Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days • Hacker News Board

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#111

Post by ammon » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 8:57 PM UTC

techiferous wrote: post #76

ammon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you don't actually have a clear measure of who you're rejecting. Every company uses a similar argument to support their (very different in every case) interview process. The fact that it allowed you to build a great team does not mean that you could not have built a better team by giving other options as well.

True, I see your point, but you also can't just hand-wave away our results. I've been on many development teams that did not have a strong technical screen like this, and those teams suffered from having some technically weak members (people would would always be breaking the build, would write unmaintainable code, or would just plod along and always need help). Our team of six has none of those problems: every one o…

Yeah, I can see that. I did not mean to be disrespectful. I actually generally like take-home coding exercises (and used them at my previous company). I'm just arguing testing a bunch of approaches.

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#112

Post by ammon » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 8:59 PM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #69

ammon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's hard. Standardizing evaluation (critical to reducing bias) requires that everyone (or a lot of people) see a similar problem. And when someone is working on their own time, I think it's important that there's not working code easily accessible online. Perhaps this can be overcome by asking candidates to talk through their code after they are done

if you change the assessment every so often, you could permit people to release their work eventually.

I like that idea!

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#113

Post by mirkules » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:00 PM UTC

vonmoltke wrote: post #82

overgryphon wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interview environments are always stressful, but so are other common workplace situations. Being unable to manage stress effectively might contribute to poor on-the-job performance, even for people with great pure coding ability. The process right now seems focused on finding people who are the best at only coding. In the future, do you intend to also consider communication skills? Senior developers act as mentors fo…

"Stress" is not some monolithic, universal feeling. This line gets trotted out frequently in these discussions, but no one has shown a correlation between the types of stress induced in interview situations and the types of stress induced in whatever situations are typical for your company. I would hesitate to even equate the stress of high-pressure situations in different companies.

Indeed. I am one of the people that freezes up in interviews. Yet I thrive in stressful work situations, such as customer emergencies (system is down), critical bugs, etc and I resolve the issues quickly precisely because of the right amount of stress.

The best way I can describe the difference in stress is with an analogy. When I visited the Grand Canyon and hiked around the mountain, my body literally froze. I couldn't move a muscle even though my mind knew I could do this and hike around. I knew it was irrational, but I was powerless. This is what interviewing feels like - a fear of heights. And with every rejection letter, the fear is reinforced.

Stress in the office is like playing competitive sports - it's a challenge rather than percieved harm to oneself.

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#114

Post by ruswick » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:01 PM UTC

leeoniya wrote: post #106

geebee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this once. After a take home quiz that took about an hour, I had a 6-7 hour "homework" problem. I did it, and sent it in. It took the company a month to get back to me, though I did stay in contact with the recruiter. The final answer, delivered by the recruiter, was "we've decided not to more forward at this time." No other feedback. I have no idea if anyone even looked at it - I never did speak to a dev at th…

had same experience, no useful feedback after 6 hrs of work. it had to meet the provided written spec (js/logic) and visual (css/html) requirements and had to pass an internal test suite which i was not given access to. the response from the recruiter was just "thanks, but the dev team said 'no', that's all the info i have for you"

Oh God.

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#115

Post by solve » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

jackieDQ wrote: post #87

geebee wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did this once. After a take home quiz that took about an hour, I had a 6-7 hour "homework" problem. I did it, and sent it in. It took the company a month to get back to me, though I did stay in contact with the recruiter. The final answer, delivered by the recruiter, was "we've decided not to more forward at this time." No other feedback. I have no idea if anyone even looked at it - I never did speak to a dev at th…

Yep I've been burned a couple times by this and only under certain circumstances will I do a take home project. Even worse is when they also ask before hand not to post it to your github account. If they aren't going to give me feedback, then I'm going to host it and seek it out elsewhere.

Love that. If they burn too many people, they have to create new questions.

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#116

Post by rqebmm » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

ruswick wrote: post #110

s0uthPaw88 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that if you are asking a company to invest $100k/yr on you, it is not unreasonable for them to ask for a few hours of your time.

The point is that they pay you the $100k for the time you give them as an employee. They don't pay you a cent for the interview project, so you shouldn't give them a single second in return.

