Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The rise of never-ending job interviews

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 1001 posts

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#201

Post by Plasmoid »

andrew_ wrote: post #66

I recently agreed to go through a 5-round process which totaled to about 6 hours. I'm the first person to bitch about the ineffectiveness of leetcode/hackerrank bullshit for people with 10+ of verifiable experience, but I went through this one because it was a field I had never worked in before, and the personnel I was speaking with were truly interesting. Sans all of those qualifiers, anything more than 3 rounds is…

I wonder if this is a way to crowd out competitors. Take up so much of a candidate's time that they can only interview at a handful of places successfully. Either the candidate goes all in on you or they pass without using your resources. Kinda the grocery store shelving model of competition.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#202

Post by virgilp »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #10

If your application process starts with a human being—even better a technical human being—reaching out to me, followed by 2-3 interviews, followed by an offer, I am already on your side. If your application process starts with a HackerRank, followed by 2 phone interviews followed by on-site, followed by team matching, I will not be on your side. Oh and if there's random month long gaps in between stages, I will espec…

Is HackerRank so bad? If one does "whiteboard problems", HackerRank says, "boo, whiteboard interviews, just let me code and be able to search on Google, whiteboard is unrealistic!". Now if the company starts with a HackerRank test, that's also bad? I don't get it.

Look, a lot of people have good-looking CVs and can't code shit. I don't know about you but my experience was that one really can't hire based on CV alone. Also, I've seen "architects" that are smart and fairly knowledgeable people that failed to code very very basic stuff (as in, merge 2 sorted arrays).... I get it that at some companies you are expected to draw diagrams in Confluence as a main job, and might no longer have actual coding skills; but we want even the most senior people to actually code, and that doesn't seem unreasonable to me. So just because you're a very-senior FAANG employee doesn't automatically mean you'd be a good fit. I'm not saying they're bad employees, but maybe they just wouldn't be a good fit and wouldn't enjoy the job if they expect to just design stuff instead of actually implementing, too.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#203

Post by buck4roo »

bfung wrote: post #183
billytetrud wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, every bad hire is really bad. However, companies generally don't put in any effort into seriously evaluating your publicly available work. I have reams and reams of open source code companies can take a look at, and I've never seen any evidence that any company I've ever interviewed at has looked at that work. That's a result of companies being completely incompetent at evaluation and disrespecting their candida…

Being on the hiring end, it’s less out of incompetence and more of not enough time, and open source code is low signal that the candidate can actually solve problems. If I submit some “open source” code as some proof that I can code, how do you know I didn’t copy the code from somewhere? Also, writing code for the sake of writing code doesn’t tell a hiring manager if the person can take requirements and translate tha…

> no amount of open source code can tell a company if the candidate can work with others and solve problems.

Balderdash. When was the last time an interview task involved working with others? I'd offer that open source PRs show this way better, and in an appropriate context (as a collaborator) rather than what we have now: adversarial interview{er,ee}s.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#204

Post by vlttnv »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #59
agarren wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on how accepting it improved your career? Did it change the way you interview or the kinds of jobs you accept?

It made me realise my normal process of: - going on $JOB_BOARD - sending out CV & Cover letter - talking to recruiter - going to 3 interviews - rinse and repeat Wasn't working. I was not in demand. I had to constantly reach out to people, just to get interviews at places I didn't really want to work for. And even then they'd usually reject me. It was a wake up call that I was on the fast track to nowhere, and somethi…

Looks like I am on a similar path to you but you are a couple of steps ahead of me. Is there a place I can contact you with a few questions. I'd really appreciate it.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#205

Post by danjac »

2001lodyssee wrote: post #32
DSingularity wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason they want to remove the risk is because it takes years to prune bad talent.

In my long and storied career, well long at least, every single truly heinous, project-killin', crazy person actually interviewed pretty well. Honestly, I don't have a good solution to the problem.

There's probably not a single one-size-fits-all solution - what works for FAANG and their millions of applicants is lunacy when you're a three-person startup, much like adopting Kubernetes to run an internal web app with half a dozen users. It probably starts with proper training in conducting interviews, a respect for candidates' time, a realistic appraisal of your needs and budget, and constant feedback-driven refinement of your process.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#206

Post by axaxs »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #195
silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

https://www.kalibrr.com/sites/default/files/featured_images/... Every year, Google receives over one million resumes and applications. Only 4,000-6000 applicants will actually be hired — that's less than a 1% hiring rate. Given those odds it's not worth it.

Sure but I never applied...they reached out to me. Hence why I didn't read their materials to interview. I've been happily employed the entire time.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#207

Post by achow »

whatshisface wrote: post #167
Nition wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet if they ask you for an answer to a quirky question like "why are manhole covers round?", they expect a clever answer like "they can't fall in", rather than a pedestrian answer like "well, probably they just started making them that shape for some simple production reason, and then everyone else just kinda of did the same thing because it worked."

Manhole covers are round because they minimize the circumference per area that must be cut to make the cover fall in.

Most probably, because manhole covers were/are made using cast iron, which were sand casted.

Mold for sand casting is easily done in lathe (turning a wood on lathe for precise shape is faster and more accurate than sawing).

So as one of the parent comment mentions - it is round because of production reasons.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#208

Post by PinballWizard »

achow wrote: post #207
whatshisface wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manhole covers are round because they minimize the circumference per area that must be cut to make the cover fall in.

Most probably, because manhole covers were/are made using cast iron, which were sand casted. Mold for sand casting is easily done in lathe (turning a wood on lathe for precise shape is faster and more accurate than sawing). So as one of the parent comment mentions - it is round because of production reasons.

My take is because the manhole is round.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#209

Post by thaumasiotes »

dredmorbius wrote: post #185
thaumasiotes wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've speculated that one of the justifications for the ancient Egyptians to build pyramids was as a combination of a skills-development, skills-retention, skills-demonstration, and brain-drain-mitigation programme. From what I've read there's at least some independent informed speculation along similar lines. Brain drain mitigation? Brain drain just wasn't a possibility 4400 years ago.

If you're living in a domain in which your core competency is in constructing complex stone structures, then leaking that capacity to another kingdom or empire would be a risk. Pharonic Egypt circa 2580 was not without neighbours and there was both trade and warfare in North Africa and across the Levant and Mediterranian, notably with Syria, Canaan, Lebanon ("cedars of Lebanon" are a significant reference, as Egypt h…

> If you're living in a domain in which your core competency is in constructing complex stone structures, then leaking that capacity to another kingdom or empire would be a risk.

How? The only military use of large stone structures is as fortifications; their primary feature is that they can never move.

And Egypt isn't even known for its city walls. That's the other civilization of the time, ancient Mesopotamia.

But on top of all of that, none of that is a brain drain issue. You're talking about a hypothetical issue of loss of state secrets. Brain drain is the concern that the local population of skilled workers will all emigrate, leaving the country unable to do skilled work. It's not the concern that other countries may develop the technology to do the same things that you can do.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#210

Post by [deleted] »

MattGaiser wrote: post #184
rgbrenner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly management speak for: don't blame us, we're just incompetent . If you run a company and you have a "revolving door of employees" (ie: we can't retain talent), your managers "are new to the process" and don't know what they're looking for (ie: we hire inexperienced managers), and you "can't get enough skilled interviewers on a panel" (ie: "we don't hire enough engineers and we're too cheap and shortsigh…

Are there companies that don't have a revolving door? Talent retention seems to be solidly tagged #wontfix.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN