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Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

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Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#101

Post by oreally »

iateanapple wrote: post #100
oreally wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In practice the Google/Facebook interview has nothing to do with knowing the CS basics either. What the heck is this statement? You do realize many algorithms that they test for are taught in an algorithms class for a Computer Science course? I doubt you took an IQ test before or even properly accessed what it is. there are IQ tests composed of entirely of pattern matching shapes and they do not have any knowledge/…

> What the heck is this statement? If you think knowledge of CS fundamentals is what is separating the hired from the rejected... My experience from interviewing hundreds of candidates over the years at a top tech company is that the majority of candidates we reject have strong CS fundamentals. > there are IQ tests composed of entirely of pattern matching shapes And there are IQ tests/proxies that are entirely “verba…

> If you think knowledge of CS fundamentals is what is separating the hired from the rejected...

I've never stated that. I am aware of the other behavioral tests if that's what you're referring to. But the fact remains that they give you algorithms questions that we dont use in most of our daily work and if you can't meet the rather high basics you are rejected.

> And there are IQ tests/proxies that are entirely “verbal” like the GSS Wordsum - what is your point?

That you can have IQ tests without knowledge prerequisites unlike what you stated before the edit?

> I’m certified in my state to administer IQ tests....

Well either you're BS-ing or you've been confined to some kind of corporate environment where they've somehow convinced management people (who dont code) to adopt a test so detached from reality.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#102

Post by dominotw »

xenihn wrote: post #86
dominotw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can pass every facebook iterview by practicing facebook tagged questions on leetcode. People do that every single day, here is an example from today https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question/551434/faceb... Its NOT related to IQ. You can search leetcode forum for tons of examples of actual FB questions, all of them are tagged on leetcode.

You can get better at IQ tests by practicing them.

so any test in the world is a disguised IQ test? lol

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#103

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

geoffroberts wrote: post #70
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #45

2 comments on this: 1. The authors of this paper are selling something. This is an advertisement. Not saying it's wrong or untruthful because of that, but it is an advertisement. 2. As another commenter said, the cited data is from a paper that doesn't look at software engineers specifically. Given that software engineering has one of the highest amounts of variability in productivity of any profession, that should b…

The purpose of this paper is to present research that's completely independent of any product, and show how the concepts apply to software engineering specifically. What's your source in saying "software engineering has one of the highest amounts of variability in productivity of any profession?" That seems hugely unfounded.

> The purpose of this paper is to present research that's completely independent of any product, and show how the concepts apply to software engineering specifically.

Lol, the article actually ends with a link to the product you're selling:

> Ready to build a more predictive hiring process for software engineers? Schedule a 1-on-1 review of your hiring process or request a free trial of Qualified here.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#104

Post by xenihn »

oreally wrote: post #98
xenihn wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get better at IQ tests by practicing them.

What a loaded statement. 1) You're already assuming these FAANG tests are an IQ test when people are discussing whether they are. 2) You're taking an assumed characteristic that tests that can be practiced and that makes them IQ tests. Practicing for these tests makes you a rote learner and and rote learners by definition have too much crystallized knowledge, and they fail when met with new situations, which is not w…

Your post makes absolutely no sense given that you can practice for IQ tests and improve your score on them. This isn't up for debate. You can improve things measured by IQ tests (i.e. spatial reasoning and pattern recognition) without rote. You can also improve them with rote. You can improve them with or without another person helping you as a mentor/tutor. It doesn't matter which one you do, the end result is the same if you invest enough time.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#105

Post by ProZsolt »

geoffroberts wrote: post #63
Havoc wrote: post #39

I don't think you can. Job performance is something that gets figured out on the fly. Unless you're working in a crazy standardized operation thats a moving target. e.g. We've got a ton of manager & they all sorta do their own thing...they gravitate towards their strong suit essentially. You can't really test for that in advance. Some people excel at leading 30 man teams on stable jobs. Others excel at being parachut…

So you need to design you assessment process to reflect the real world scenarios the hire will encounter. It's surprising to me to hear so many developers push back on this notion that you can't design a predictive hiring process. If you were hiring a dentist, wouldn't a great way to assess them be having them fill a cavity? Or asking a chef to make you your restaurant's signature recipe? It seems very logical and th…

The problem with the examples you mentioned that their skills are fully transferable. 30-50% of my knowledge is non-transferable because of a)Company domain knowledge b)In a technology the next company won't use.

