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An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

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Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#241

Post by frm88 »

stego-tech wrote: post #193
dahart wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we can’t fix it Applicants don’t have to apply to Google or Facebook for jobs they’re not qualified for, and if they stopped, the mess you’re referring to would disappear. At least at Google and Facebook’s doors, anyway. It might move somewhere else simply because there are a lot of people (literally everyone) looking for jobs that pay well. It’s funny to tell someone on the other side of the interview table that t…

> Applicants don’t have to apply to Google or Facebook for jobs they’re not qualified for, and if they stopped, the mess you’re referring to would disappear. Counter-point: employers don't have to pay garbage wages while demanding FAANG-quality candidates, thus focusing the talent pool on the few companies that do pay wages that might help candidates reach into the bottom of the Middle Class. > It might move somewher…

[dead]

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#242

Post by thaumasiotes »

lordnacho wrote: post #98
thaumasiotes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A high-paying FAANG job isn't going to hire candidates based on just one remote Zoom tech interview. What do you think they do? One round of interviews was enough for my Google recruiter to congratulate me on getting a job there. Did I get the job? No. But the process didn't include any other interviews. There's only one round.

Pardon me, but I don't understand. Was the recruiter mistaken about you getting the job?

Yes. Here's the full process I went through:

1. The recruiter sent me email suggesting I reapply to Google. She asked for my resume and put me on track to apply for an entry-level position.

2. I had a phone screen. (1 interview, over the phone, graded to a lower standard.)

3. The recruiter informed me I passed the phone screen and scheduled the round of interviews. (5 interviews, back to back over one day, over some kind of internet platform.)

4. I had the round of interviews.

5. The recruiter informed me that I had passed, excitedly wished me congratulations, told me to expect a job offer within six weeks, and told me that I'd be having some "team fit" interviews over the intervening period.

6. Weeks of radio silence.

7. When I inquired what was going on, she asked me if I could provide an altered resume explaining my employment gaps.

8. More weeks of silence.

9. She called me and informed me that although I had passed the interview process, my interview scores were not high enough to qualify for a job.

As to the question of whether there might be more than one round of interviews, I complained about this treatment to several people who worked at Google, and I've been told by multiple of them that the recruiter was correct about the process and there are no further rounds.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#243

Post by jazzypants »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #212
CharlieDigital wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently been studying leetcode (for reasons) and went through an interview process. It was, by far, the most boring interview I've ever had to participate in. The leetcode problem was easy (detect if two strings are anagrams; solved with O(n) solution in talk about non-functional requirements -> write some API routes -> draw a load balancer (because of course, there's always a load balancer) -> draw a service -…

As somebody that gives systems design interviews most weeks, you’d be surprised how many candidates don’t put the api gateway but magically go from the TCP load balancer to the services inside the cluster, or how basically nobody is ever able to explain how a CDN works (as in, put the CDN behind the API gateway, note I have seen this in a company in production too). Or how some candidates will have redis and Postgres…

I think a big part of the problem is that if you search for most tech subjects, you're more likely to find terrible medium and geeksforgeeks articles written by amateurs than something real written by someone knowledgeable.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#244

Post by aithrowawaycomm »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #198
ryandrake wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am sympathetic to the argument that software engineers should be licensed, which would reduce the need for dumb technical interviews. But I imagine HN wouldn't like that very much. Oh yea, HN hates this idea, but I'm sure it would cut down on all the screening, FizzBuzz, hazing that happens during interviews. If you had a - basic, barebones - certification or exam, that all software engineers must pass, that at l…

Isn't there a business opportunity somewhere, providing exams and certificates for software developers? I find it surprising that many rich companies have this problem, and there is no standard solution yet. How much would it cost e.g. Google to start an independent certification company, with branches in 20 different cities across USA. The top candidates could be also offered a job at Google, but every candidate wou…

What's curious is that in the US there are many IT trade certifications (e.g. A+) and many engineering certifications (Professional Engineer) but software engineering falls into a weird gap. I think IEEE offers some certificates but they don't seem especially valuable.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#245

Post by biggedyb »

:) this took a bit of thought to get the right words..

I am ALL for this, for a number of reasons: - will help people 'find the words' - it's pretty easy to spot someone who doesn't actually know what they are talking about, even if what they are saying is correct and valid - actual technical capability is only a small part of the job.

:D so, 'find the words', interviews can be stressful as all hell for both sides, as someone who assumes the power of the interviewer that's a heavy stick to wield over someone who is trying to explain why they very much want to be paid by you. Communication is _hard_, even if you gel with someone, actually explaining something to them in a way that both people completely grok can be really hard. If someone joined and front and centre said 'I'm using AI to help me with my answers because I find interviews hard' I'd sit up straight and be all 'cool! lets do this!'

'Are you sure about that? what did it feel like?', ok so this one is VERY subjective but it's a pretty solid baseline to go on. Interviews should be a verification that they actually are interested in working with you and that you are interested in working with them. So to be able to make that judgement you and they have to get to a point where the interview can be concluded, and whilst there's a fair chunk of other stuff to go through, technical understanding is important. To be clear, lack of it is fine, that's why different levels exist, you want to be a software engineer but you have no experience or skill? Well ok but you will be starting at the bottom. Now to that, there will sometimes be people who want to 'show a higher level of capability than they have current attained' and that's what my job is, to try and see that when it happens. It's pretty easy to do to be fair, humans experience deeply, computers do not. So if I want to talk about Entity Framework Linq helpers then I'll be looking for the spark of excitement when it suddenly pinged to them that this is WAY easier! And pretty! It makes the queries dance! ..and yes, that's my experience, but it doesn't take much to guide people on sharing their excitement in this stuff, and frankly if you get to the end of the interview and _haven't_ found that excitement or deep interest then skill level aside, you've probably already got your answer.

Finally is around how relevant is a specific level of technical capability? As I said, that's what we have graded levels for (junior, senior etc), and besides this whole bag (for me at least) is much more about how you solve problems than what you specifically know. I've seen people wildly switch careers into software and sure, there's a lot of hand-holding and stuff early on cos it's a proper throw into the deep end, but it's the mind, not the current capability.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#246

Post by RadiozRadioz »

rootsofallevil wrote: post #237
RadiozRadioz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Biased against people who don't perform well under pressure. I think performance under pressure is a virtue. An important job is never going to be entirely free from stress - you want somebody reliable who will take that in their stride, you don't want someone who will buckle when things get difficult. I'm all for in-person live collaborative problem solving, be it on a whiteboard or just a discussion. You see firs…

> I think performance under pressure is a virtue. An important job is never going to be entirely free from stress - you want somebody reliable who will take that in their stride, you don't want someone who will buckle when things get difficult. Some people experience extraordinary high levels of stress in an interview setting. From your comment, I suspect that you are not one of them and might have trouble imagining…

Fair enough. I don't want to be mean, but I wonder, if they are the type of person to experience this in interviews, what other situations would set them off in a similar way? It won't be everything, but I'll bet there's some comorbidity; there is a combination of stressors in an interview setting that triggers them, where else can these occur?

From my experience, there is more overlap with people who generally let stress get to them, than people who are solely stressed out by interviews specifically and nothing else.

I have a relative like this. They struggle in interviews due to stress, they also struggle in exams due to stress. That's two things, I don't want to be surprised by the third at a critical and stressful time in my team.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#247

Post by edude03 »

Honestly I worry more about hiring an oppositional / defiant / insubordinate “asshole” more than the AI use itself because what does it say about an applicant if their first instinct when challenged is to say “your process is invalid, I’m going to cheat instead”?

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#248

Post by dahart »

frm88 wrote: post #241
stego-tech wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Applicants don’t have to apply to Google or Facebook for jobs they’re not qualified for, and if they stopped, the mess you’re referring to would disappear. Counter-point: employers don't have to pay garbage wages while demanding FAANG-quality candidates, thus focusing the talent pool on the few companies that do pay wages that might help candidates reach into the bottom of the Middle Class. > It might move somewher…

[dead]

Hehe literally the first sentence of that first article: “Job hopping is nothing new.” The standard advice when I graduated college was to move around every 2-3 years if you want to get promoted. I’d be willing to bet it was a common story 60 years ago.

