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On asking job candidates to code

philcalcado.com

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Re: On asking job candidates to code

#171

Post by pyb »

dominotw wrote: post #167
jcadam wrote: post #89

A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). During the phone-discussion after turning in the project, the mid 20-something lead developer couldn't find anything to nitpick (I could have) and even told me he…

I've noticed that your github profile doesn't even get looked at until you jump through all the standard phonescreen/homework hoops. Even after than many interviewers look at your resume like 10 minutes before the interview there is no chance that they would read through your code on github. github as your resume is overrated. I am curious to know if people hire or get hired purely based on their github profile witho…

Same here, companies don't ever look at my Github code. I built up a portfolio partly in the hope to make future interviews easier, but it hasn't worked at all!

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#172

Post by tptacek »

vonmoltke wrote: post #168
tptacek wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. That's not how a market works. Google can in fact maintain high and consistent standards for incoming developers. But because their processes are so dysfunctional, they overpay to do it. And engineer headcount costs are a huge component of their business --- so much so that they've been accused of breaking the law to collude with other companies to avoid competition in hiring! Google is succeeding in spite of the…

Finally, some validation that my interpretation of their process is not insane. One thing that really rustles my jimmies is the constant assertion that "false negatives are (effectively) free". I think Google and the companies who hire like them seriously underestimate how much this costs them, both the direct costs of spending so much to ultimately reject people and the indirect costs from the work that is not getti…

I worked in a small microcosm of Google's market (Google wants the "best of the best" software developers, and we wanted qualified app pentesters; both are a small subset of the overall market for software talent).

My experience is that running a hiring process that lights up only on the kind of talent that qualifies itself with a standard tech interview is ludicrously expensive. People that do well in standard tech interviews can work anywhere they want. If you can only hire those people, you are competing for talent with the wealthiest (or most overfunded) tech companies in the market.

Fortunately: performance in tech interviews is in fact not a good proxy for programming ability (in fact, there are ways in which being good at interviews can obscure deficits in candidates), and you can get ridiculous discounts to the price Google pays for talent if you don't try to hire people the dumb way Google does.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#173

Post by dominotw »

pyb wrote: post #171
dominotw wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that your github profile doesn't even get looked at until you jump through all the standard phonescreen/homework hoops. Even after than many interviewers look at your resume like 10 minutes before the interview there is no chance that they would read through your code on github. github as your resume is overrated. I am curious to know if people hire or get hired purely based on their github profile witho…

Same here, companies don't ever look at my Github code. I built up a portfolio partly in the hope to make future interviews easier, but it hasn't worked at all!

I have like 3 projects with > 1000 stars and they are used in production by atleast couple of people.

But, noone gives a shit about that they would rather have me reversing a binary tree on a whiteboard.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#174

Post by tptacek »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #169
vonmoltke wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finally, some validation that my interpretation of their process is not insane. One thing that really rustles my jimmies is the constant assertion that "false negatives are (effectively) free". I think Google and the companies who hire like them seriously underestimate how much this costs them, both the direct costs of spending so much to ultimately reject people and the indirect costs from the work that is not getti…

The root issue is that, the costs of bad hiring are even higher than that. For a rapidly-growing company bad hires can snowball into a bad organization.

I agree, and that's even more reason that companies should use work sample tests in preference to on-site coding interviews.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#175

Post by logfromblammo »

kasey_junk wrote: post #15
Tunabrain wrote: post #9

> As brain-dead as I was after eight hours at my project, [..] Is giving out an 8+ hour programming project as part of the application process really considered good hiring practice? If you apply to five jobs, you're expected to spend an entire unpaid work week writing code that doesn't benefit anyone? If a company receives 20 applicants, their ideal candidate selection wastes a collective work month? I don't really…

> Is giving out an 8+ hour programming project as part of the application process really considered good hiring practice? I'd say 8 hours is too long. I always strive for a 4 hours, but I've seen that 4 hours chop 16 hours off of the candidates time and more than 32 off of the companies. > What's the point of maintaining an online portfolio and a github profile full of code The vast, vast, vast majority of candidates…

Exactly. My after-work profile consists mainly of my non-driving kids getting to their non-school activities on time, the custom-built furniture in my living room, the lawn calibrated to give the HOA conniptions without actually breaking any covenants, the brake fluid level in my 2001 car that is definitely leaking it very slowly, my almost-completed low fantasy novel that I started for NaNoWriMo in 2012, DIY pajamas that my kids wear, a well-socialized terrapin, and yes, even all my online gamer achievements.

The reasons I don't like long coding assessment projects and the reasons I don't already have an example code profile are the same. Reinventing all the same wheels in different programming languages just isn't as fun for me as it once was, and I don't have as much time to dick around with any specific side project, especially ones that don't have any immediate utility to me or my family.

Does anyone ever ask about how I spec'd, designed, built, installed, and maintained my DIY entertainment center? No. Same methodology as building software, you know, except the problems are solved with different tools from a different toolbox.