It would be a better comparison to a bridge engineer to build a bridge in a different country. The laws of physics are the same but regulations are not. Building any non-trivial software is more comparable to this.

If you hiring for Wordpress (or any other) sweatshops that's a different thing. But then you hiring factory workers.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#106

Post by jl2718 »

chillacy wrote: post #2

The cited data is from a paper The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232564809_The_Valid... in 1998 as a meta-analysis of other findings, but they are not specific to software development (one account is sourced from 32000 employees in 515 diverse civilian jobs in the 1980s). Maybe software is like any other job (sales, clerical, accounting) but…

Oh wow I spent all that time reading with the assumption that this was a novel and relevant investigation over that year of being focused on the specific problem of software inteviews. Interview articles are the hot-button clickbait of Hacker News. Not necessarily the author’s fault, but this topic has a tendency to trend above the contribution of its content.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#107

Post by jl2718 »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #89

Data Science interviews almost always have a take home interview as the technical challenge. The in person interviews tend to be cultural fit interviews. This is because DS work is larger than a bug fix, implementing a new feature, and even larger than writing a program from scratch. Even a small DS problem is a multi day problem. Most interviews allow one to take weeks to do a "quick" 2-3 day problem. This process m…

There are a few ways to do a 2-3 day data science problem: 1. Random plug and chug / datarobot 2. Copy someone else 3. Expert feature engineering 4. Overly-documented EDA

I don’t think any of this is relevant, but maybe it gives some indication that they can do anything at all. However, most good DS will pass because they‘ve been burned too many times by companies just looking for free help on a problem.

If you’re a DS, don’t ever work on a company-relevant problem for free.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#108

Post by chillacy »

geoffroberts wrote: post #71
chillacy wrote: post #2

The cited data is from a paper The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232564809_The_Valid... in 1998 as a meta-analysis of other findings, but they are not specific to software development (one account is sourced from 32000 employees in 515 diverse civilian jobs in the 1980s). Maybe software is like any other job (sales, clerical, accounting) but…

Why would it not be?

I have some guesses, but even if you take that it is, the authors were not very transparent that they made this assumption, in fact they did not point out that the research was done on all jobs while they spoke only of software. That is a bit misleading.

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#109

Post by iateanapple »

oreally wrote: post #101
iateanapple wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What the heck is this statement? If you think knowledge of CS fundamentals is what is separating the hired from the rejected... My experience from interviewing hundreds of candidates over the years at a top tech company is that the majority of candidates we reject have strong CS fundamentals. > there are IQ tests composed of entirely of pattern matching shapes And there are IQ tests/proxies that are entirely “verba…

> If you think knowledge of CS fundamentals is what is separating the hired from the rejected... I've never stated that. I am aware of the other behavioral tests if that's what you're referring to. But the fact remains that they give you algorithms questions that we dont use in most of our daily work and if you can't meet the rather high basics you are rejected. > And there are IQ tests/proxies that are entirely “ver…

> I am aware of the other behavioral tests if that's what you're referring to.

No I’m not. I’m saying FAANG are hiring based on fast pace general problem solving skills that are difficult to game and have very little to do with computer science.

That is why “our” interview processes are being compared to IQ tests.

“We” have rejected people who teach computer science fundamentals at prestigious schools and hired teenagers who only started learning about algorithms a few months before the interview.

> That you can have IQ tests without knowledge prerequisites unlike what you stated before the edit?

How is that relevant at all?

> to adopt a test so detached from reality.

How is it detached from reality?

Re: Making software engineering interviews predictive of job performance

#110

Post by oreally »

xenihn wrote: post #104
oreally wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a loaded statement. 1) You're already assuming these FAANG tests are an IQ test when people are discussing whether they are. 2) You're taking an assumed characteristic that tests that can be practiced and that makes them IQ tests. Practicing for these tests makes you a rote learner and and rote learners by definition have too much crystallized knowledge, and they fail when met with new situations, which is not w…

Your post makes absolutely no sense given that you can practice for IQ tests and improve your score on them. This isn't up for debate. You can improve things measured by IQ tests (i.e. spatial reasoning and pattern recognition) without rote. You can also improve them with rote. You can improve them with or without another person helping you as a mentor/tutor. It doesn't matter which one you do, the end result is the…

And you've lost the point. If these FAANG tests are meant to be IQ tests and you can rote learn them they are NOT a good measure of intelligence unlike some people claim them to be.

Edit: Also, good IQ testing involves a 2-3year break in between IQ tests. The thing is, you can leetcode continuously to game these tests.

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