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Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

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Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#251

Post by jsun »

I think a lot of companies use brain teasers or math problems to test general mental aptitude, whether it works or not is under serious debate, but in my opinion that's the right thing to test for (if it's even possible).

The reason is smart people can figure out git, or databases, or objective-c, or whatever, in a fairly short amount of time.

For example, my co-founder learned objective C off free online video tutorials and built an iOS app (talking an app with serious firepower and back-end transaction logic) from start to end by himself in less than 3 weeks.

That's why we're not as concerned about what you know right now as what it's possible for you to learn in 3 more week.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#252

Post by lmkg »

pjungwir wrote: post #213
tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

After reading the OP I immediately thought of your standard hiring advice and wondered if the folks asking math questions aren't on the right track after all. (Thank you for your persistence posting it, btw.) At least half of my daily work requires learning new things on-the-fly, and I bet in 5 years most of my technical knowledge is turned over anyway--except the math and CS fundamentals. In programming aptitude mat…

Math questions are probably an okay substitute for "general IQ" testing for the majority of population, moreso than most other question categories (math is literally just logical reasoning). But, it's not a truly general skill, it's a specialized discipline--and that means the practice of using it as a screen is going to fail hard when you try to apply it to someone with specialized training. Which is what happened in the article.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#253

Post by swelly127 »

I have the exact same problem as OP. Getting tons of job offers because I've been doing competitive math and algorithms since grade school but really have hard time understand technology. I'm pretty ambitious and I want to join a small, high growth startup and have the excitement of being part of a founding team but I'm afraid of letting people down.

I could learn heroku/RoR/whatever other technology but news things are always coming out and some people keep up with it so easily. I'm not sure being a dev is right for me if I take so long to understand such basic stuff. But I love coding and algos! I write python scripts to do all my homework... and then run them in codecademy labs because doing it in unix makes me so confused.

If anyone has had the same problem please let me know how you got over this hurdle. Thanks.

background; sophomore, cs major, cornell

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#254

Post by NAFV_P »

mattjaynes wrote: post #202
tokenadult wrote: post #150

There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. Company hiring procedures and their effectiveness is a heavily researched topic, but most hiring managers and most job applicants haven't looked up much of the research. After reading the blog post kindly submitted here and some of its comments, and then reading most of the comments here on HN that came in while I was asleep in my time zone, it lo…

I can confirm this works in my own experience of trial-and-error interviewing over 2000 applicants and hiring over 200 for my clients and myself (since ~2006). Nearly 100% of the applicants were remote, so I think that helped me from falling into traps of poor "traditional" hiring practices. The point of hiring these remote folks was to help accelerate whatever team I was on. It can be a great way to scale your exist…

"filter out (gently fire) the ones that aren't as good." If the employee finds out you "hire more than you need of the top performers", you end up with a potential court case. If I found this out about a former employer, I would have pursued them to the end of hell.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#255

Post by infinite8s »

cromulent wrote: post #67
morgante wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of IQ tests? Math thinking? Language? Other? Both. They're not perfect, but I'm going to be picky and look for people who can generally reason well (both mathematically and verbally). > but that doesn't mean they can code. That's why you pair it with work samples. The ideal hire would be an impressive GitHub + evidence of intellect. The GitHub shows they have coding chops, while an IQ test usually means t…

Smart & Gets Things Done, as Joel Spolsky would say. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing... http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/15...

Or as Steve Yegge likes to say, "Done and Gets Thinks Smart"

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things...

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#256

Post by gridspy »

tokenadult wrote: post #237
bradleyjg wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems awfully rude to cut and paste this gigantic comment, which is now virtually pinned to the top of a discussion thread of a blog post to which it barely responds. There's nothing in this that indicates it is at all customized for the article it is attached to. Especially given that you and the author seem to have some things in common (connection to small-town Minnesota & love of mathematics) it seems like you…

The currency of upvotes suggests that many readers have appreciated my comment, perhaps because it provided them new information about an important set of issues. That set of issues has been discussed in many of the comments here, and was discussed in the original article. The currency of actual cash money, which is not provided in our information-sharing environment here on Hacker News, would free up time for me to…

A appreciate your comments tokenadult. Thanks for taking the time to compile and summarize this research.

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#257

Post by infinite8s »

cromulent wrote: post #67
morgante wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What kind of IQ tests? Math thinking? Language? Other? Both. They're not perfect, but I'm going to be picky and look for people who can generally reason well (both mathematically and verbally). > but that doesn't mean they can code. That's why you pair it with work samples. The ideal hire would be an impressive GitHub + evidence of intellect. The GitHub shows they have coding chops, while an IQ test usually means t…

Smart & Gets Things Done, as Joel Spolsky would say. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing... http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/15...

Or as Steve Yegge likes to say, "Done and Gets Things Smart"

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-things...

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#258

Post by jacalata »

NAFV_P wrote: post #254
mattjaynes wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm this works in my own experience of trial-and-error interviewing over 2000 applicants and hiring over 200 for my clients and myself (since ~2006). Nearly 100% of the applicants were remote, so I think that helped me from falling into traps of poor "traditional" hiring practices. The point of hiring these remote folks was to help accelerate whatever team I was on. It can be a great way to scale your exist…

"filter out (gently fire) the ones that aren't as good." If the employee finds out you "hire more than you need of the top performers", you end up with a potential court case. If I found this out about a former employer, I would have pursued them to the end of hell.

how is that breaking any law?

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#259

Post by gyom »

NAFV_P wrote: post #254
mattjaynes wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can confirm this works in my own experience of trial-and-error interviewing over 2000 applicants and hiring over 200 for my clients and myself (since ~2006). Nearly 100% of the applicants were remote, so I think that helped me from falling into traps of poor "traditional" hiring practices. The point of hiring these remote folks was to help accelerate whatever team I was on. It can be a great way to scale your exist…

"filter out (gently fire) the ones that aren't as good." If the employee finds out you "hire more than you need of the top performers", you end up with a potential court case. If I found this out about a former employer, I would have pursued them to the end of hell.

I didn't expect this to be illegal, but now that I think about it, it should be illegal-ish.

Do you know what's the general principle called, or have a reference ? Something like "hiring without intention of providing work". Wrongful hiring ?

Re: Dear Startups: stop asking me math puzzles to figure out if I can code

#260

Post by woah »

evacuationdrill wrote: post #250
sdoowpilihp wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You used the term "gently fire". I was wondering if you could elaborate on how you "gently fire".

Stop sending paychecks, they figure it out eventually.

Yea... We're gonna go ahead and ask you to move your desk...
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