251–260 of 604 posts
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When I started reading my brain went straight to Von Neumann. Now I really want to read a fanfic about a story where John Von Neumann is invited to a Google interview.
Maybe not Von Neumann at google, but how about Feynman at Microsoft? https://sellsbrothers.com/12395
This is giving me vietnam-style university flashbacks.
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Not the OP, but for my money, a company that does that isn't a company to work for. I don't work for free and you shouldn't either.
Honest question: What difference does it make whether you work on a l33tcode question or a real problem in the interview? At least the real problem has a chance of being interesting. Sometimes I do give candidates examples of real challenges we're facing. The purpose is not to get anything for free, but rather to see if they're good at coming up with new ideas. It also gets boring asking the same questions that may o…
When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…
That's really unprofessional. I've never talked to anybody at Google who administered a "I don't know the algorithm" interview like that. They would have been spanked badly by the interview committee, if repeating this behavior. If I may ask, why in that interview did you just sit there and not ask any questions? I've passed code interviews where I learned an entire new algorithm on the fly (funny how knowing there i…
I wasn't silent for half an hour, just for the first couple minutes; but I didn't write any code (which is what the interviewer was pressing me to do).
(Speaking of entirely new algorithms though, there was an interview question which was a thinly disguised 3SUM, and they expected the very obvious N^2 solution; my interviewers were shocked when I pointed out that the way they had structured the problem, the density was high enough to use a convolution and solve it in N log N time.)
Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…
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Meh, I definitely want to filter out people who can't handle situations like this, because honestly they come up all the time. Uncertainty in ownership, data not matching up, clarity lacking; how people behave in these scenarios is basically how they'll behave at their job. I don't think it's an "asshole" behavior to induce stress during an interview and observe results. What else are you supposed to do?
It isn't just inducing stress that tells me they are an asshole. Interviews are inherently stressful, there is little need to intentionally add extra stress on top. The dishonesty is also a problem. Interviews are a two-way street. The first impression this gives candidates is that their employer will think nothing of lying to their face and employees will so regularly be under stress that handling stress well is one…
When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…
Maybe it's just me, but the interviewer not knowing the solution is extremely off putting.
Also like outright lying, given what happened next. Not exactly the best company culture.
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Was told if you interview with the FBI, the interview starts the moment you go through the door. And be careful what you say at the bar.
The FBI has a bar inside their offices?
Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…
Hm, I don't dig this. I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. People are stressed heading into an interview, and may be upset afterwards. Unless they're interviewing for a public-facing role, I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and discussing it with a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that make…
It's a bit like psychological or sociological studies. All the time, for ethics reasons, the researchers must tell the subjects than they are part of a psychological or sociological test. But, the test is generally not exactly what is said to the people. For example by testing something hidden or by using actors. See for example the Asch conformity experiments or the Cognitive Dissonance Experiment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
https://explorable.com/cognitive-dissonance-experiment
In this case the people where told than they where tested, no surprise here... That said, is it really ethic to trick people by telling them than they are tested on "something" but in reality testing them on something else ?
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Hm, I don't dig this. I don't think it's ethical to evaluate a candidate's interactions when they weren't informed they were being evaluated. People are stressed heading into an interview, and may be upset afterwards. Unless they're interviewing for a public-facing role, I don't see how this behavior is relevant to the job; and discussing it with a hiring committee invites all sorts of "cultural fit" biases that make…
I don't want to work with anyone who treats service workers like garbage, no matter what mood they are in. I have never in my life, no matter how bad or good of a day I am having, taken my frustrations out on a service worker for whatever internal/external stressors are happening to me.
Ive worked retail for quite some time but broke out into IT. But the abuse is expected in retail. Managers are paid minimally more to deal with it - and that's to prevent customer complaints to corporate.
Pretty much everyone, at some time, has flailed out at restaurant or retail staff. It's terrible, but part of the expectations.