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Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

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Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#161

Post by Espressosaurus »

electrondood wrote: post #28
LaserToy wrote: post #20

Had similar marathon 8 years ago and it is draining. Now, being on the other side (hiring folks for a startup), I would argue that some of flags are a bit misleading. Examples: “Undue pressure to accept an offer letter” - interviews are not free, companies are investing eng time into evaluating each candidate and once they find great one, they really want them to join. They also do not want to be part of a bidding wa…

Everything from the hiring company's perspective also applies to the candidate. The company is investing a lot of time and effort in the interviewing process. The candidate has been preparing for weeks for an assessment that has nothing to do with their actual job, and is being assigned multiple take-home challenges that take 4-8 hours of their time, etc. The company wants to feel free to shop around and spend as muc…

> The process is a 2-way negotiation between equal parties.

This is the only statement in your comment I take issue with. The company has access to all kinds of local, regional, and national salary data, as well as a holistic idea of the kind of candidates they're getting. If it's a large company, they have people whose only job is negotiation (especially around salary).

It's a decidedly unequal negotiation, that sometimes works in our favor (as in when we can get multiple offers to arrive at one time to bid up our pay).

The only reason it's as equal as it is is due to demand for hiring. Most other industries you take what you can get. Let's enjoy it while it lasts. Given the proliferation of "learn to code", outsourcing, insourcing, and other attempts to widen the number of qualified developers, I'm not sure how long this gravy train will continue to last.

Hopefully long enough for me to retire.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#162

Post by potta_coffee »

ziddoap wrote: post #2

Interesting read but I (and I think many others) would be more interested in reading about how one manages to land 60 interviews, at all, in the current job market. You must have either a stellar resume, incredible experience, access to a huge network, or a combination of the above.

I had about 15 interviews all within a span of two weeks; I applied for those jobs the week before and I was fairly selective based on what I'm interested in doing and the kind of company I'm looking for. I don't have an incredible resume and I've never worked for any important company that you've heard of, I live in flyover country.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#163

Post by throwawayacc2 »

So, this is cynical but I actually look for some of these red flags specifically. For me they are not red flags. For me they are green flags.

Not enough clarity about your role - Consistent lack of interest or low morale from interviewers - Perfect , the less enthusiasm the better. Your interviewers aren’t prepared for the interview - Oh yeah, love those ones. Lack of a clear direction on where the company is headed - One of the best flags for me.

The reason I go for these companies is because I get to slack off and no one does anything about it. Especially now with wfh being the norm.

This strategy worked for me for close to 4 years. The last job I put actual effort in was around 2017. There are weeks on end where I just go to the morning standup, say I am working on it and for the rest of the day I play computer games or watch shows or go out dates. Sometimes, I just move jira tickets through the columns without even looking at them. No one checks, no one measures, no one seems to care.

If you want to grow in terms of skills, yeah, those are red flags to avoid. If you want to chill and bill, go for those sorts of companies. Big corporate, preferably non tech, preferably somewhere with a big churn rate so you can have the excuse of the original author no being there anymore.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#164

Post by ric2b »

kevinskii wrote: post #156
DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're getting better, but sometimes there are legitimate reasons for things like delays and ghosting that can't be disclosed to the candidate. Can you elaborate? I'm having trouble imagining a legitimate reason to ghost a candidate, other than a court order or National Security Letter.

We make medical devices. They are surprisingly complicated things, and many peoples' lives depend on them. There's also a lot of ways in which they might potentially fail, and these failures can manifest years after the product has been in the field. When there's even the slightest hint of a potential safety issue, it quickly becomes the top priority for a whole bunch of people. Most issues turn out to be false alarm…

> Even a polite response from HR like, "Sally really enjoyed talking to you but she's unexpectedly tied up in something" can be market-moving information if you find Sally's role on LinkedIn and tie it to recent news about the company.

So a candidate being ghosted can also be market moving because it means the same thing.

Just have HR stall a bit, maybe you're finishing the round of interviews for other candidates or something, it's not that hard.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#165

Post by dilyevsky »

Mc91 wrote: post #143
riffic wrote: post #81

> Undue pressure to accept an offer letter These are called "exploding offers". It's horrendously shady. edit: I once got one with a limit of one hour before expiration. I was completely naive and took the position anyways. What a complete nightmare.

