An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal. • Hacker News Board

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#191

Post by NutriSugar » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:31 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #123

iwangulenko wrote: post #107

Programmer and owner of a technical recruitment agency here. I forked and rewrote the thing to make it more appealing to recruiters: https://gist.github.com/iwangu/b0d8b8e140afdd4e30bb7e401babc... I mainly removed things that sound patronising to me. I think many HR people will just ignore you if you e-mail what OP posted. Once, I wrote a blogpost why programmers don't get jobs due to random factors ("Why software en…

I think your approach would work if there was a shortage of jobs; there is exactly opposite situation right now and HR should adapt or they would end up with a very narrow dissection of what is available. You are often asking accomplished individuals to waste their time on badly compensated job proposals, just because it makes your life easier. No wonder so many programmers think recruiters in this industry are a jok…

Regardless of how the job market is currently, I see it as having a set amount of 'difficulty capital' that can be spent. The fewer openings, the less of this resource you have, but otherwise everything works the same.

Given there is a limited supply, regardless of size, one should try to spend it optimally. That means being difficult when it comes to pay and benefits, and spending some of this capital when trying to determine the work/life balance. Using it to be insulting or patronizing is effectively wasting it with no return.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#192

Post by dahart » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #152

dahart wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've interviewed and hired many devs. I find hackerrank style coding questions very useful in interviews and I agree with the superiority of your alternative suggestions. Keep in mind that these quizzes are only one single part of a multi-part interview. Also keep in mind that acting offended by whatever style of interview you get may reduce your chances of getting the job you want. You might be amazed how different…

> how deep of a discussion you can have over a single line of code That's the problem with HackerRank: You can't! Every single time I've tried one, it was a dismissive "do this on your own time and we'll check your answers". Not to mention that their question sets tend to be full of puzzles, which are the type of thing where I'll have an epiphany over lunch, rather than something I'll figure out how to optimize in th…

> That's the problem with HackerRank: You can't!

Agreed, this is why I give my own coding quizzes, so I can have a discussion about it. I'm more interested in the thinking than the answer.

But, I do have sections in my interview that test knowledge and not skill, so I can still see the usefulness of letting Hackerrank be a part of the process.

The one thing I don't claim is that HackerRank or coding quizzes are perfect. This is why coding quizzes are only one of maybe six phases of an interview.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#193

Post by bitL » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #182

bitL wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, imagine you worked for top engineering company, have github full of bleeding edge stuff anyone can observe, wrote books, have patents under your belt, do public speaking, teaching at universities etc. and some HR person comes in and wants you to do trivial HackerRank stuff. She basically interrupted you from working on something benefiting humanity just because she was lazy to check your CV and ignorant of t…

FWIW, I have a patent and do public speaking, recently sold a startup, and I gladly take the coding quizzes for all my interviews. They are fun, and they give me a chance to shine. The coding quizzes actually saved me once when I did really badly in another part of the interview. That company hired me, and gave me what others there thought was the good job. I also administer coding quizzes to people I hire, and I fin…

It was about accomplished people getting the same treatment as newbies or wannabes that have no clue what they are doing. You don't see it in other industries. E.g. I wrote this new language/library everybody uses, but I am forced to solve some crappy puzzles I probably was solving when I was 14 and match the current mood/skills/tunnel vision of the interviewer. As a consequence, I rather start my own company and charge you much more for the same service you'd get if you employed me with a bit of a good will on your part, or by simply reading my CV and clicking on the links there.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#194

Post by dahart » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

foo101 wrote: post #181

dahart wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think your approach would work if there was a shortage of jobs There is always a shortage of good jobs. You can fight the process all you want, if any job at all will do, and you don't care how long it takes to get it. > You are often asking accomplished individuals to waste their time on badly compensated job proposals What do you mean by badly compensated? Why would you assume someone else knows anything about…

> Also, if you're good, then why does a low bar for entry scare or offend you? It's not a matter of fear or offense. It's a matter of judiciously investing my time on the right opportunities. I get about 3 to 4 calls from recruiters everyday. If I agree to go through this kind of interviewing process every day (even if the bar is low), I would be spending more than 20 hours every week just doing HackerRank tests. Thi…

> It's a matter of judiciously investing my time on the right opportunities. I get about 3 to 4 calls from recruiters everyday.

I agree completely, I was under the assumption that this entire conversation is about what happens after you (the candidate) submit an initial job application, or respond to a recruiter about a job you're actually interested in.

I'd never do Hackerrank tests in response to recruiter spam.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#195

Post by Darkstack » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

chadash wrote: post #179

Darkstack wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even a short phone screen where I just ask someone to code a simple question takes 20-30 minutes of my time (plus however much time I need to get back in the zone), so HackerRank is appealing if only to weed out the very worst candidates. But you took 20-30 Minutes of their time too, the only difference is that you get a compensation at the end of theses 20-30 min, they don't. If someone told me, "OK , i m gonna wa…

I'm assuming that you don't expect companies to hire everyone who applies and therefore some candidates are going to have time wasted. What do you think is a fair amount of time to expect someone to give for an initial screening?

