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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

#241

Post by phn »

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…

A plumber, sure. What about the guys who design your water heater? Should they just google the thermodynamics as they go as well?

My point being, it depends on the role, and the expectations you have for the future of a candidate in your company. Are you hiring a guy to bugfix or implement a couple of features on your web app? Or a guy to design and implement from scratch a app that should have some hope of scaling in the future? Or a guy that can tackle a tricky performance problem you're having?

I'm not claiming the current status quo is alright, but hiring the right people is hard. Knowing CS basics and generalities of the field doesn't hurt either...

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

#243

Post by swayvil »

askyourmother wrote: post #237
swayvil wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://www.stopcocks.uk/plumber-city-of-london/ http://www.princessplumbing.co.uk/about.html

That's some good googling there askyourmother

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

#244

Post by [deleted] »

askyourmother wrote: post #237
swayvil wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://www.stopcocks.uk/plumber-city-of-london/ http://www.princessplumbing.co.uk/about.html

[deleted]

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

#245

Post by zo1 »

LaurenceW1 wrote: post #183
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-...

You wrote that in 3 seconds huh

Maybe he's poking fun at the fact that in 3 seconds of searching he can solve the problem? A problem that would, without prior maze-solving knowledge/experience, have taken far longer than 3 seconds.

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

#246

Post by p4wnc6 »

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've done a large number of interviews by reaching out through my network and those interviews are no different. The companies involved still have a process whereby they get your resume as an internal recommendation, then move you over to the usual programming riddles, hazing, bullshit kinds of hiring stuff.

Unless someone in your network has enough political pull to ensure you get bypassed around that shit, then network-based interviews are absolutely no different than other kinds.

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

#247

Post by ktRolster »

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…

As she has been a plumber for years, so we recognised her skill

Because being a programmer for years doesn't guarantee the person will have any skill. I met a programmer who had been working for 10 years, and couldn't write a program to swap two variables. I don't know why, but for some reason experience is not equal to skill in the programming industry.

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

#248

Post by randomdata »

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…

You had to put the programmer through her paces because you had so many to choose from. If selection was limited, you'd be happy with just about anyone willing to work for you, but with the overabundance of programers out there, selection becomes a process.

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

#249

Post by zerr »

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.

It's common e.g. in Poland, where men left for work in UK, Germany.
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