Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#101

Post by anonzzzies » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:52 PM UTC

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #83

anonzzzies wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to be treated like a scammer; if you assume I am lying then I don’t want to work for you anyway.

It's not personal, it's a natural and inevitable result of the fact that there are a ton of scammers out there. If you maintain that attitude you will be selecting for naive and/or slow-to-adapt companies.

There are, but I (and many seniors) am easy to verify. If you know who I am and talked to previous employers (probably friends or at least people you met at conferences or fairs) or know me already from meet-ups but the rigidity of the hiring process has me do some dance, then please, find some other stooge.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#102

Post by adhesive_wombat » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:53 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #91

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I have never done or assigned a take-home or standardised test and never willingly will. But at the first line, either CVs of unvouched-for engineers are pretty ruthlessly culled by active engineers based on "I don't think these skills are even genuine" or its done by others like HR or management based on some kind of universal system everyone takes. I don't agree with the second method, but I can see why it'…

So you have one job offer, 200 candidates, 170 sucks at coding but you don't know which ones, and you have 15000 euros (including man-hours and marketings) and 3 months to figure out the right one, convince to join, negociate and sign. Oh, and your dev team is on a dead line and can spare very little time validating candidates, one is sick and you just hired an intern that needs baby sitting. What's you magical solut…

Fun hypothetical, but where I work we don't have that many candidates for any position, so it's, so far, never been an issue. I didn't think I'd need to say that "YMMV" but in case it's not obvious, YMMV!

Usually there's about a CV passed by me or others per week, an interview maybe every 8 weeks and a hire every 6-12 months.

Advantages of not being in a country or industry that offers SF FAANG/MAGMA/whatever salaries, perhaps.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#103

Post by nemo » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:54 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #88

francoisdevlin wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A data point - the capital one AWS breach ended up costing $270M[1]. While they weren't destroyed, it wasn't cheap either. 1. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/capital-one-...

That is peanuts for AWS. The OPs point stands: pretty much no engineer or software company suffered serious consequences over their security practices. The worst was some internet drama and slightly lower *profit*.

Ashley Madison tanked from a data break, and there's an ever growing list of cryptocurrency exchanges that were hacked and ended. It may be that for some businesses a data breach is manageable, but that's not always the case, though more importantly that kind of attitude towards the seriousness of data breaches and vulnerabilities is not wise.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#104

Post by oldandtired » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:55 PM UTC

A couple of decades ago, I was being interviewed for a position as the support developer. The interviewer asked me to tell what a piece of code was meant to do. I responded by by telling him that without context, the code was quite unclear. Strangely enough that was what he was looking for - someone who could recognise that the code needed further study before answering.

Subsequently I was offered the job and took it.

In a later interview for another position, during that interview it became very clear that they were wanting someone who would follow IT policy and NOT look after the end-user. I then couched my responses to focus on what the end-user needed.

Subsequently I didn't get offered the job for which I was very happy.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#105

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:56 PM UTC

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #91

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I have never done or assigned a take-home or standardised test and never willingly will. But at the first line, either CVs of unvouched-for engineers are pretty ruthlessly culled by active engineers based on "I don't think these skills are even genuine" or its done by others like HR or management based on some kind of universal system everyone takes. I don't agree with the second method, but I can see why it'…

So you have one job offer, 200 candidates, 170 sucks at coding but you don't know which ones, and you have 15000 euros (including man-hours and marketings) and 3 months to figure out the right one, convince to join, negociate and sign. Oh, and your dev team is on a dead line and can spare very little time validating candidates, one is sick and you just hired an intern that needs baby sitting. What's you magical solut…

[deleted]

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#106

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

eterm wrote: post #48

logicalmonster wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For my current job I got grilled with leetcode style questions. I don't mind being asked a leetcode style question or two in an interview. Even if somebody struggles with solving an unfamiliar problem off the cuff, you can see if they they take some logical problem solving approaches. But it's frustrating that no practical web-development questions are ever asked for those kinds of jobs. For instance, security is r…

> a data leak could literally destroy a company overnight Source? I'm sure we "wish" that were true, but data leaks haven't even destroyed companies whose entire existence is predicated on storing data such as Equifax.

Equifax operates in an industry with a strong network effect and the data they lost belonged to the targets of their data collection, who are neither the people who submit credit reporting information to them nor their paying customers.

