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Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

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11–20 of 22 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#11

I like to think that I am interviewing the person and not the company. And the person defines the engineer and not the company they work for. I try to treat everyone the same, if nothing else, but to have a baseline. Of course, I'm biased, but more towards referrals. This makes me wonder, do some people treat those coming from a tier-100000000 company differently? Are there companies that someone might work for that…

it certainly does, I worked for the past 2 years for state of California, I needed the low pressure job to work on my startup. now that it is not taking off I started to apply, but I am not getting even a phone interview!!! so negative effect defiantly exist!

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#14

We dont hire engineers from Google/Facebook/Apple, primarily because they are too expensive, but also due to culture fit.

If you think all Google/FB/Apple engineers represent a monoculture, you're leaving a lot of intellectually diverse talent on the table.

Source: former google/fb engineer, can assure you there's no one single "type" or culture.

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#15

We dont hire engineers from Google/Facebook/Apple, primarily because they are too expensive, but also due to culture fit.

I'm guessing it's your culture that's the issue if it is uniformly incompatible with employees from 3 of the most successful tech companies of all time.

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#16

I like to think that I am interviewing the person and not the company. And the person defines the engineer and not the company they work for. I try to treat everyone the same, if nothing else, but to have a baseline. Of course, I'm biased, but more towards referrals. This makes me wonder, do some people treat those coming from a tier-100000000 company differently? Are there companies that someone might work for that…

It's a lot easier to get your foot in the door when you're coming from a Google/FB/etc. In general, there's a presumption that you have been exposed and followed good practices and have a fairly strong technical background, although it's worth double-checking on some of those. More importantly, if you've worked for a company that I know follows bad practices or where other candidates I've interviewed have really flopped, you'll be tested a bit more than normal. There are really very few of the latter thankfully.

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#17
post #9

Phone screen logarithmically. - Ask a level 1 question - Follow with a level 10 question of they get it right - Follow with a level 1000 question you don't know the answer to if they get that right too. If you learn something from them in their level 1000 answer that's a strong hire! Also: there are bad programmers at Google, there probably are at FB too. There are some brilliant ones but don't take it for granted.

Wouldn't that be exponential and not logarithmic?

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#18
post #17
post #9

Phone screen logarithmically. - Ask a level 1 question - Follow with a level 10 question of they get it right - Follow with a level 1000 question you don't know the answer to if they get that right too. If you learn something from them in their level 1000 answer that's a strong hire! Also: there are bad programmers at Google, there probably are at FB too. There are some brilliant ones but don't take it for granted.

Wouldn't that be exponential and not logarithmic?

It would but it's too late for me to delete the comment! #facepalm

Re: Ask HN: Do you skip phone interviews for Google/FB/Tier-1 company engineers?

#20
Nope. I rarely skip phone interviews - I might do it if it's a referral from someone I know really well and the candidate is local or in-town, but over the past 5 years that is the only circumstance that I can remember skipping that step.

While I'm not and haven't worked in a "top tier" tech company, I've spent my entire career in other "top tier" companies in my industry, as well as with a highly regarded consulting firm. Those experiences have taught me that people I don't want to work with can come from or be anywhere. If I don't already know you, or trust someone else that really knows you, we're going to talk on the phone.

I'll do a cursory walk thorough your experience, since we'll focus on that if we move to on-site, but I'll spend 30-60 minutes talking to you. I'm looking for solid communication ability primarily, using stories about motivation, goals, how you work alone and with others, team experiences, etc. This part is always the candidate's to "lose" more than me actively trying to screen out - I'll bring you on site if we have a good conversation and I walk away with an understanding of your story and a mutual agreement that you're in the ballpark for the role.

Plus, as others have pointed out in the thread, it is good to have a consistent process for all candidates. Not just to avoid unconscious bias, but to have the right data points in the decision. I'm not doing you (or me) any favors by skipping the phone screen, if at the end I get down to two very technically strong candidates, but I also know that the one I phone screened has a solid ability to communicate over the phone (which is a good proxy for working across campuses and such). Then I have to decide if I go back and do a phone interview with you, which is awkward after the on-site or just hire the other person.

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