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For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

blog.hackerrank.com

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Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#291

Post by frcknfrckn »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #288
frcknfrckn wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not 'the problem'. That's the disagreement. You claim it's not a legitimate tool. I say that it is. We obviously disagree and this is going absolutely nowhere.

You say > Just not seeing the connection between using an interviewing tool and being a dysfunctional company. This is problematic because you're not representing my position. It's somewhat of a straw-man. You're saying that I'm saying that the use of some legit interview tool spells dysfunction. But I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the use of an illegitimate interview tool (timed, standardized tests) is a sign o…

And yet you are misrepresenting what I have claimed about coding tests. I have never once claimed it as useful for determining who would be GOOD at a job. I have claimed they are useful for filtering out applicants who are completely unable to do a job. This is an incredibly useful thing to do when swamped with dozens of similar applications for, say, a junior developer role. But again, this is just a first step. By no means should this test determine who gets hired, it merely helps narrow down the interview pool to something more manageable.

Is there a risk of falsely filtering good applicants? Yes. But that is the exception, not the rule.

Sigh. Why do I keep letting myself get sucked back into this? You see it as an illegitimate tool. I see it as legitimate. We disagree. I'm not going to agree with you, and you're not going to agree with me. So I'm done here. If you'd like to keep arguing by yourself, you go right ahead.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#292

Post by akamaka »

kafkaesq wrote: post #281
akamaka wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on! Every good competition coder I've met loves the whiteboard part of the interview and would happily crack away at problems for hours.

If you think the only good coders are competitions coders... then put that in your posted job requirements: "Must l-o-v-e solving hyperidealized problems with clearcut answers, under gratuitous time pressure, while being watched with others (who already know the answer). For hours on end. Because that's what we do all day here. Serial olympiadists, hackerrank aficciandos, and other competition coders only need apply.…

I was responding to what the OP said about how he has lots of olympiad experience but didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews, which sounds bogus to me.

I'll be honest, I did rate coding interviews as very important, but I changed my mind after working with some really great people who do really badly at them.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#293

Post by bpchaps »

kafkaesq wrote: post #287
philovivero wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be wrong. A vast majority of people find me very personable. I'm only talking about this microcosm of human interaction.

That's the thing -- lots of personable, well-adjusted people do all kind of weird things when plunked into that bizarre "microcosm" of human interaction known as the hiring process.

Yep, and to add - interviews are almost never as reciprocal as they should be.

I've been to 20 interviews or so in the past two months and the common pattern with the worst companies is a near complete lack of reciprocal respect and almost hazing (like GP does). The best listen to what's said and evaluate the content and the character at the same time without the need to do "extra whiteboarding" to prove some...thI'm not sure what it actually proves. What does it prove? I'm really at a loss there.

Another thing about those nonreciprocal interviews is that they they tend to be led by significantly less talented folk in comparison. My friend Peter might know why.... ;)

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#294

Post by mooreds »

nstj wrote: post #228
mooreds wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I actually found 'toughening up' the wrong mental strategy, but rather "not giving a damn". I believe this is called having a great BATNA. You always want to have a plan B, and preferably a plan C. That's why you should always be networking (and, if you are a company or hiring manager, always be recruiting: http://avc.com/2012/07/mba-mondays-guest-post-from-chad-dick... ). I find that contracting is a great way to…

Amen with respect to cycling contracts. Landing a great job is essentially about reducing information asymmetry, and this gives a great means of doing so.

It also means you can move on from several different situations without having a series of short term jobs on your resume. Which still matters.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#295

Post by argonaut »

vectorpush wrote: post #226
argonaut wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of proves his point. All else equal, someone who communicates like this ("hombre", "gimme a break", "bullshit") on the Internet is not someone I want to be working with.

What is the point again? If benign turns of phrase spoken on an internet forum factors into a company's hiring practices in any capacity, I'd say it's pretty much assured that it's a terrible place to work.

It's a very rude tone of voice. It's not a collegiate tone.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#296

Post by argonaut »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #265
argonaut wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be harsh or anything, but this kind of proves the point. Crippling anxiety and social phobia are not things I would want in an employee, all else equal, because they will need to be able to communicate in meetings and present findings/work to different teams / executives. Reply: baseline social comfort is not a generic personality type.

