Interview Nightmares

> I think simply asking "what was a recent new thing you had to learn" opens up a good conversation.

Really appreciate the reply, that's a great question.

> the gold standard has to be facilitating some way where they can do some actual work with you.

We've actually done this, recently. It worked okay. We identified a few problems with that iteration for us though:

1. We chose real projects, but we felt limited by finding a project where the scope could be small enough for the developer to create it to a meaningful extent and not be bogged down in planning. Projects without meaningful planning however felt so simple that i didn't feel it would challenge anyone. 2. I really hated giving interviews "real" work. Which is to say, it was work we as a company needed - but that felt too easy to be seen as exploiting the applicant - for good reason. 3. I felt disconnected from the applicants mindset. I want to understand how they think on a problem - what things they're skipping for time, what pain points in the application need testing, what things they think need to be abstracted, etc.

I did like how it gave them time to solve the problem themselves. As someone who struggles with.. stage fright (for lack of a better term), interviews are hell for me. I want to hire people even if they're terrified and draw a blank.

My next set of interviews coming up i'm thinking i'll try a combination of a take-home project, but also something pair programmed. Perhaps a take-home, and then we review in a pair program after? I want them to be able to not be under pressure, but i also need some insight on their mind.

Unfortunately i have no idea offhand how to design a take-home that is both simple but not brain dead. I don't want it to take long, i don't want to riddle it with complex algorithm based requirements either. My initial gut is to mock up some requirements - after implementing them myself - that have real world value. How do they choose to abstract database access for unit testing? What do they choose to cache with? Did they consider cache invalidation? Something like this.. i guess.

My final concern is that we'll be hiring for specific languages, but i'd like to be able to hire someone wanting to learn and use those languages. Partially because it promotes growth, but also because it opens the job market. Namely, we're a Rust shop and i don't want to hire only people who know Rust - but i also don't want to hire evaluate someone based on a take-home in another language.

I'm debating offering a pair programming option for the take-home if they're not comfortable with Rust. I would expect their take-home to be far worse, as so many concepts would be new.. so i'm unsure if this would be valuable.

Thanks for the reply, and if you have any more thoughts i'd love to hear them :)

Best of luck on the market!

Don't worry. Even if you're a shitty developer (which I doubt), I'll always be shittier.

I once had an interview that was so bad that I asked the manager at the end why he even gave me an interview. He wanted a UI expert. His posting didn't mention that requirement and my resume didn't list that type of experience. It was a huge waste of our time.

I don't think so. Pretty sure it's only a matter of time before I get fired. I'm very demoralized by the past treatment the company has given me. I moved to a new team but they just bounce me from technology to technology with no training (Splunk, Tableau, Python, AWS). This will not allow me to become an expert in anything. They aren't happy with my output. Because my prior experience was FileNet and Neoxam, I don't have any career options.

Will it really be better at other places? The company I work for consistently makes the top 10 in ComputerWorld's best places to work in IT list.

I did some very basic Android apps before. If I stick with the current job long enough then I should get better at Python and AWS.

I recently had an interview where I was supposed to record the screen while I am solving the problem and share it with the interviewer. I couldn't do it. I am one of those people who's mind goes blank when someone is standing behind me and watching over the shoulders. The thought of recording my screen induced the same feelings.