My longest and latest job interview lasted 3 hours but we talked about the goals and the visions of the company (that part doesn't bother me), the technical part (code with a pen + questions) lasted about 15 mins. But to set a threshold, generally i ask if the test requires more than 1 hour, if yes, I decline politely.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#196

Post by dahart » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #193

dahart wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I have a patent and do public speaking, recently sold a startup, and I gladly take the coding quizzes for all my interviews. They are fun, and they give me a chance to shine. The coding quizzes actually saved me once when I did really badly in another part of the interview. That company hired me, and gave me what others there thought was the good job. I also administer coding quizzes to people I hire, and I fin…

It was about accomplished people getting the same treatment as newbies or wannabes that have no clue what they are doing. You don't see it in other industries. E.g. I wrote this new language/library everybody uses, but I am forced to solve some crappy puzzles I probably was solving when I was 14 and match the current mood/skills/tunnel vision of the interviewer. As a consequence, I rather start my own company and cha…

You do know there are a lot of "accomplished" people according to their own CV who can't actually code their way out of a paper bag, right?

The more senior someone gets, the more expensive. It's worth the company's time to screen for basic aptitude, especially when someone claims greater expertise.

> As a consequence, I rather start my own company

By all means, you should definitely do that and stop worrying about job interviews!

> if you employed me with a bit of a good will on your part

Good will is something you earn. And you earn it by doing things the company needs without complaining. For starters, they need to be able to compare candidates against each other when hiring. Fighting that, and asking the company to evaluate something you've done that doesn't allow comparing you against other people, isn't something that will benefit the company.

> or by simply reading my CV and clicking on the links there.

You're expecting people to spend time reading your projects before they screen you? If you got the call, it's probably because someone read your CV. That's all you can expect at this stage. If you want them to click the links and read the rest, then you take 30 minutes to do the phone screen, and another 30 to do the coding quiz. Then you get to have a conversation about your projects.

If they never ask you about your projects, then yeah, maybe you shouldn't work there. The coding quiz is only one small part of a many-part process.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#197

Post by bitL » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #188

crdoconnor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is always a shortage of good jobs. If their hiring process involves jumping through hoops before being granted permission to interview and if the tasks assigned to you bear almost no relationship to the job at hand, the chances of the job actually being good are low . Employers that do this kind of thing typically have an entitlement complex and not the smartest. People with an entitlement complex who are not…

I'd love to hear examples of how to do it right, without taking all my time. I'm genuinely interested in how to hire people without wasting their time or mine. I'd love to screen people with a day of pair programming or a 2 week paid internship, or whatever other good ideas are floating around. I can't. You have just dismissed most tech companies. All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give codin…

> All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

They are considered the best and give above average compensation. Is your company considered the best, properly paying top talent, to employ the same schema? Those tests were done to distill the top end performers with the accepted risk of huge number of false negatives. Now every mom-and-dad shop is trying to use it. That's why I call it insanity, getting extreme practices into mainstream in our industry.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#198

Post by dsr_ » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

One of our hiring managers uses HackerRank as a basic filter. (If you are applying for a position called Data Scientist and you cannot do a linear regression, you are applying at the wrong company.)

I think an email like this would be just fine, for them.

I think it would go over badly at companies where HR runs the hiring process.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#199

Post by epicide » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

foo101 wrote: post #176

epicide wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really taking it to an extreme. Just because you don't fight back against some entry test doesn't mean you won't fight the important things. > I don't know about you, but I would not want to hire someone who can take any task and complete with minimal issues. Sorry, I don't want to work with a bunch of pedants. You can have them.

> This is really taking it to an extreme No more extreme than suggesting that someone who raises thoughtful questions on a broken hiring process must certainly be a bad fit for an organization. > Sorry, I don't want to work with a bunch of pedants. Now, this is taking it to an extreme!

If they are assuming they know more than everybody involved and making suggestions to a process they haven't even gone through 20% of, then yes, they are probably a bad fit.

It's extremely hypocritical to criticize someone for the very thing you are doing (assuming the other person doesn't know how to do their job). Couple this with the fact that they are not asking for any advice on their hiring process, it's a pretty rude thing to do.

A little bit of fluff added to the wording doesn't make it suddenly polite.

> I would not want to hire someone who can take any task and complete with minimal issues.

Someone who can't do straightforward tasks without having an issue is incompetent, pedantic, or both.

Re: An employer asked me to do a HackerRank test. Here's my alternative proposal.

#200

Post by UncleMeat » Mon, Feb 26, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

zaphar wrote: post #98

renegadesensei wrote: post #36

It's an interesting idea. Phrased politely I think it's fine to suggest. Still I can understand why people would refuse your approach. There's an obvious risk involved letting the applicant dictate the terms of the evaluation. The point of coding tests is that you can't prepare or easily Google an answer. The employer wants to gauge your unscripted in the moment programming knowledge. Also as someone else said, you n…

Letting the applicant dictate the terms of the evaluation That sounds vaguely biased toward the employer. An interview is a a two way process. The candidate in this case will likely have no problem finding a job. In a way, it sounds like he's doing his own pre-screening and the hacker rank request is a non-positive signal for him. Our profession is somewhat bifurcated. There are the developers who only ever do glue c…

How can I, as an employer, provide a fair interview process if every interviewee gets to pick terms? A uniform process isn't because we think it is the optimal process, but because it is the best process that ensures fairness.