If you're truly really looking for someone "T-shaped", you have to realize that the tittle on that T might include things entirely outside the realm of software or computer hardware, like how to hang a bear bag when camping, or how to fly a small single-engine aircraft, or how to train cats to use regular toilets, or how to run for political office, or what to do when you get a flat tire, or how to hold someone else's baby, or how to hit a gong target from 300m, or how to make a longbow for under $10 at Home Depot, or how to report a pothole so the city will fix it, or how to repair a pothole when the city won't do it, or how to play "Flight of the Bumblebee" while slowly rotating your B-flat concert tuba through 360 degrees.

All those miscellaneous, general-purpose skills do, in fact, make someone more effective at quite a lot of software-related tasks, sometimes in unexpected ways. But they are never going to appear on a resume, or crop up in the answers to any of the stock interview questions. When you include a criterion that specifically selects for people whose after-work hobbies also involve software, you are implicitly selecting against those who do other things, because there is much, much more to life than writing code.

There was only a very narrow slice of time when I actually wrote code for fun in my free time, from the ages of 15-25. It basically stopped after I got laid off from my first software job, and interviewing for software jobs became my next full time job. That's when I realized that I needed to do other things in my life, because it didn't matter how much I loved software if it didn't love me back.

So if you think need a portfolio to get a job, you might want to build one up that includes more than just code samples. The software industry does not love you back. It will move on to someone younger when it gets bored of you.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#176

Post by fluxquanta »

acjacobson wrote: post #93
to3m wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty standard in the UK. Your new full-time job is commonly effectively at-will for the first 3 months, and possibly more. See, e.g., http://www.jobsite.co.uk/worklife/probation-periods-19677/

In the US almost all employment is at-will - even if you've worked at a company for years. Probationary periods here typically mean that you are hired as an independent contractor without the benefits that are usually given with a full-time position such as health, dental, and retirement benefits.

Directly from my company's employee handbook:

Employment with [company] is "at-will." This means that you may terminate your employment at any time, with no prior notice given to [company]. It also means that the company may terminate your employment at any time, with or without notice or cause. While the company generally adheres to progressive discipline, it is not bound or obligated to do so.

As an at-will employee, you are not guaranteed, in any manner, that you will be employed for any set period of time. No one in the company, except the President, in a written, signed contract, may make any representation or promise to you that you are other than an at-will employee. Any employee, manager or supervisor who makes such a representation or promise to you is not authorized to do so.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#177

Post by mordocai »

jcadam wrote: post #89

A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). During the phone-discussion after turning in the project, the mid 20-something lead developer couldn't find anything to nitpick (I could have) and even told me he…

To be fair to "us kids" 30 year old+ hirers pull the same exact shit (I say this from experience as a 24 year old).

I'd say in this particular case the guy felt threatened and/or you were too expensive(or assumed to be too expensive)

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#178

Post by pyb »

drubio wrote: post #141
jcadam wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'm in Florida. The local market isn't that great (though I am presently employed) so I've been interviewing for remote jobs.

Remote is insanity now a days, it was a reasonable market a few years ago but not anymore. There's a glut on both the supply and demand sides. Many years ago there was a limited demand for remote work, which probably tapered the supply, but in my experience from every 3 leads you followed (granted you had the experience), 2 were promising and 1 was almost always an offer. Now a days it's more like you need to follow…

That those 'exclusive hiring practices' still attract candidates shows an excess of supply, no? It's the current market.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#179

Post by pyb »

dominotw wrote: post #173
pyb wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, companies don't ever look at my Github code. I built up a portfolio partly in the hope to make future interviews easier, but it hasn't worked at all!

I have like 3 projects with > 1000 stars and they are used in production by atleast couple of people. But, noone gives a shit about that they would rather have me reversing a binary tree on a whiteboard.

That "github is the new resume" meme a few years ago was quite funny, in retrospect. People panicking that they'd never be able to get another job, as they didn't have free time to code at the weekend...

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#180

Post by jasode »

jameshart wrote: post #161
jasode wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my previous footnote about them receiving 1 million resumes to fill 1,000 slots. If that's true, it is more selective than any Ivy League university. Here's another one showing 75,000 resumes received in one week : http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Google-gets-record-75... When you have the luxury to pick the best, from the best of the best, you don't have to follow the advice given by HN armchair quarterbac…

The fact they have to filter down from a large number of applications to a small number of roles doesn't say anything about how selective they are. SELECT TOP 1000 FROM resumes ORDER BY received_date will produce 1000 job offers but speaks nothing to selectivity.

> filter down from a large number ... to a small number ... doesn't say anything about how selective they are.

But that's what the definition of "selectivity" is for database retrieval. Selectivity == n_rows_selected/n_row_count. The "larger number" was the denominator and the "small number" was the numerator.

Your example SQL is not consistent with your previous sentence:

  SELECT TOP 1000 FROM resumes ORDER BY received_date
Notice that nowhere is the total row count for resumes known in your isolated example? So yeah, we don't have the denominator to determine selectivity.

For examples of Harvard and Google, we know the denominators (the total applications and total resumes). Therefore we know the selectivity.

I suspect you're mixing up "mathematical selectivity" from "decision process selectivity" because Google's internal decision tree for hiring might look to outsiders as "black box" or nonsensical.

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