Furthermore, all three links you provided are talking about all jobs, including labor and minimum wage jobs, not software engineering jobs. Hopping in those jobs has always been common, and it demonstrates very little about software engineering or even white-collar jobs in general.

Here’s hard evidence that job hopping in all jobs has been going on for many decades: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsoy.pdf “Individuals born in the latter years of the baby boom (1957-64) held an average of 12.7 jobs from ages 18 to 56, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.” That puts the average job duration at less than 3 years.

“Although job duration tended to be longer the older a worker was when starting the job, these baby boomers continued to have short-duration jobs. Among individuals who started jobs between the ages of 35 to 44, the average individual had 25 percent of their jobs end in less than a year, and 61 percent end in fewer than 5 years.”

1.) is cherry-picked post-pandemic data and seems to contradict what parent claimed (rates were just as high in 2006), 2.) you’ve overstated (a decline in rates does not mean it “no longer happens”) and 3.) proves nothing. I’ve never in my life been asked to sign a training agreement (never even heard of them, and they are definitely not “standard” in tech companies), but as you pointed out: the contract is there to prevent people from doing expensive training and then immediately job hopping, which would be a crappy thing to do. If you take the training and stay there for more than 3 months(?), 6 months(?) then you get training. And BTW you can’t complain about 2.) and 3.) in the same breath, or you’re contradicting yourself.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#249

Post by deadbabe »

maxnevermind wrote: post #217
deadbabe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally all the engineers at the company went through the same process. For all the bitching and complaining an interviewee does, there’s probably a hundred people who just went through the process and got hired. Suck it up, it’s part of the job. If you can’t do it, you don’t belong. Simple as that.

That's actually a good point. I believe that BigTech these days look for conformists, not superstar SWEs. If you agree to waste your time on preparation to meaningless LeetCode style interview then you are one of them and ready to be a part of the company. I do believe that is actually one of the things that being tested by such an interview, it's not a proxy for IQ, it's a proxy for candidate's readiness to eat dull…

People would rather get paid $80k a year and be a non-conformist than get paid $200k a year to conform to the requirements of a job. Simple as that. Problem is those non-conformists keep applying to the $200k jobs expecting the $80k treatment.

Re: An invisible desktop application that will help you pass technical interviews

#250

Post by dahart »

stego-tech wrote: post #197
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot use recruiters to reach out to talent, that is how I got my current job. I applied directly and got ghosted but a month later a 3rd party recruiter reached out to me and I got the same job I applied for. Lots of other jobs have funnels through referrals and networks, people can make recommendations of past colleagues. The only way to stop people from blasting resumes is to make it cost them something, for examp…

> The only way to stop people from blasting resumes is to make it cost them something, for example charge $5 — which goes to charity — to apply for the job. That's just more short-termism. It ignores the desperation of the masses for the Middle Class lifestyle they've been promised, in favor of yet-another-hurdle to be jumped over for a chance at a job they need to survive. All you'll end up doing is encouraging furt…

> It ignores the desperation of the masses for the Middle Class lifestyle they’ve been promised

Oh are we talking about minimum wage jobs, labor & the proletariat now? I thought we were talking about software engineering, where the average salary is very comfortably in the 6 figure range in the US. If you’d rather be a plumber or a teacher, go for it, I hear the interviews are shorter. ;)

Why would charging a small fee for applications encourage fraud? I don’t see the logic. The problem you complained about is the low-effort spam applications, like LinkedIn’s 1-click apply-all button. If that was no longer free, it would certainly reduce the spam and make applicants think more strategically about their budgets.

Companies already use recruiters. Recruiters are expensive and many provide low quality leads, partly because of the way recruiting is incentivized, and partly because good software engineers don’t have to move around that much.

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