They don't pay you for the interview, but that usually costs the company several man-hours worth of work just for the time an applicant is on-site. Should applicants be reimbursing companies for failed interviews?

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#117

Post by imh » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:02 PM UTC

s0uthPaw88 wrote: post #73

protonfish wrote: post #6

It's great to see some objective research being done on this, and I am very interested in following the results. They mention evaluating the effectiveness of giving a candidate a project to do "in their own time." I recently had a interview that included this and I can share the result: I accepted an offer from a different company that didn't require it. I doubt my life is that different than anyone else's, with a fu…

I feel that if you are asking a company to invest $100k/yr on you, it is not unreasonable for them to ask for a few hours of your time.

You aren't asking them to invest $100k/yr. You're asking them to bring you in to an on-site interview. A few hours of their time for a few hours of your own is much more equitable.

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#118

Post by Silhouette » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #69

ammon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's hard. Standardizing evaluation (critical to reducing bias) requires that everyone (or a lot of people) see a similar problem. And when someone is working on their own time, I think it's important that there's not working code easily accessible online. Perhaps this can be overcome by asking candidates to talk through their code after they are done

if you change the assessment every so often, you could permit people to release their work eventually.

If someone solved a significant problem at your request, but despite this you did not hire them or otherwise compensate them for that work, I don't see how you have any right either legally or ethically to expect them not to then use the work to advertise what they can do to anyone else. The premise is one-sided enough already (though the argument elsewhere in this HN discussion that it might be preferred by nervous interviewees is an interesting one I haven't noticed before) and I think expecting any sort of loyalty or confidentiality after the process has ended is rather optimistic.

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#119

Post by mseebach » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:06 PM UTC

protonfish wrote: post #6

It's great to see some objective research being done on this, and I am very interested in following the results. They mention evaluating the effectiveness of giving a candidate a project to do "in their own time." I recently had a interview that included this and I can share the result: I accepted an offer from a different company that didn't require it. I doubt my life is that different than anyone else's, with a fu…

I'm sure it's true that a non-trivial number of good candidates will reject a job opportunity when asked to do a work sample. These, however, will generally be those with plenty of attractive alternative offers - the ones well known in the community, with a good network etc.

At the other end of the stick, there are those still trying to break in to the field. They may have moved to a new city, they may have worked in a totally unknown firm, they may have taken an "alternative" path through the educational system (and just to be blatantly obvious, the above describes me, circa 5 years ago) - their CVs don't jump out at employers, and as even phone screens are fairly expensive in engineer time, they are not very likely to be given a chance.

Online coding challenges and take-home tests etc are a quick and cheap way to extend an opportunity to more "risky" candidates. I think that's an important element.

(FTR, the company I ended up with, I got through to primarily via a "Who's hiring" thread on HN, however they did operate a "take home" test that took one hour).

Re: Three hundred programming interviews in thirty days

#120

Post by tomtang0514 » Tue, Jun 23, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

geebee wrote: post #39

protonfish wrote: post #6

It's great to see some objective research being done on this, and I am very interested in following the results. They mention evaluating the effectiveness of giving a candidate a project to do "in their own time." I recently had a interview that included this and I can share the result: I accepted an offer from a different company that didn't require it. I doubt my life is that different than anyone else's, with a fu…

I did this once. After a take home quiz that took about an hour, I had a 6-7 hour "homework" problem. I did it, and sent it in. It took the company a month to get back to me, though I did stay in contact with the recruiter. The final answer, delivered by the recruiter, was "we've decided not to more forward at this time." No other feedback. I have no idea if anyone even looked at it - I never did speak to a dev at th…

I've seen several companies giving out such homework to me or my friends back in college. And to be honest, none of the are among the "great culture company list" people are talking about. Beside all the issues you mentioned above, those tests don't have a clear PASS line. You spent hours on that and can be rejected for no reason. Back in college I've done a code challenge from Box and my solution ranked No.1 in their leaderboard (although nearly 100 people are No.1 with the same highest score) and I was rejected without an interview. Another company I don't remember rejected me because I used (x * 8) not (x << 3). (But I'm interviewing a web company and I was writing python, not C in some embedded system) Most of the time I just don't know what the hell they're looking for. So now I reject all those HW or code challenge unless they agree to pay me for the time I spend. (Obviously no one has ever agreed my term so far.)