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We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#11

Post by vonmoltke »

Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

My previous company did this. I have seen three variants over my time: explain what this code does; explain why this code is wrong and how to fix it; explain why this code is inefficient and how to optimize it.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#12

Post by lj3 »

Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

Those are my preferred types of interviews when I'm an interviewee and a technique I've used a few times on the other side of the table. It's so effective and efficient. I don't know why it isn't used more. Maybe it finally will be, now that there's some solid data supporting it.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#13

Post by skylark »

Overall, the data lines up with my own intuition, but I thought I might throw my own interpretation into the ring.

One of the biggest keys to doing well on technical interviews is to completely separate the problem solving from the coding. The strongest interviewers will discuss the problem and solve it at an abstract level using diagrams. Once satisfied with the solution, they'll code the entire thing making few mistakes.

I think this is what drives most of those metrics. Strong interviewers submit code later, and have a higher chance of it being correct because they take the time to problem solve upfront. Their thought process seems more clear because there isn't the iteration of "this should work, let me code it, oh no wait, that's wrong, let me erase this now..."

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#14

Post by lettergram »

Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

That's actually how I conduct interviews. It's been immensely successful at weeding out candidates within 5 minutes; although most interviews are 45 - 60 minutes.

Basically, give them less than ten lines of code, ask them what it does, where are a couple bugs, ask what would you name the function, etc. Then we talk about how to improve it. I'd say, less than 20% of people I interview pass. It's actually amazingly low how many people can find a bug and communicate it.

Half the people don't even tell me what they are thinking. And no matter how many times I try to work with them, act like their buddy, or w.e. they just kind of shut down. They think in their head, don't work through the problem at all.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#15

Post by NumberCruncher »

>> An average, successful candidates interviewing in Python define 3.29 functions, whereas unsuccessful candidates define 2.71 functions. This finding is statistically significant.

The "average" is too sensitive to outliers and should not be used for such a comparison...

[Edit] Being bored I calculated the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic based on the chart. It is between 10%-10.5%. The number of defined funtions seems to be a significant but weak indicator.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#18

Post by marcosdumay »

lettergram wrote: post #14
Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

That's actually how I conduct interviews. It's been immensely successful at weeding out candidates within 5 minutes; although most interviews are 45 - 60 minutes. Basically, give them less than ten lines of code, ask them what it does, where are a couple bugs, ask what would you name the function, etc. Then we talk about how to improve it. I'd say, less than 20% of people I interview pass. It's actually amazingly low…

> They think in their head

I'm left wondering why this would be a problem.

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