The rise of never-ending job interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#141

Post by devnull3 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #121

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

Google is infamous for jerking people around in the interview process. I had a very similar experience, as did several people I know. They do it because they know they can get away with it, but I do wonder if they have a backup plan if the lustre of working for Google ever fades, because it's an open secret that their interview process is a fucking nightmare for no reason.

> fucking nightmare for no reason

Absolutely! To add, the amount of nit-picking that happens is staggering. I was downgraded from strong-hire to lean-hire because:

1. I did not use classes in Python. That problem could easily be solved using simple functions. The feedback I got was "candidate does not know idiomatic use of modules & classes"

2. I did not use one of python's standard lib functions and instead I coded it myself (I could not remember it at that instant)

3. I could not spot a scenario in the first 5-7 min of interview. I eventually spotted it and coded it well within the time limit.

Somehow I felt that I am supposed to feel grateful for lean-hire

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#142

Post by rgbrenner » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:52 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #94

andrew_ wrote: post #66

I recently agreed to go through a 5-round process which totaled to about 6 hours. I'm the first person to bitch about the ineffectiveness of leetcode/hackerrank bullshit for people with 10+ of verifiable experience, but I went through this one because it was a field I had never worked in before, and the personnel I was speaking with were truly interesting. Sans all of those qualifiers, anything more than 3 rounds is…

Devil's advocate. Every bad hire costs the company $50,000 - 200,000. Sometimes more. They can also sink or demoralize teams. Many of the people conducting interviews are new to the process and don't know how to extract signal. Sometimes scales don't line up. When you have a revolving door of employees (because that's the way things are these days), have trouble scheduling interviews (busy engineers trying to get the…

This is mostly management speak for: don't blame us, we're just incompetent.

If you run a company and you have a "revolving door of employees" (ie: we can't retain talent), your managers "are new to the process" and don't know what they're looking for (ie: we hire inexperienced managers), and you "can't get enough skilled interviewers on a panel" (ie: "we don't hire enough engineers and we're too cheap and shortsighted to put them on tasks like hiring")... then yeah, you should expect your hiring costs to go up, have a revolving door of employees (because you don't know how to hire), and your teams to be demoralized.

The consequences of that are your (company's) fault. You should own up to your shortcomings and work on your hiring process... don't just punish the candidates indefinitely so that you can ignore your problems.

(I say this as a serial founder, and hopefully never need to be on the other end of the hiring process.)

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#143

Post by kxrm » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:53 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #116

kxrm wrote: post #114

I am actually going through the hiring process now. I was a hiring manager at my last shop and I tried to be very respectful of the candidates time. The process was first interview was 30 mins and basically a getting to know you and us session. Second interview was a two hour technical interview with debugging/fix this function type question and a single from scratch example question in the candidates language of cho…

> If it's FAANG I am lucky if I can even get a fucking job description these days. They want to interview me for jobs and best fit me for their needs. What about my needs? What about my time? If I can't even get a job description, why do you think I want to waste 3 hours doing "homework" before I can even talk to anyone for more than 10 minutes? Why don't you find people working on a problem you like, then ask them i…

> Why don't you find people working on a problem you like, then ask them if they have open positions?

That's not always straight forward. Once you get patched over to HR, it's their process.

I am glad to hear that this is still working for you, hopefully a serendipitous moment will occur soon to open a door for me as well.

> Working though engineers is almost always better than filtering though company recruiters.

Doesn't this say something about hiring being broken when you have to dig through profiles on a company website or linkedin and cold contact devs to get your foot in the door?

I am by no means suggesting that what you are saying is a bad idea, just that this reeks of poor and inefficient hiring policies.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#144

Post by kamkazemoose » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:54 AM UTC

ironman1478 wrote: post #112

I don't mind going through a single day with many rounds, but when it's spread out it's super frustrating. It feels really disrespectful of my time. I interviewed at Apple and had like 3 onsites with different teams all in one week and got the results quite quickly. It was such a good experience compared to some companies where it's such a chore. I also think the attitude of companies during interviews really sucks.…

Part of the problem is that Manton the interview panel do feel like they're wasting their time. It is valuable to the company but for the engineers, they want to get back to coding or whatever else they are working on.