One piece of advice I saw recently - if you are interviewing, FAANG companies supposedly have a longer offer acceptance window. Smaller startups often have a smaller window. Also FAANG companies and larger companies and organization usually have a longer interview process. So the advice was to interview at the larger companies first, and then at the smaller startups who can turn on a dime quickly. It makes a lot of s…

That window is normally complete bs and I’ve always been able to extend it by a few weeks. No need to be a dick about it, just ask and if they are actually serious they’ll wait

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#166

Post by nullserver »

kylecordes wrote: post #42
nullserver wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got an offer from a place (hot startup)that I wasn’t really interested in. Had a call to talk about it, see if I might be into. Oh can you talk to so and so, hey can we do a coding exercises really quick, hey can you chat with founder really quick. 3 days from hearing about company, I had an offer. Then was being pestered about background check. Wait, how did I get to this point? I wasn’t even really interested. Fe…

In a tepid defense of the anonymous company… I would probably also interpret someone in the situation doing a coding exercise as a sign they are interested in a position.

Fair point. I liken it to going to the bar and waking up in Vegas with a ring on your finger and a stranger in your bed.

It’s probably your fault, but it’s still a huge WTF just happened moment

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#167

Post by potta_coffee »

Tallain wrote: post #24
majormajor wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've anecdotally heard from former colleagues that it's gotten tougher to find entry-level or mid-level positions, not sure how broadly that applies, though.

I will add my anecdote to the pile. It seems like there are a good number of positions out there, but it also seems like most of them are asking for senior level folks. Then, the ones I interview stall out because I either have too much experience, or not enough experience - I'm square in the middle ground where it seems nothing is quite right for me.

I identify with this. I'm ready to move on to the next step but there doesn't seem to be a position that fits my experience level. "Senior" seems like a relative distinction based on the company. I'm ready to land at a place that takes engineering practices more seriously but those companies don't think I have enough experience with those practices - for instance, I've never worked at a company that even cares about unit testing, now I need to be very experienced at it. I know how to do unit testing of course but it's not my sharpest skill for obvious reasons. I'm focusing on these weaker skills but it's definitely a challenge.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#168

Post by ghaff »

anonymoushn wrote: post #108
glitchc wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s quite fair. Are you hiring the best candidate or just any candidate? If the former, you make your offer to the best candidate and wait a reasonable time for their response, a week is usually sufficient. If you wish to offer to any candidate, offer to them all and see who accepts, but as you may find out, that’s not actually legal. But of course you are looking for the best candidate right? If so, waiting for the…

companies apparently have no issue rescinding offers, so I wonder whether it is really illegal to give verbal offers to n candidates and then rescind n-1 of them.

Maybe not illegal but seriously crappy and amoral behavior.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#169

Post by braveyellowtoad »

omgwtfbbq wrote: post #123
LaserToy wrote: post #20

Had similar marathon 8 years ago and it is draining. Now, being on the other side (hiring folks for a startup), I would argue that some of flags are a bit misleading. Examples: “Undue pressure to accept an offer letter” - interviews are not free, companies are investing eng time into evaluating each candidate and once they find great one, they really want them to join. They also do not want to be part of a bidding wa…

>They also do not want to be part of a bidding war, so it is natural to impose limits (some folks do go overboard). AKA accept our lowball offer before you realize how much you're worth

Every auction has a time limit

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#170

Post by dmos62 »

deathcalibur wrote: post #148
beforeolives wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't really quantify attributes like curiosity, ability to learn and ability to listen so it's difficult to interview for them without having all kinds of biases sneak in. How do you deal with this in your process?

Usually the qualities that matter most cannot be quantified (un)fortunately... One way to combat this is to have the interviewing team consist of people with different backgrounds. For example, if you want to hire more women, it probably makes sense to have women involved as interviewers for all candidates. If you don't have the ability to do this, then I'm not sure what the solution is.

Haha, usually, in the context of interviews, you don't think of gender as being a type of background.
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