feel the bottom side of asymmetry, while "Gen Y" or "Millennials" (for lack of better terms) are more likely to simultaneously be interviewing the company for fit with their ideals. New (inexperienced) hires are also more likely to feel the bottom side of asymmetry, which can counteract the effec…

And the field. My programming interviews felt surprisingly symmetrical. Every one of my friends who is in another field has far more asymmetry, just due to supply and demand.