So what's considered to be "Pair programming", compared to whiteboard?
Hiring without whiteboards
11–20 of 372 posts
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#12I would like to see a compilation of companies that aren't requiring a "coding project" as part of their interview process. I much prefer to write on a whiteboard as part of an onsite interview than to do a "coding project" for every single company that "might" be interested in me.
My experience lately has been an immediate request to complete a coding project right after speaking to a recruiter but before speaking to anyone technical. And perhaps the height of absurdity I have even had automated emails saying "thank you for you interest we invite you to complete this coding challenge/project."
Are you really expected to do one of these now for every single company you send your CV?
The whiteboards seems far more respectful of people's time at least.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#13Am I the only one who thinks the pressure a whiteboard adds is actually something valuable? In my last job there were a lot of situations where you had to solve a real problem under extreme pressure. People who couldn't handle it simply weren't cut for the job.
I don't think all interviews should use it but for us it was good for filtering out candidates who would not perform in those situations.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#14I would like to see a compilation of companies that aren't requiring a "coding project" as part of their interview process. I much prefer to write on a whiteboard as part of an onsite interview than to do a "coding project" for every single company that "might" be interested in me. My experience lately has been an immediate request to complete a coding project right after speaking to a recruiter but before speaking t…
Presumably a lot fewer people send in completed coding projects, so you are competing against fewer other candidates.
If you are good at selling yourself, whiteboard interviews are awesome.
If you are nervous in interview situations, starting with a project could be an advantage.
Edited to add: coming in for a whiteboard interview will also take few hours of your time (or longer if you need to travel). A sample project can be done whenever you want.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#15Is pair programming really that different from whiteboarding?
More specifically, I would say "interview pair programming" isn't really "pair programming." When pair programming, it's not one person evaluating the other, under an artificial time constraint.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#16There's nothing wrong with white-boards, it's how they are used that matters.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#17I would like to see a compilation of companies that aren't requiring a "coding project" as part of their interview process. I much prefer to write on a whiteboard as part of an onsite interview than to do a "coding project" for every single company that "might" be interested in me. My experience lately has been an immediate request to complete a coding project right after speaking to a recruiter but before speaking t…
Presumably a lot fewer people send in completed coding projects, so you are competing against fewer other candidates. If you are good at selling yourself, whiteboard interviews are awesome. If you are nervous in interview situations, starting with a project could be an advantage. Edited to add: coming in for a whiteboard interview will also take few hours of your time (or longer if you need to travel). A sample proje…
I don't think that this is a proper justification for sending coding projects to everyone who submitted a CV. This is a big imbalance in time investment from both sides and quite disrespectful from the applications point of view.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#18As a follow up to the first interview, we give promising candidates a quite simple task to solve at home and then send back via email the next day. This is used both for some basic evaluation of developers skills (whether they actually solved the problem, did they catch the small oddities hidden in the data set, did they document and write tests, etc.) and as something to discuss during the second interview, in which the candidate talks to one or two developers.
I also did a second code test, which I got to do alone on an offline laptop. The test had a time limit and it was designed in a way that you should NOT be able to finish it on time. This was communicated to me several times before I actually sat down in front of the laptop. The goal with this test is to see if a person can solve problems under stress, and if the person writes decent code that works, or just hacks something together and moves on to the next step - leaving a trail of bugs.
Overall, I think this has worked out great for us, but it might not be a good process for everyone.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#19Am I the only one who thinks the pressure a whiteboard adds is actually something valuable? In my last job there were a lot of situations where you had to solve a real problem under extreme pressure. People who couldn't handle it simply weren't cut for the job. I don't think all interviews should use it but for us it was good for filtering out candidates who would not perform in those situations.
In my experience, if you're regularly coding under extreme pressure, something is wrong.
Whiteboard coding is also a different kind of pressure. I can't imagine a situation where someone who already knows the answer is watching over your shoulder critiquing you while you work on a problem.
Re: Hiring without whiteboards
#20I think coderpad.io is the modern day equivalent of a whiteboard. It's nice that you get REPL and a keyboard, but the unnecessary pressure of being watched, critiqued, and timed are all there. My mind just goes completely blank whenever I am put in this scenario. Are we programming or defusing a bomb?
And don't forget interviewer's breathing over skype while you coding online, just to add more drama