211–220 of 232 posts
I failed a technical interview recently. I was asked to write a rule engine, so I opened up Google and read about all the best ways about doing that for about 15 minutes of the interview. They weren't a fan. In the rejection email, they said I wasn't technical enough to fit in. I replied with my offer letter from Google.
These take home projects are a bit inconsiderate to a candidates time. I've done a few and if you don't watch your time. You could be spending 5-6 hours just trying to please people
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But don't expect a senior dev to have red-black trees memorized. A senior dev's answer will be "Use the library implementation. If there isn't one, look for one online I can use. If there isn't even one of those, look it up in Knuth." With no apology whatsoever for not knowing how to do it off the top of their head, because they know they don't need to do that .
I don't expect anyone to have red-black trees memorized. But I do expect an engineer at any level to be able to, say, rebalance a binary tree through brute force.
One thing I always thought would be interesting (but no idea if viable): allow trusted engineers / seniors who have been in the company for a certain time to vouch and directly push a referral through to the final interview stage. Something like a joker. You could also link the referrals performance to the engineer directly and limit the joker to one per year or something like that. When I refer someone I usually do…
Is there untrusted senior people? Or trusted non senior?
How is trust defined? Does this become completely political of who likes you?
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Go on...? Not sure I'm making the connection. I've done that many in a week during tough times.
I assumed someone habitually goes to 10 interviews a month, even if they have a job. I want an employee who works, not is constantly looking for some new gig. Anyway, speaking from my experience in software development, most people I hired (and me, my friends) interviewed with 1-3 companies before choosing a new job. Once or twice I met people who bragged about "having 17 offers on the table, so you need to hurry wit…
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I agree. Phone tech interviews are usually low level screens to see if the candidate has the minimum technical chops to come on board. Short and sweet is what I prefer, especially since I'm usually doing the phone interview on a lunch break and would like to have some time to actually wolf down my lunch. Collaborative code editors are an unpleasant modern addition to the interview process. Plus I'm usually writing th…
"I'm usually writing the code in another window before transcribing it to the collaborative window" Speaking from the other end of the phonescreen line and collab editing session, that behavior looks a lot like googling and pasting in the first answer you find on stackoverflow. We use a collaborative environment because I kind of want to see you typing, sorry. I know, it's degrading, but... it's a screen, it's not de…
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"I'm usually writing the code in another window before transcribing it to the collaborative window" Speaking from the other end of the phonescreen line and collab editing session, that behavior looks a lot like googling and pasting in the first answer you find on stackoverflow. We use a collaborative environment because I kind of want to see you typing, sorry. I know, it's degrading, but... it's a screen, it's not de…
Demonstrates why it is a crap way of testing people. (I often look up answers on Stack Overflow to save time/ thinking. I also answer a fair few questions on Stack overflow as well).
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LOL. You have to have guts, to ask such question.
One time i coxed the interviewer to show me the solution on the whiteboard when i could not figure it out. I kid you not he could not do it and got confused like i did. I caught the punk red handed asking a question he did not know very well.
The one I love is when they ask questions that are completely unrelated to what the position is for. e.g. I applied to a startup company that sold used cars online for a senior web dev position. Their junior dev asked me about a maze solving algorithm. I knew the VP of engineering through one of my contacts and sent him an email asking him how a maze solving algorithm relates to web development. To his credit the VP…
It is on everyone who is not in a desperate job seeking situation to push back on any practice you deem wrong. Expect a respectful and fair treatment throughout and when you're being manipulated, take the initiative. If you can tell the interview isn't going well, why not leave on your terms? "My experience and expertise is in A and B, and it seems the job is more about C and D, maybe this isn't a good fit? Ok thanks…
If you do that you'll end-up jobless. It is not a candidate's market right now :)