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In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

nytimes.com

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Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#211

Post by 6d0debc071 »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #11
edent wrote: post #3

The original article - http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-huntin... Distraction free reading and without all the annoying cruft of Quartz. Fascinating use of "Big Data" to cut through the bullshit. Wonder if it will change anything. I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR.

I doubt the interviews will be less tough, they'll just be differently tough. After all, they're just changing the mechanism, not lowering the standard.

There are two kinds of hard though - there's the hard that's hard just because it's boring repetitive work and there's the hard that's hard because it's complex and beautiful and requires an investment in thought and background that not everyone has.

And if you're eliminating the former kind of hard without increasing the latter, then your interviews should get easier. Heck, for people in the latter group it will get easier even if you decrease the former and increase the latter, to a point.

Just because you're not lowering standards doesn't mean your interviews aren't getting easier.

Which is also a thing with exams now I think about it - just because your exam's hard doesn't mean it's worthwhile.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#212

Post by hexagonc »

potatolicious wrote: post #143
donohoe wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't reply directly, but in reference to: huge fixed banner at the top of the page, and a fixed sidebar. I see what you mean - but I don't think I"d call that "cruft" but thats my opinion. Thats the Navigation Bar at the top, and the sidebar is a Queue of the Articles in the feed. These are basic page elements. We get feedback specifically calling this out as good and relatively distraction-free (hence your commen…

But the navigation bar doesn't serve any purpose to me, at least not floating. It has your logo, which I care about, but not once I'm deeper into the article. It has a search field I will never use. It has social media buttons I will never use (because if I wanted to share this I would just copy/paste the URL). It has a "more" button that I will never use also. The nav bar is fine at the very top of your page, making…

It has a search field I will never use. It has social media buttons I will never use (because if I wanted to share this I would just copy/paste the URL). It has a "more" button that I will never use also.

Social buttons are doubly unnecessary in the floating toolbar since you already find social buttons at the end of the article.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#213

Post by alok-g »

>> After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different. You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently.

While the analysis is correcting some beliefs about interviewing techniques, do I sense them draw a conclusion again not supported by data? How did they conclude the lack of correlation is "because" the skills required are different and people think differently a few years out from college.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#214

Post by jmillikin »

pathy wrote: post #173
jmillikin wrote: post #132

How to drive clicks in four steps: 1. Invent a bunch of silly riddles that a non-technical reader might accept as tech interview questions. 2. Pull a major tech company out of a hat (today it's Google), and claim with no evidence that their interviews are based around silly riddles. The article will be cited for years as proof that people working at $COMPANY are weird and obtuse. 3. Wait a couple years. Ignore all ev…

I see you didn't read the article. The basis for the article is a NYT interview with a SVP at Google, claiming that the brainteasers are not useful (among other things). Surely that is good source? I haven't got a clue if Google actually used these kinds of questions but the interview sure seem to suggest it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b... That said, the riddles listed are of course a…

The same list of riddle questions has been circulating for at least twenty years. Before Google existed, it was credited to Microsoft. I know they've been explicitly banned at Google for many years, and have seen no evidence that they were ever in common use at either company.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#215

Post by 6d0debc071 »

brazzy wrote: post #58
uxwtf wrote: post #43

"Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco" Why not Mountain View? At least, it would be useful for Google... if the big one comes

How's an evacuation plan going to help you with an earthquake?

Escaping after the services are all shot to hell?

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#216

Post by peripitea »

ctdonath wrote: post #166
rorrr2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, the interviewers often judge how accurate your estimation is, and not the fact that you know (the highly flawed) Drake Equation. These estimates are completely useless in real life, because in real life nobody guesses how many drives you need for GMail, or how many gas stations there are in LA.

These estimates are completely useless in real life Oh yes they are, for getting a grasp on what real life entails and what's possible. With all the NSA scandal/hysteria going around, lots of people are approaching the issue with the presumption "gee, they can't possibly record everyone's phone calls". With a quick estimate I figured recording everyone, all the time, in CD quality, would take just 5% of the federal b…

In my experience, the rare quality is not the ability to do these estimates, but the ability to recognize situations where such estimates might be valuable. Most educated people can come up with reasonable estimates if posed the question, but far fewer realize when the question is worth posing.

Imagine a world where car2go does not exist yet. I would expect most of my friends to be able to roughly answer the question: "how many cars do you need to start car2go in City x?", but only a handful, if any, would have the imagination/insight to realize the potential and ask that question in the first place.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#217

Post by ryguytilidie »

This always seemed so overhyped to me. I did hundreds of interviews at Google and I never once asked anyone a question anything like the ones described. It was generally stuff like "oh hey, you're going to do deep work on our unix systems? What is the difference between kill and kill -15?" We also didn't care about GPA. This all seems like super old information if it was ever true at all.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#218

Post by skrebbel »

hkmurakami wrote: post #61
skrebbel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspected so. Still, as a super-amazingly competent genius engineer with no self esteem, I hope not many companies follow their lead.

imo such nice people do well by depending on nice friends who can introduce them to competent, well meaning teams (I know a few here and do my best to play matchmaker) Btw I noticed you like C# (from your profile) so I automatically like you haha :)

hah :)

I wonder whether the downvote is because of the C# line.

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#219

Post by chaz »

eliben wrote: post #76
edent wrote: post #3

The original article - http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-huntin... Distraction free reading and without all the annoying cruft of Quartz. Fascinating use of "Big Data" to cut through the bullshit. Wonder if it will change anything. I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR.

I find the use of the term "Big Data" there bullshit. Even for the largest company like Walmart with 2 million employees - having some data about every one is hardly "big". Collect a whole deluge of data about each and you hardly fill a USB drive. I realize that reporters like to throw buzzwords into anything to cater to the "simpler" readers. But come one, this is outright silly.

Walmart's DW was 2.5 petabytes in 2008; undoubtedly larger now. Rumor had it that they were storing every line item from every POS receipt since the early 90s, but they probably don't have all that data online. I would think it needs to contain POS data, SKU inventory and sales at every store and distribution center, tracking of vendors, orders, shipments, truck logistics, etc. Even weather reports (remember how they predicted Poptarts would sell more when hurricanes were forecast?).

eBay has a 9 petabyte DW that cuts across all of the types of data on their whole site: listings, bids, feedback, categories, clicks, etc.

Sometimes big data is actually big data, both in terms of raw size as well as complexity.

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/27/why-apple-ebay-and-walmart-have...

Re: In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal

#220

Post by nostrademons »

Retric wrote: post #165
hkmurakami wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I suspect the "tough" interview plays well into a company's PR. from: "The trick Max Levchin used to hire the best engineers at PayPal" Levchin realized the best engineers wanted to be challenged both in their jobs and in the interview process. “We cultivated a very public culture of being incredibly hard to get in. Even though it was actually very hard to get good people to even interview, we made a point of broadc…

Looking for people with high IQ's with the right background is basically a waste of time. There are plenty of ways to define IQ's but 160 is around 1 in 30,000 and there are only something like ~200 graduating highschool each year. If 5 percent of them study programming you looking a say 10 new genius programmers every year. And plenty of them avoid SV for reasons as simple as the limited dating pool. The simple trut…

IQ has fat tails: the extreme ends of the distribution are much more common than a bell curve would predict.
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