It isn't fair to the person applying because they didn't pick the people on the panel, but if the one doing the interviewing doesn't hide their feeling it's obviously not great.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#145

Post by kortilla » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

thrwaway122 wrote: post #37

alephnan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left a hedgefund interview loop for this reason. I finished the 7th on-site interview. After I left NYC and flew back home, they wanted a 8th ( phone screen ) interview because one the interviewers lost the results. On the one hand, this space’s modus operandi is more data is always better. On the other hand, they have to trade and make decisions in a fast paced environment with imperfect information.

funny same experience here. I interviewed for four months at a very select and under the radar fund. Once a week I would go in from 730 am to 9 am and speak with a member of the fund. I got all the way to the end, and in a bout of emotional torment, I turned the offer down. In hindsight, its one of the biggest regrets I have. Would have retired long ago

Why did you turn it down if I may ask? I’ve made the decision several times to go with lower paying offers because I ended up deciding there was more to life than just a paycheck.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#146

Post by andi999 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #120

MattGaiser wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. I am genuinely asking. Why is this objectionable? Why do people find it so horrible that their labour is a commodity? To me that just tells me I should treat my labour like a merchant treats his goods. Always be checking the market to ensure you have something worth selling and while you might sign long term deal…

IMO, because the different .NET Core versions the commenter talks about aren’t that different and one can easily learn another version if they are already well-versed in one if them. Learnability is totally ignored.

Also I am wondering: if management eventually decides (advised by external consultants of course) to switch to a newer version, then what do they plan to do? Hiring a new team?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#147

Post by gentleman11 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:55 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #115

MattGaiser wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. I am genuinely asking. Why is this objectionable? Why do people find it so horrible that their labour is a commodity? To me that just tells me I should treat my labour like a merchant treats his goods. Always be checking the market to ensure you have something worth selling and while you might sign long term deal…

Because selecting candidates based on tech stack is almost universally the sign of incompetent tech management. Anybody who understands software, knows that intelligence and master of fundamentals trumps tech stack experience without exception. Linus Torvalds would unquestionably become a better Ruby on Rails developer within four weeks than 90% of people with 10 YoE in it. Good organizations hire talented and bright…

I got turned down once by somebody in hr because I didn’t write I had experience with .net but rather wrote c# on the paper.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#148

Post by creato » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #107

echelon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Devil's advocate. Every bad hire costs the company $50,000 - 200,000. Sometimes more. They can also sink or demoralize teams. Many of the people conducting interviews are new to the process and don't know how to extract signal. Sometimes scales don't line up. When you have a revolving door of employees (because that's the way things are these days), have trouble scheduling interviews (busy engineers trying to get the…

> because that's the way things are these days Why is nothing done about this? As turnover soars and tenure plummets, I am willing to buy that companies do not value codebase knowledge, domain knowledge, or believe that it takes time for an engineer to get going. I can buy them seeing us engineers as replaceable widgets. But we are at the point where a lot of companies cannot replace us and yet nothing is done about…

I think most engineers overestimate their irreplaceability. If a company actually wants you to stay, they'll fight for you. They just choose not to for >90% of engineers leaving.

Chances are, the new hire replacements will be in the same 90%, so it is a wash (minus ramp-up time), but maybe the company gets lucky and finds someone in the other 10%.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#149

Post by newsyyswen » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:56 AM UTC

billytetrud wrote: post #133

Analemma_ wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is infamous for jerking people around in the interview process. I had a very similar experience, as did several people I know. They do it because they know they can get away with it, but I do wonder if they have a backup plan if the lustre of working for Google ever fades, because it's an open secret that their interview process is a fucking nightmare for no reason.

That lustre has faded already.

Yeah, it's probably been 3-4 years since I've heard anyone use the word "Xoogler" in a positive or unironic way.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#150

Post by Nition » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:57 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

And yet if they ask you for an answer to a quirky question like "why are manhole covers round?", they expect a clever answer like "they can't fall in", rather than a pedestrian answer like "well, probably they just started making them that shape for some simple production reason, and then everyone else just kinda of did the same thing because it worked."