That's not how anxiety works. You are crippled while interacting with strangers, not with teammates you've spent 8 hours per day warming up to. You should really give anxiety sufferers a shot. There are some real gems there which you are dismissing out of hand.

Yes, you should give them a shot, if they are exceptionally talented. That's why I said all else equal. But they will need to interact with people from other teams they've never seen before. They will need to interact with executives they've never seen before. They may need to interact with new hires, they may even need to interact with outside contractors.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#297

Post by argonaut »

logfromblammo wrote: post #263
argonaut wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the parent poster was talking about things like the IOI, IMO, etc., which are ridiculously difficult and prestigious and are competitions that occur on an international scale. Each nation only sends a handful of competitors. Not the "Division C Science Olympiad," which is US high-school based.

Well, doing a high school olympiad didn't get me into the university I wanted, so why would a university-level olympiad get anyone into the job they want? It doesn't work as a credential unless it actually produces results.

Uh.... the IOI/IMO/etc. are for high schoolers. Doing well on the IOI (bronze or higher medal) will get you into any university you want. Doing well on the IOI is something that you'd also put on your app if you were applying to a PhD in mathematics.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#298

Post by kafkaesq »

akamaka wrote: post #292
kafkaesq wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the only good coders are competitions coders... then put that in your posted job requirements: "Must l-o-v-e solving hyperidealized problems with clearcut answers, under gratuitous time pressure, while being watched with others (who already know the answer). For hours on end. Because that's what we do all day here. Serial olympiadists, hackerrank aficciandos, and other competition coders only need apply.…

I was responding to what the OP said about how he has lots of olympiad experience but didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews, which sounds bogus to me. I'll be honest, I did rate coding interviews as very important, but I changed my mind after working with some really great people who do really badly at them.

From my reading of the blogpost, I don't see any reason to infer that he "didn't like demonstrating coding in interviews", per se.

He did suggest that some of the problems one gets asked to solve are gratuitously hard, which correlates with my own experience. He also fairly acknowledged that he was getting a lot of rejection for other, e.g. cultural reasons.

So it would seem that it's getting rejected, not "demonstrating coding in interviews" that he doesn't like.

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#299

Post by soham »

vijayr wrote: post #249
soham wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only one way to toughen up: Practice. Be it interviews or sports. Be it negotiations or cooking. Practice and practice perfectly. 1. Take mock interviews from experienced engineers Go one topic at a time e.g. Recursion or Trees or DP or Multithreading etc. Before you walk into the interview, practice well. Do at least 20 problems on that topic, if not more. 2. Do practice interviews at companies you don't wa…

This is very good advice. The only problem with it is - he will be spending enormous amount of time practicing, preparing for interviews, and end up learning stuff that he might never use in real life. Unless he gets a dream job, I don't know if that is a great use of his time. The other option is to look for companies that put emphasis on past projects, open source contributions, take home problems etc and apply to…

One would think so, obviously. Most people don't need to work with BSTs on a regular basis.

However, once you start practicing, a funny thing happens: assuming you're doing it the right way, with the right mindset, you start to enjoy doing those problems. Your intuition hardens and a certain level of system-design clarity sets in by seeing similar problems across topics.

In some ways, that's what I'm looking for as a hiring manager, by definition: do you enjoy a problem that is new to you, but still up your alley? Do you have an urge for efficiency? Can you express your thought process and work with me to build a solution? The problems asked in the current interview process are good enough to tease these things out.

Take home assignments and OSS contributions are also another credible method of interviewing, and has its own pros and cons. To see a good treatise on different ways of interviewing, see this: http://www.gayle.com/blog/2015/6/10/developer-interviews-are...

Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies

#300

Post by leed25d »

I was laid off from my job as a Python programmer in San Francisco on 07AUG2015. It took me 4 1/2 months to find another job working remotely as a Python programmer.

I did not keep an accurate record of the number of resumes that I sent out, but I archived 110 cover letters during that time. I would bet that I probably sent out about 150 resumes.

I had scores of phone interviews and a dozen to fifteen in-person interviews a few of which ended abruptly. I will turn 69 years old in October 2016.

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