Earlier quoted context omitted.
That response also works if you replace "passionate" with "can moonwalk".
No, it doesn't, because moonwalking isn't what gets you through those 18-hour hacking sessions.
Are you sure about that?
The Only Interview Question That Matters
171–180 of 185 posts
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, and good luck hiring anyone right out of college this way. I think it is a fantastic question to ask someone out of college. It shows those people who are passionate about something and went beyond the minimal requirements for their degree to achieve it. A passionate student could answer this question in a number of ways; he could point out an open source project that he published on Github that has users, some r…
There might be nothing in the industry that gets under my skin quite as effectively as engineers making hiring decisions based on the perceived "passion" of candidates. "Passion" doesn't matter. What matters in a job is effectiveness and competence. Effectiveness gets things done. Competence ensures that what's getting done isn't going to backfire and create more work down the line. In our common usage, "passion" des…
> Almost every idea that engineers have about hiring is broken.
Almost every idea anyone has about interviewing is wrong.
Interviews are a terrible way to recruit. It's amazing to me that STEM companies with money and scientists still use interviewing in recruitment processes and haven't found something else.
There is the "on the job interview" where a candidate is invited to do the actual job for a day or half day. For obvious reasons this method tends to be used for minimum wage positions, or for places where you're recruiting people who you know might interview poorly. But it seems to be a great way to recruit people.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, in my experience, the question works much better when asked in person than in writing. Just seeing the face of the interviewee while you ask the question lets you understand if there is real passion for that kind of job; the answers I get in writing these days (ie by email while screening people) are unfortunately much less telling :(
This selects for good actors, not capable people who aren't good at the face thing. This is a subset of the fact that the employment paradigm, with its multiple perverse incentives for all players, requires us to be liars. If we're very lucky, we just have to know how to be a liar.
You would need to be a VERY good actor, and you would also need to have studied a REALLY good script that covers all the details I'm going to ask you about your project. Possible, but not very likely.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#174Cool. I always ask this question. Sometimes I even tell candidates 'and now, my favourite question.' It's not for a pure developer role though, it might not work well for that. It a chance for people to show how they've actually used the skills they claim to have, and whether they'll bring some invention and creativity to their role.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you have hit the nail on the head regarding the purpose of the question. The question is used to find stars. That is, someone who is 50x more productive than programmers: "merely" doing solid and great programming on "average" and typical applications
that whole 10x 50x bullshit is a myth.
You haven't met a true star then. I have been in IT for over 20 years and I've seen a handful.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
> His family moved to the US, to Detroit, when he was 7. This is not an example of someone who is from the third world or from a ghetto. Immigrant parents have strong work ethic which they instill in their kids ( I belong to the club, so I know). I am talking about girls from southside Chicago whose idea of 'achievement' is not getting pregnant by 15.
Detroit went from the best big city school system in 1950 to the worst today. http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/michigan/d... Anyone who doesn't think excelling in that environment isn't a highly significant achievement is sadly mistaken.
Too many negatives. I think you mean, "Anyone who thinks excelling in that environment isn't a highly significant achievement is sadly mistaken." Even then, I'd go for something clearer like, "Excelling in that environment is a high achievement."
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if you are interviewing a kid from south-side Chicago or kid from third world who against all odds went to college? That is exactly the sort of achievement that impresses us, actually. For example, Qasar Younis started life in a house with dirt floors in a village in Pakistan. His family moved to the US, to Detroit, when he was 7. He appears to have worked his ass off from the moment they landed. We funded his s…
> His family moved to the US, to Detroit, when he was 7. This is not an example of someone who is from the third world or from a ghetto. Immigrant parents have strong work ethic which they instill in their kids ( I belong to the club, so I know). I am talking about girls from southside Chicago whose idea of 'achievement' is not getting pregnant by 15.
At some point I had 17 upvotes to my comment. Now I have zero.
How is this possible?
You could say yeah you had 17 ppl upvote you and 17 people downvote you, but the population who can downvote is a tiny minority compared to ppl who can upvote.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ability for people to gel doesn't guarantee any of the following: listening to the same music, drinking roughly the same beer, playing the same games, and liking the same technology stacks. What I am arguing for is the part after someone's ability to accomplish the work and be creative has been shown. I think you underestimate how many people actually have the smarts and creative ability to do just about all soft…
I think I do the opposite: I think I value candidate potential more than you, because you propose screening based on how cordial or fluent a single interview with their prospective team is, and I don't buy for a second that you get a realistic picture of how well someone will communicate or gel with that team in the course of a single adversarial interview.
How many tech interviews are one session long anymore (especially for the good ones)? Like I said in my post above this one, I'm arguing for the point after candidate potential has been acknowledged. If you know a candidate can do his/her potential job well - then I think good team fit is the obvious next step. If nobody wants to work with a potential candidate - then it will clearly be a detriment to a team (short term and most likely long term as well).
I think the problem is that everyone on HN thinks things are binary, when practically every scenario in this universe is not. You can't just eschew potential team fit because you want a rigorous hiring process that depends only on candidate qualification. The opposite holds true as well. Here are the two things you need for an awesome team:
1. A team that works well with each other.
2. Individuals on the team can do their job.
Re: The Only Interview Question That Matters
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read this a lot here about probationary or trial periods and I agree that it's a great idea, in principle. However, the reality of the developer and system engineer ecosystem right now is that it's an employee's market. Good people are already employed and probably get a couple job leads every day via professional contacts, LinkedIn, or other channels. Those people aren't going to be willing to jump through these k…
Not everyone lives in a top 5 city where there are multiple job offers coming in every day. I used to think "what a big hassle" about those companies that would make you work a contract basis at first. But after several months of thought, I realized, "hey, if I were to suddenly lose my job, it would dramatically reduce my life-stress if I knew there were a few companies out there that the unemployed could excel at ap…
For reference, I live in a small town along the Hudson River on the edge of the Adirondack Mountains in upstate NY, but have worked for Boston and NYC startups for some time now. So, not living near a top 5 city doesn't really have any bearing on the conversation.
I agree that long-term contract-to-hire is a reasonable way to go for may employers and employees, particularly folks that already are already contractors, but the premise of "you've got a couple weeks to prove yourself" is a non-starter. I'm not going to quit my day job and risk my family's financial security for a company that is unwilling to take a similar risk on me. In an ideal world, it is the best way to evaluate a candidate. However, if it were practical, it would have already become an industry practice. The fact that it seems to be rare indicates to me that it does not work very well.
As a Systems Engineer, a practice that I would like to see more of (and may try to implement at the company I work for) is a brief troubleshooting exercise with a shared tmux session. Set up a server with some problem and ask the candidate to identify the issue and try to resolve it.