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IBM's Asshole Test

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Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#261

Post by donalhunt »

bityard wrote: post #157
cperciva wrote: post #31

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…

I interviewed with Google once around the same time frame. The position I interviewed for was something along the lines of datacenter operations. I did my interview from a local Google sales office and interviewed with three other employees via video call. This was around the time that Skype was fairly new, but whatever software they were using was clearly internal to Google. Anyway, I ended up talking with 3 enginee…

ex-hwops engineer here...

The question server repair question served 2 purposes:

1) can you identify a minimum bootable state / repeatable failure case? Can you think of obscure corner cases like the metal tray that all the components sit on being the problem?

2) How quickly do you give up and ask for help from humans / other sources.

Both were core to the role. Changes in hardware and firmware often resulted in issues needing to be escalated back to manufacturers / internal platform team. The volume/scale of work also meant that being able to concisely convey what you had observed / tested and hypothesised helped the team identify trends / larger issues that were occuring. Datacenter automation and tooling was very much in its infancy.

Around that time, the org was growing rapidly (doubling in size yearly) so most people ended up doing interviews. Not everyone is cut out to interview so sorry if your experience was sucky.

Side note: I once spent most of an interview slot talking to a candidate about snowboarding. Turned out to be one of the best hires we made (thankfully the other interviewers actually asked some role related questions).

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#262

Post by ryoshu »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #179
hedora wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you can compress your thinking it into something short. Good code interviews test communication skills too.

No, they don't, generally. When was the last time you were required to compose code in a real world situation, in front of someone, while talking through your thought process, all under time pressure and in a high-stakes environment?

Any time you want to rubber duck because there's a hard problem you can't figure out and talking it through with someone else is useful.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#263

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

skissane wrote: post #245
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I worry that this might unintentionally discriminate against culturally diverse candidates. Standards of politeness can vary between cultures (and even subcultures), and a person might behave in a way which is perceived as polite in their (sub)culture but as impolite in the culture of the service worker; an "asshole" could turn out to just be a cultural misunderstanding. Particularly if the candidate is from a minori…

I think this is a fair and nuanced comment. However, you seem to be stating (correct me if I'm wrong) that there are really two categories of situations here - situation A, where someone is an Asshole with a capital A, and situation B where you have a neurodiverse or immigrant candidate that is misinterpreting the situation and should not be dismissed based on their behavior.

I can easily agree that both situations are possible and probably happen in the real world enough to be worth talking about. However, based on my (admittedly anecdotal, but extensive) experience situation A is probably something like 95% of the time and situation B is probably something like 5% of the time. How do we tell when B is happening and can you really fault people for assuming A is happening when that is the vast, vast, majority of occurrences? Is there an easy and objective way to tell the difference? In a world where wrong hires are expensive, can you fault people for assuming A? Is there a better way to ensure that B candidates are adequately evaluated?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#264

Post by gopher_space »

ALittleLight wrote: post #209
eej71 wrote: post #67

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…

I have seen several stories like this - the janitor, or secretary, or whoever is actually a trusted individual who is the true judge of character. To me, it seems implausible, more of a "feel good" story, but it also seems ill advised. Does the driver know he's part of the loop? Does the driver attend the debrief? Does the driver distinguish between great, normal, sub-normal, and bad social skills? What portion of je…

One difference you might see is that the stories all have increased rewards for good behavior. Good behavior isn't something that's rewarded outside of childhood, it's just expected to be your default as an adult.

The comments above talk about punishment for bad behavior, which happens all day every day. Nobody cares about giving the candidate a 'fair shake' because if you know and trust someone enough to listen to their opinion then "hard pass" is all you need to hear. You've decided the taxi driver was savvy enough to make this call long before this specific incident.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#265

Post by inopinatus »

angarg12 wrote: post #235
inopinatus wrote: post #166

When I interviewed with AWS, half the loop interviews were with remote staff. I was shown to a videoconferencing room and asked to wait. There was a pile of VC equipment but it wasn't connected. With five minutes before we were due to start, I decided this was part of the interview and plugged stuff in myself, powered it on, and clicked through some boot-time screens, guessing at the right inputs. A few minutes later…

No it wasn't. Source: I conducted +400 interviews for Amazon. We don't do weird or obscure tests. Your recruiter will explicitly tell you what to expect. It sounds like a mistake.

