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Hiring without whiteboards

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Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#111

Post by mikulas_florek »

ciaranm wrote: post #96
lj3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not disrespectful for a company to ask you to write a little code for them. They're just as invested on the time front as you are since they have to read and analyze what you send them. Now, if you were to tell me that nobody ever looked at the test after you sent it in, then it becomes disrespectful. I had several companies do that to me a few months ago. Not that it matters much. I don't think code tests will…

If it's automated, or direct from a recruiter - chances are the company hasn't even read my CV. Or looked at any of the previous work I've included. Of course it's disrespectful.

Would you prefer them looking at your CV and immediately reject you without giving you a chance == test?

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#112

Post by muse900 »

et-al wrote: post #60
jonasvp wrote: post #25

I'm responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate's work experience and interesting problems that she/he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing/CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that's being done. That said, I'm always surprised how many candidat…

> That said, I'm always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they're proud of. It could be that this technique favors people good at telling stories. Personally, I'm a horrible storyteller. If you were to ask me what I did over the weekend, I'll offer some facts like "oh, went swimming in a river and Bob lost his hat, but we found it…

Companies differ, and what they are asking of software engineers.

I was working with a brilliant guy in the same company. He was very technical and you could say that easily he was programming all day long non stop. His intelligence and technical expertise amazed me. Thing is he wasn't good with people skills, hence he wouldn't fit the company I am currently working for.

There are companies that hire devs to solve a problem and give them time, space etc to go all hardcore. Then again there are companies that require from their dev's to be able to communicate with the rest of the team, and take part on meaningful theory-crafting meetings.

So neither whiteboarding, nor tell me a story question is wrong.

I just find it that whiteboarding difficult questions should be asked from the very technical jobs, and I've found whiteboarding difficult questions when interviewing for a company that wants to move out of wordpress to their own website in angular.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#113

Post by rtpg »

muse900 wrote: post #75
nherment wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're in Denmark and currently hiring. I'm not sure why there is such extreme hate for the whiteboard. Yes it has plenty of caveats when it comes to actual coding and recruiters should not expect any candidate to write precise code on that medium. I do use the whiteboard for trivial CS questions limited to 5-10 minutes. Think fizzbuzz and string reversal. Candidates have the option to use my laptop (not ideal because…

I believe the hate comes from unprecedented and hard CS questions asked on the whiteboard. I recently went to an interview that asked me to balance a binary tree on a whiteboard. It can be done, and I can do it. Thing is when you go to interview for that company that has 2 developers(small team, small company) and ask you that kind of question it puts you off thinking that those guys won't be great to work with (arro…

This can also be an education problem. There can be big mismatches in what is easy and hard

If you're coming from a more FP background things like flipping a binary tree are silly obvious. If you spend a lot of time with C++, of course you know how to write a linked list with memory management. Python devs are probably way better at slicing and dicing data

There's a certain expectation of what's easy and hard, but it's really easy to have a mismatch given the diversity of education out there.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#115

Post by collyw »

efaref wrote: post #100
Yizahi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XKCD 1168: - Rob, you use Unix! Come quick! * To disarm the bomb simply enter a valid "tar" command on your first try. No googling. You have ten seconds. * - Rob?.. - I'm so sorry.

That's just silly, though. "tar" is pretty easy to use in its basic form, and I have dozens of commands ingrained in my memory. tar tf filename.tar tar xf filename.tar tar xfz filename.tar.gz # Newer tars don't even require the z tar cfz filename.tar.gz directoryname Heck, surely even tar --help would suffice. More interesting questions would be like: "which lower-case letters are NOT valid options to GNU ls". :)

I had untarred hundreds of files before I actually needed to start creating tar files on a regular enough basis to remember the syntax.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#116

Post by ljlolel »

ninjakeyboard wrote: post #110

What's with all the whiteboard backlash? I ask simple questions and expect people to be able to write code unaided to express their idea. Not "implement a linked list" or "write quicksort" but basic "You have two arrays - find if a number exists in both arrays" sort of thing, primarily to reason about runtime complexity, and to make sure they can actually write code. If you tell a candidate to prepare, they should be…

What about just asking the candidate to do the same simple task on a computer that they own?

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#117

Post by hasenj »

muse900 wrote: post #112
et-al wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, I'm always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they're proud of. It could be that this technique favors people good at telling stories. Personally, I'm a horrible storyteller. If you were to ask me what I did over the weekend, I'll offer some facts like "oh, went swimming in a river and Bob lost his hat, but we found it…

Companies differ, and what they are asking of software engineers. I was working with a brilliant guy in the same company. He was very technical and you could say that easily he was programming all day long non stop. His intelligence and technical expertise amazed me. Thing is he wasn't good with people skills, hence he wouldn't fit the company I am currently working for. There are companies that hire devs to solve a…

> It could be that this technique favors people good at telling stories.

It does, but then again, maybe that's what they're going for (even if subconsciously).

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#118

Post by mikulas_florek »

Yizahi wrote: post #107
trome wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a company to avoid if they throw the improper tool for the job at you and expect you to do it with that, even if a pen & paper would be better.

Some guys I've met, with different occupations and age, sincerely believe that smaller screens are more usable. Like small windows on 14" CRT when everyone had 17/19". Now it's guys that claim that 11-13" ultrabook is enough for them and they don't want more ever. This honestly baffles me every time.

I use only a small part of screen when writing code, because it somehow forces me to write shorter, cleaner functions. Although debugging is terrible experience on small monitors, because I need more windows open at the same time - watches, callstacks, ...

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#119

Post by chronicx0 »

ljlolel wrote: post #116
ninjakeyboard wrote: post #110

What's with all the whiteboard backlash? I ask simple questions and expect people to be able to write code unaided to express their idea. Not "implement a linked list" or "write quicksort" but basic "You have two arrays - find if a number exists in both arrays" sort of thing, primarily to reason about runtime complexity, and to make sure they can actually write code. If you tell a candidate to prepare, they should be…

What about just asking the candidate to do the same simple task on a computer that they own?

Lots of candidates cheat. Especially from China and India.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#120

Post by rimliu »

ninjakeyboard wrote: post #110

What's with all the whiteboard backlash? I ask simple questions and expect people to be able to write code unaided to express their idea. Not "implement a linked list" or "write quicksort" but basic "You have two arrays - find if a number exists in both arrays" sort of thing, primarily to reason about runtime complexity, and to make sure they can actually write code. If you tell a candidate to prepare, they should be…

So you test their ability to write code on the whiteboard. I was once programming with pen and paper too (only had access to computers at university). They I bought my own computer.
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