Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but... • Hacker News Board

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#681

Post by austinjp » Thu, Jun 18, 2015, 7:36 AM UTC

mdpopescu wrote: post #675

austinjp wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? In the UK companies are legally obliged to reveal why a candidate did not get a job, if asked... in my understanding.

Huh? I've been rejected by an UK company with just "you're obviously a very experienced programmer, but "we are not able to take your application any further at this time". I did get a code review out of it though, and it did point out a few real issues, so I'm ok with it.

Maybe I don't understand the legals fully. My experience comes from being on the hiring side. Our HR department were very keen that we kept detailed notes so that the decision not to hire could be justified in the case of a tribunal or suing situation. For what it's worth, it did make me question my motives and felt that it ensured I gave every candidate a fair shot.

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#682

Post by coldtea » Fri, Jun 19, 2015, 10:21 AM UTC

bskinny129 wrote: post #355

fsk wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has got to be the biggest hiring fallacy I've ever heard. "It's better to reject a good candidate than hire a bad candidate." That's completely false, and anyone who says that is completely ignorant of Bayesian logic. Here are some simple numbers. Suppose that a "good" candidate is a 1-in-100 find. Suppose that a "bad" candidate has a 1% chance of tricking you into hiring them anyway. Every time you pass on a "g…

Those are simple numbers, but they don't get at the real issue. People say that because 1 bad hire can have negative effects on the whole team, causing others to get less done and leave. Missing a good hire doesn't poison your team.

>People say that because 1 bad hire can have negative effects on the whole team, causing others to get less done and leave. Missing a good hire doesn't poison your team.

That doesn't disprove what he said. In fact it strengthens it and makes missing a good hire even worse, because, as he said missing good hires -> MORE change of bad hires (that can "poison your team").

In other words, it's not a choice: "I'm better of rejecting a good hire than getting a bad one, because a bad one could poison the team".

By rejecting good ones, who're actually getting MORE bad ones. So it should be corrected to:

"I'm better of NOT rejecting good hires, or else I'll get more bad hires and poison my team".

Re: Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but...

#683

Post by natmaster » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 1:20 AM UTC

natmaster wrote: post #548

kenrikm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These types of interviews work really well for the "I got 1600 on my SATs and went to {insert high profile school here} crowd" There are books out there just to prep you for Google interviews I see these as very similar to SAT test prep books. I'm not so sure Google is really interested in hiring the best engineers but rather a specific type of engineer.

Really? Being able to solve basic CS101 problems requires some sort of privileged upbringing? I grew up poor - my family lived off food stamps for a while. This stuff is easy. I find it disgusting the level of entitlement swept throughout this thread. Oh Google HAD to give you that job, it was yours and they stole it by testing basic skills. You know, there is something to be said for someone who has a good product s…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr638pCfPxs