The second part of the story is I got hired, but not for the job I was going for. Instead, they asked me to manage the whole team.

Note that this was in 2014 and outside of the US, so our experiences may vary.

As a hiring manager at AWS I conducted similarly many interviews, and can speak to a few things. Firstly, there was plenty of latitude for me to include additional factors in the process, as long as the core elements were present (screening + loop + bar raiser). Recruiters weren't always wonderful at candidate communication, especially when going beyond that baseline. Other HMs certainly included variations and additional steps, so this would not have been without precedent. Finally, this particular team were largely former CTOs and tech CEOs/founders, so there was a relatively high degree of eccentricity and wilfulness present; several of my loop interviews were with these particularly unruly ICs†.

So I could not so confidently rule it a mistake.

——

† Rather memorably, after a solid meeting of minds over the topic of establishing robust SRE practices within public-sector institutions, one such interviewer ran out of the meeting room to fetch me a copy of his favourite book on the topic. This is the only time I received a book for free from Amazon.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#266

Post by jlokier »

itronitron wrote: post #35
Karupan wrote: post #9

If only companies had this test for all levels, including middle and upper management, given the larger impact a lead/manager has across the org.

This is one of the reasons I like matrixed organizations as it allows people, over several years, to choose who they work with and encourages leaders/managers to develop effective people and leadership skills. Siloed organizations unfortunately facilitate assholes.

Don't matrix organisations put you in the stressful position of having two or more bosses, who may disagree about what they are looking to see from you, especially when it comes to evaluating your performance and promotion/fire recommendations?

It sounds pretty good to be able to move around in an organisation, but knowing who determines your fate in the short term, and who doesn't, is really important too.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#267

Post by WesleyJohnson »

genewitch wrote: post #196
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find this extremely hard to believe. I, too, try very hard to not get upset at "service workers", but at a certain point, if someone has a bad attitude with me i'll eventually give it right back. This has only happened a few times, off the top of my head: support at ISPs a couple of times, creditors who were harassing me without reason, and one time extremely rude and racist people at a California School transporta…

I'll echo the parent commenter's anecdotes. I'm 43, so I've undoubtedly been exposed to many rude service workers in my days. Honestly, though, I can't remember a single incident. Perhaps that is a clue to my ability to respond kindly, or decently at the very least, and then move on. I'm not trying to "kill them with kindness", I just deliberately avoid confrontation and try to treat people like I'd want to be treated. Golden rule and all that.

Everyone has bad days, and some people are just plain assholes; that doesn't mean you have to treat them poorly, whether provoked, deserving, or otherwise.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#268

Post by cperciva »

joatmon-snoo wrote: post #186
cperciva wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but they were transcribing from the whiteboard onto paper. So everything I wrote must have been transcribed twice before it reached the hiring committee.

2006 was... early. I don't remember when HCs were formed, but there's no way the internal ATS had any level of sophistication, if it even existed then. (Admittedly this is all years before my time.)

From what the recruiter told me, there was a hiring committee but their recommendations had to be approved by the founders before an offer could go out.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#270

Post by bee_rider »

genewitch wrote: post #241
bee_rider wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would make sense as an objection if the taxi driver had specifically been asked to be a dick, to test the candidates. I'd assume they have some idea that the taxi driver is a fairly reasonable person (and apparently they know him well enough to trust his judgement).

English is a tricky language, and in my reading of GP i was incredulous at the word "never", especially since service workers can be in bad moods or stressed and that becomes, to you (or me, or GP), external stressors. Maybe i'm a bad person?

Oh, I think you are right there. I can't think of any times I've been rude to a worker off the top of my head, but I'm sure if we went over my life with a thin tooth comb we could find some instances. So it should be unusual that for an otherwise friendly candidate, this just happens to be the day when they have an unfortunate interaction.
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