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The Last Technical Interview

steve-yegge.medium.com

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Re: The Last Technical Interview

#151

Post by digitallogic »

This kind of thinking is why a lot of market place startups fail.

You have two parties engaging with each other in a subpar way, and your solution is to make things better for one party (hiring side) and significantly worse for the other (candidates). Trying to convince candidates that this is good for them, won't make it so. Eg:

> Every stamp that you hand out, pass or fail, leaves a candidate richer than they showed up. This attracts strong candidates to you, because even your rejections are worth something to them.

Candidates don't want stamps. They want stable work.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#152

Post by tptacek »

akerl_ wrote: post #149
tptacek wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these objections rely on removing agency from the professionals applying for jobs. You look at the work sample. You use your professional judgement. You decide if it's reasonable to execute it to what you think a professional standard would be in the time allotted. You make a decision. This isn't a college application.

I think you're answering a different objection than they're making. Their concern is that people will choose to spend 8 hours on your 4 hour problem but then tell you they only spent 4. Then you'll think they're a leet hacker because their solution is so awesome and they did it so fast.

Why would I think that? There's a rubric for the challenge defined up front, before anyone does it.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#154

Post by spaqin »

analog31 wrote: post #33

The paradox that strikes me is that "hiring is broken" yet these companies are beyond successful. So there's still yet another layer of something in between observing that employees are capable / incapable, and the company successful / unsuccessful.

A personal tragedy of failing an interview has little effect on a multinational conglomerate. If the average employee is half decent, they will grow anyway...

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#155

Post by masfuerte »

tptacek wrote: post #144
lesam wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you design a hiring process that scores unprofessional people (by your own definition) higher than professional ones?

Again: I am responsive to the concern that hiring processes can demand too much of candidates, and particularly to the idea that work-sample challenges are unreasonably demanding compared to interviews. That's why hiring processes I've designed over the last 10 years have all been budgeted against the time typically allotted to an interview loop. And then, to people who say "the challenges take more time than the bud…

> And then, to people who say "the challenges take more time than the budget, so I'm forced to spend more time"

People aren't saying that. They are saying that other candidates will put in more time. If I do a professional job in four hours, then an equally talented candidate who puts in eight hours will produce a much more polished effort, and they will get the job.

I guess the fix is to ask the candidate to pick a four hour window, and to ask them to complete the task in that time.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#156

Post by akerl_ »

tptacek wrote: post #152
akerl_ wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're answering a different objection than they're making. Their concern is that people will choose to spend 8 hours on your 4 hour problem but then tell you they only spent 4. Then you'll think they're a leet hacker because their solution is so awesome and they did it so fast.

Why would I think that? There's a rubric for the challenge defined up front, before anyone does it.

No clue; it wasn’t my concern.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#157

Post by tptacek »

masfuerte wrote: post #155
tptacek wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again: I am responsive to the concern that hiring processes can demand too much of candidates, and particularly to the idea that work-sample challenges are unreasonably demanding compared to interviews. That's why hiring processes I've designed over the last 10 years have all been budgeted against the time typically allotted to an interview loop. And then, to people who say "the challenges take more time than the bud…

> And then, to people who say "the challenges take more time than the budget, so I'm forced to spend more time" People aren't saying that. They are saying that other candidates will put in more time. If I do a professional job in four hours, then an equally talented candidate who puts in eight hours will produce a much more polished effort, and they will get the job. I guess the fix is to ask the candidate to pick a…

Again: the rubric is defined up front. You can actually lose points for doing too much.

I understand that some people are concerned that they're competing with candidates who will put in 12 hours to do what they should be doing in 4. But that's not their problem. Their problem as a professional is to evaluate whether they can do the challenge in 4 hours; that's the expectation the job is setting.

It is perfectly reasonable for someone to look at the hiring process we're running and say "no, this communicates to me that this job wouldn't be a good fit for me". That's a good outcome! Most jobs aren't a good fit for most people; that's the whole challenge of hiring.

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#159

Post by __mharrison__ »

JimmyBuckets wrote: post #84
__mharrison__ wrote: post #39

I don't understand how a failing stamp for a campfire is good for the interviewee. It signals that they weren't good enough to get hired. Why would they want to parade that around?

You dont need the failing stamps to hang around. All you need are the successful stamps. It's actually better from a human psychology perspective anyway. Less shame. Everyone will have some successful stamps, and they accrue over time giving better signal. Hiring managers can make a rational decision about what number of stamps over what period of time is sufficient to evaluate a person, trading against the risk of m…

Isn't your resume/LI your successful stamps?

Re: The Last Technical Interview

#160

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #144
lesam wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you design a hiring process that scores unprofessional people (by your own definition) higher than professional ones?

Again: I am responsive to the concern that hiring processes can demand too much of candidates, and particularly to the idea that work-sample challenges are unreasonably demanding compared to interviews. That's why hiring processes I've designed over the last 10 years have all been budgeted against the time typically allotted to an interview loop. And then, to people who say "the challenges take more time than the bud…

[deleted]
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