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Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

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Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#221

Post by gcb0 »

collyw wrote: post #175
tachion wrote: post #170

After reading author's post I've a feeling that its not the programming skills that the author has issues with, but instead the attitude, stress durability, expectations to the world around him. True, hiring can be broken, it often is, but as with everything, the persistence usually allows us to find the proper company with proper hiring process. He's getting frustrated pretty quickly, complains when is asked to perf…

Persistence is a pain in the arse if you have to spend 1.5 hours every Hackerrank challenge (plus you are likely to want a warm up of at least half an hour). Say you have to do ten of those. Why can't employers ask you to bring in some previous work and discuss it? Surely that is a lot more relevant than algorithmic stuff that you likely haven't used for years.

previous work is fine in this case. but i worked at a place that was a pita to release open source code, so i learned to always work open source anonymously.

i wouldn't want to break that anonymity. also, i already had the displeasure of having a candidate turn his laptop to me and show his great coding a skills with a competitor online app store (yes, a major brand app store source), and i had to get involved in all sorts of annoyance from HR and legal. maybe I'm just dumb for taking those things seriously... but i think that's for the better

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#222

Post by swayvil »

askyourmother wrote: post #205

When I hired a plumber for my heating firm, I put her through a hazing interview, tested her knowledge of Maxwell relations and thermodynamic equations. Oh wait, no I didn't. As she has been a plumber for years, so we recognised her skill and experience and cut to the chase. When I hired a programmer for our doomed to die VC life support funded fart of a project, we put her through numerous rounds of comp sci bingo a…

I have yet to meet a professional plumber who is female, and I've met a lot of plumbers (I'm in construction). Just saying, it's jarring.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#223

Post by [deleted] »

metaphorm wrote: post #190
zappo2938 wrote: post #178

"Write a maze solving algorithm" I just solved that in less than 3 seconds. Here is the solution in a Fiddle[0] and the discussion on Stack Exchange.[1]Sorry, I'm too busy solving problems which haven't been solved yet to bother with problems that have been solved. [0]: http://jsfiddle.net/5g7se8qL/7/ [1]: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16173259/javascript-maze-...

and what does that have to do with the author's point? or did you just want to show off...

[deleted]

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#224

Post by lj3 »

user_rob wrote: post #66

I sympathise. I have not agreed to tech problems in interviews for years. In my experience I get more job offers for more $ if I refuse to do them rather than answering problems either rightly or wrongly. Either makes no difference. I have even turned offers down because of the stupidity of the interviewers. Stop doing silly interview questions professionals should be above that.

Could you elaborate? When somebody gets you on the phone and says "could you explain how to reverse a binary search tree?" do you just say "no"?

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#225

Post by unprepare »

metaphorm wrote: post #199
unprepare wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the downvotes on these comments, I'd love an explanation as to why - Am i not contributing to the discussion with my comments? I guess maybe i insulted some CCNA or MCSE-ers

I downvoted you because your comment was off topic. The discussion is about the interview process for business application developers. That is a very different role than what you do.

I respectfully disagree.

The article starts with:

>This is a story about my interview experience in the tech industry.

I also work in the tech industry, I was sharing my experience of interviewing in the tech industry.

More specifically i was responding to a comment that said:

> Hiring in CS / IT is massively more objective compared to most of other fields.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#226

Post by dimino »

bad_user wrote: post #45
stegosaurus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what BFS is. I just googled it. Oh, I know what it is now. If you haven't been exposed to it, it's just jargon. That's the point. You are testing for jargon rather than ability. It is the distinction between saying 'implement FizzBuzz' and going silent, and actually explaining what it is. As an interviewer it is easy to forget that whilst you may have asked a question 20 times, this may be the candidate'…

Trees and graphs are fundamental to computer science and there are only two ways to traverse them. I don't know what kids are doing these days, but I learned this because of my high-school curricula. In other words, it's OK if you don't have a formal education in computer science, but when you don't have it, you need to make up for it by learning on your own, because this is basic stuff that high-school kids are lear…

I'v;e been programming for 8 years and have never ran into a BFS problem. Why do I need to know this to be an effective programmer again?

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#227

Post by bpchaps »

One possible reason is that the brony thing on his github might be a legit turnoff for employers. It's silly, but it's possible. The two people I talk to more than anyone else in this world are bronies (to the extent of going to conventions and whatnot) and have similar issues. Hell, I still don't understand it and find myself irrationally judging them for it, and that's even after daily exposure to it.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#228

Post by luisdaniel12 »

swayvil wrote: post #222
askyourmother wrote: post #205

When I hired a plumber for my heating firm, I put her through a hazing interview, tested her knowledge of Maxwell relations and thermodynamic equations. Oh wait, no I didn't. As she has been a plumber for years, so we recognised her skill and experience and cut to the chase. When I hired a programmer for our doomed to die VC life support funded fart of a project, we put her through numerous rounds of comp sci bingo a…

I have yet to meet a professional plumber who is female, and I've met a lot of plumbers (I'm in construction). Just saying, it's jarring.

Yeah, it's a pipe line problem.

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#229

Post by swayvil »

paddy_m wrote: post #215

I hired Sahat as an intern three years ago while he was an undergrad. It was one of the best hiring decisions I have ever made. He was productive immediately and our (small) team felt the loss when he went back to school. This guy is good and gets stuff done, ask people who have worked with him. I wish Sahat had reached out to more of his network before responding to random recruiters. Tech interviews as Sahat experi…

I'm seeing a lot of "reaching out" in this thread. Is this a new thing, like "passion"?

Re: Hiring Is Broken – My interview experience in the tech industry

#230

Post by reitoei »

bpchaps wrote: post #211
tachion wrote: post #170

After reading author's post I've a feeling that its not the programming skills that the author has issues with, but instead the attitude, stress durability, expectations to the world around him. True, hiring can be broken, it often is, but as with everything, the persistence usually allows us to find the proper company with proper hiring process. He's getting frustrated pretty quickly, complains when is asked to perf…

If interviews weren't scheduled at the drop of a hat and employers actually took the time to decide whether to bring someone in for an onsite interview, then this wouldn't be a problem as big as it is. Fact is, when someone needs to take a day off of work, or to do schedule gymnastics for every one of their interviews of course your attitude's going to get screwed up in the process. It's exhausting, often humiliating…

Flew to Ireland from the UK for a interview (at my own expense). Did a decent interview, never got a call/email back. People can be assholes.
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