Other companies can be much more screwed. Suppose your customer list gets leaked, including their contact info and how much they're paying you for which services. First of all they're pissed at you. The next thing that happens is a competitor downloads the data and sends each of your customers a custom email offering their services for 10% less than they're paying you. While they're pissed at you.

But also, suppose you're Equifax and the people who breach your systems, instead of leaking the data, just delete it. Including the backups. Now you're out of business, because you have nothing to sell.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#107

Post by civilized » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 2:59 PM UTC

civilized wrote: post #15

Leires wrote: post #2

Anand would do well to read the room. This is why soft skills are so valued. If he sees he’s annoying the vp with too many questions, maybe dial it back. Does Anand want the job or want to be right?

The article says that being an effective contributor is more about bringing a fresh perspective to the table, rather than making leadership comfortable. It also says that Anand was ultimately hired and was effective in the role. It's sad when "read the room" and "soft skills" are equated to agreeableness and making management comfortable. A company that thinks this way has only one real brain, the one in the head of…

And actually, there's an even more devastating problem with being a dictator who surrounds themselves with yes-folk. Dictators don't like information that contradicts their perspective, and the yes-folk learn that. So eventually the dictator is only getting information that confirms what they think, and the org becomes incapable of adaptation.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#108

Post by loloquwowndueo » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:04 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #37

CapmCrackaWaka wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed long ago that many people have their own interviewing “secrets”. Remember that story about how Henry Ford would fail applicants if they put salt on their meal without trying it first? A lot of people take stories/ideas like that to heart. The person interviewing you was probably offended you called him by his first name or something. “A good applicant won’t do that”.

It's always some nonsense like: "He used his left foot to enter the room. A good candidate will use his right as they will put their best foot forward."

I’m left handed/footed. :)

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#109

Post by dahart » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

anonzzzies wrote: post #101

ProjectArcturis wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not personal, it's a natural and inevitable result of the fact that there are a ton of scammers out there. If you maintain that attitude you will be selecting for naive and/or slow-to-adapt companies.

There are, but I (and many seniors) am easy to verify. If you know who I am and talked to previous employers (probably friends or at least people you met at conferences or fairs) or know me already from meet-ups but the rigidity of the hiring process has me do some dance, then please, find some other stooge.

> I am easy to verify. If you know who I am an talked to previous employers

Wasn’t parent complaining about being verified, because he assumes that implies he’s lying? If your problem with the process is whether your word is believed without verification, or verified, then what’s the difference between a code test in an interview and talking to a previous employer? (BTW there’s a lot of reasons I might prefer the code test to having people discuss me, even when I have a good reputation. You can’t control what people say or think about you.)

> the hiring process has me do some dance

You’re upset by having to do a little bit of the thing that you want the job doing? I have to audition if I want to dance or act or play music. Why shouldn’t we audition to write code, or do anything? If you walk into an interview expecting to demonstrate your skills on the spot, which is what interviews are for and always have been, then it’s no surprise and you’ll be prepared. I’ve watched people get upset in interviews because they were asked technical questions and expected their 20 years of experience or whatever should somehow exempt them from talking about code. That attitude is a huge red flag TBH, and I’ve seen people get rejected for it.

BTW something to keep in mind is that a ton of people complain about interviews that don’t involve coding. Many would-be programmers are quite frustrated by the focus on soft-skills or experience, and very much prefer to be judged strictly on coding skills.

Re: Stop eliminating good candidates by asking them the wrong questions

#110

Post by bheadmaster » Sat, Jun 03, 2023, 3:15 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #89

bheadmaster wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, not all of us can be socially competent mentally healthy people who enjoy life and regularly stop to smell the flowers. Some of us just suck, some of us are miserable, so we have to put on a fake persona in order to entertain the other person enough for them to actually give us a chance. In a way, dating is all about entertaining and being entertained. It's either that or stay lonely.

The better alternative is to work on yourself to become a better person, who is worthy of dating without deception.

You are implicitly assuming that there's some finite amount of work that could make every such person "dateable without deception". While it may or may not be true in individual case, as a general statement it sounds to me more like "well, it's _your_ fault because you didn't work on yourself enough, so you deserve to be lonely".