They Rejected Us • Hacker News Board

Re: They Rejected Us

#251

Post by r00fus » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

laumars wrote: post #126

dictum wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's stunning how much energy, ink and tongue movement is wasted trying to justify most decisions, in every aspect of life, when in practice they boil down to vibes.

I’m a hiring manager and I think it’s a complete roll of the dice sometimes. There’s people who came off really well in the interview who turned out to be terrible hires. And equally there’s been people who seemed woefully inexperienced but I liked their honesty so took a gamble on them and they turned out to be some of my best hires. Then there is everyone in between. You have all of these processes in place to help…

So that's the issue - you're hiring someone and you have no idea which version of them showed up to the meeting, and which one will be coming to work every day.

It's almost like we're trying to solve a taylor series of work efficacy (of an individual on a given team) by capturing a very small number of data points in stressful situations (interviews) and doing a hell of a lot of extrapolation.

Re: They Rejected Us

#252

Post by nojvek » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:28 PM UTC

sjg007 wrote: post #244

hathawsh wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, if Facebook had hired him, it's unlikely he would have had enough freedom to create Whatsapp or anything like it. Even if Facebook knew what was going to happen, Facebook still made the right choice when they rejected him and later bought his company. Rejection can be a good thing for everyone.

Maybe.. but maybe he would have been on the Messenger team and made that What's App.

I doubt that. In most companies the Managerial chain kill bottom up innovation.

There’s less than 1% chance Facebook messenger would be able to live to the philosophy of “no ads, no gimmicks, secure messaging”

That’s why startups can disrupt. It really does reward bottom up innovation.

Re: They Rejected Us

#253

Post by lokidokiro » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

tsumnia wrote: post #175

lokidokiro wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google interviews are four hours long and they don't tell you how did after the interview. There's no way he can possibly know the reason he got rejected.

Not necessarily true, I interviewed for Google once and from the two interview sessions, I have a good idea which one I bombed.

The statement seems to imply that he would have gotten offered if he had been able to answer whatever this question was. There's no way he can know that.

It seems more likely that he was shaky in his other interviews which all added up to him being rejected. If you're an interviewer and the interviewee is doing poorly, do you tell them they're failing? I certainly don't.

Re: They Rejected Us

#254

Post by kevinconaway » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

idontpost wrote: post #104

kevinconaway wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiting is a time consuming task for all involved and for you to casually waste peoples time in that manner is horribly disrespectful

Sure, but that's a two way street. Companies disrespect candidates by making them jump through irrelevant hoops. The job candidates didn't create this problem.

You're right, it is a two-way street. Candidates go in to the process hoping to get a job and employees go in to the process hoping to get a co-worker. Both are acting in good faith

Most companies disclose what their process is up front and you're free to opt out at any time. Intentionally wasting the time of the recruiters and engineers at companies you don't want to work for just to "practice" just seems really rude

Re: They Rejected Us

#255

Post by ghaff » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #194

hinkley wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one is famous. We had a quite lively discussion about it here shortly after the event. Edit: to this day I have no fucking idea what “inverting a binary tree” means, other than the interviewer was too proud to admit they made a mistake. Trees have two dimensions and “invert” is the one you can’t change.

It just means making 1 - 2 -- 4 -- 5 - 3 --7 into 7 - 3 -- 1 [union] 5 - 2 -- 1 [union] 4 - 2 -- 1 as one graph. I must say I'm surprised someone can't write this given enough time and proudly claim "they didn't hire me because I couldn't do this". Seems like CS 101 hw.

As he says, he wasn't a CS major. I can totally relate. I had a pretty popular DOS shareware back in the day (along with some other things). But I wasn't a CS major and would not have been able to answer most algorithmic CS questions unless I had specifically studied them for the purpose of an interview.

Re: They Rejected Us

#256

Post by nitwit005 » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

jakeinspace wrote: post #24

This is like It Gets Better, but for fragile software engineers who obviously are talented enough to make 6 figures some place else. I understand rejection can feel personal, especially when so much of your life and identity comes from the work you've put into mastering some field, but this doesn't seem like the healthiest mindset. I'm just leaving college now and don't have much of a perspective yet, but the applica…

It'd be nice if we never felt negative feelings about these things, but feeling nothing in this situation is probably diagnostic of a psychiatric disorder.

If you're personally rejected by a group you wanted to join, you should probably feel bad.

Re: They Rejected Us

#257

Post by savanaly » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

eqdw wrote: post #64

jakeinspace wrote: post #24

This is like It Gets Better, but for fragile software engineers who obviously are talented enough to make 6 figures some place else. I understand rejection can feel personal, especially when so much of your life and identity comes from the work you've put into mastering some field, but this doesn't seem like the healthiest mindset. I'm just leaving college now and don't have much of a perspective yet, but the applica…

Yeah it feels like they want medals for getting rejected at companies that haven't even bothered to give me a callback. We all get rejected from dozens of interviews. That's just life. Did anybody ever think it wasn't like this?

Yes, that's life. So what wrong with trying to make life a little less bitter by reminding people that a rejection letter isn't the end of the world (which is what it can feel like)?

Re: They Rejected Us

#258

Post by diracpam » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

godot wrote: post #218

electrograv wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm earnestly trying to avoid downplaying his work, but it's only a package manager. I'm earnestly trying to avoid downplaying your comment, but you sound like you have no clue how much engineering effort and talent is actually required to build and maintain a reliable, functional, production-grade package manager that a huge number of people use. Being able to completely implement and support a sophisticated softw…

To add to your points, the problem is not just missing good engineers because they don't study and play the game, but also hiring bad engineers because they study and play the game. I personally know of people who habitually study FAANG interview questions, and make it their career to jump ship every few years for salary boosts. I've worked with some of these people; while they are nice and friendly folks and I consi…

I'm one such 'engineer' who is good at whiteboarding algorithms. I can do well on 'system design' questions but dont feel confident at all about really designing such a system from ground up. I, for one, am glad that I can find gainful employment by memorizing 200 pages.

Re: They Rejected Us

#259

Post by flurdy » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

Like most, I've been rejected by a few companies. It hurts but it is normal. I've had what I thought was great interviews but not got it, and on the other side been offered jobs after what I thought was a terrible interview.

And I've been on the other side of the table many times and rejected good candidates simply because we had what we perceived to be better candidates.

So it is often not even be your fault, just for some arbitrary ranking/preference done by the interviewers that day someone else got the role(s).

Re: They Rejected Us

#260

Post by dominotw » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 8:15 PM UTC

But how do you know where your bar is if you think your rejection is merely a result of companies not knowing any better. Maybe you are not really good enough to work at google.