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The rise of never-ending job interviews

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Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#291

Post by devnull3 »

aix1 wrote: post #238
devnull3 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fucking nightmare for no reason Absolutely! To add, the amount of nit-picking that happens is staggering. I was downgraded from strong-hire to lean-hire because: 1. I did not use classes in Python. That problem could easily be solved using simple functions. The feedback I got was "candidate does not know idiomatic use of modules & classes" 2. I did not use one of python's standard lib functions and instead I coded…

Did you choose Python or were you asked to use Python by the interviewer?

I chose Python because its faster to code

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#292

Post by vmception »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #222
vmception wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until average, non-FAANG companies can compete on TC (never). And that's the rub. Not only do they struggle to value my skillset, they also can't compensate it accurately. And sadly, FAANGs don't even have the roles in a lot of niches. When you can make 3x what a FAANG would offer, annually, but the companies building in your same niche are too immature and pay 1/3rd of what FAANGs do, its tricky to want to tolerat…

I'm not sure I follow. If FAANG companies would offer you 1x, and non-FAANG companies in your area of specialty would offer you x/3, who's paying 3x?

Solo. Right now I can make 3x FAANG comp on a new idea annually without reaching out to my network or needing outside capital.

Given how many ways there are to do that and much more, I would like the structure of someone else’s idea to focus (aka being an employee). Doing things solo has overhead costs and liability risks, whereas employment has almost none but half to 3/4ths of your compensation is withheld the whole time. So there is a limit to what comp I’ll accept, given the opportunity costs. Would be great if that comp was FAANG level.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#293

Post by lrem »

bschwindHN wrote: post #124
silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

But think of how smart he felt after telling you the answer! That confidence boost alone was probably worth their time to interview you, mission accomplished.

I don't think a (non-technical, mind you) sourcer gets that much confidence by reading out loud the answer key.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#294

Post by cik »

I've never understood this. The first interview exists to sell me on the company, and for me to express my desire to work there. It's for alignment.

Three questions I always ask are 1. What's your hiring process, 2. What's the base salary range, 3. How does the company demonstrate its commitment to ongoing learning. Any reticence to discuss these items means that I learned about how the company just isn't for me.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#295

Post by thaumasiotes »

dredmorbius wrote: post #272
thaumasiotes wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're living in a domain in which your core competency is in constructing complex stone structures, then leaking that capacity to another kingdom or empire would be a risk. How? The only military use of large stone structures is as fortifications; their primary feature is that they can never move. And Egypt isn't even known for its city walls. That's the other civilization of the time, ancient Mesopotamia. But…

Building pyramids isn't simply piling rocks on top of one another. There's mathematics, surveying, architectural design, measuring, logistics, labour organisation, planning, transport, engineering, and a whole mess of related skills. If not kept in practice, they are lost (you're focusing strongly on the "brain-drain" element at the expense of "skills retention" and "skills development bits). Too: once you've got tho…

> you're focusing strongly on the "brain-drain" element at the expense of "skills retention" and "skills development bits

Well, yeah. Look at my comment, in its entirety:

>>>> Brain drain mitigation? Brain drain just wasn't a possibility 4400 years ago.

If you can't defend that, then... don't? Make the argument that isn't obvious nonsense; you don't get more credible by throwing in a laundry list of "concepts that sound bad".

> There's mathematics, surveying, architectural design, measuring, logistics, labour organisation, planning, transport, engineering, and a whole mess of related skills. If not kept in practice, they are lost (you're focusing strongly on the "brain-drain" element at the expense of "skills retention" and "skills development bits).

There would have been no lost opportunities to exercise these skills in the absence of pyramidal efforts. They built temples, palaces, and cities on a continuous basis. Surveying is a constant need of anyone who collects taxes. (And it's particularly important in Egypt, where everyone's property lines move every year to match the extent of the flooding of the Nile.)

As far as I've read, the Old Kingdom pyramids stopped being built when the colossal economic strain they involved nearly collapsed the state. That doesn't suggest that they were useful in employing otherwise idle technicians. It also doesn't suggest that the system governing them was especially capable at logistics and planning. Planning would have involved noticing "this pyramid will cost X amount to build, which is more than we can afford".

> Large structures means civil engineering, construction, grain storage facilities, and quite probably some degree of metalworking and related crafts

I think this is backwards to a certain extent; I'd run causation from grain storage -> large structures, not the other way around.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#296

Post by lrem »

sz4kerto wrote: post #273
silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

I don't think this was scripted; it's a typical sign of bad interviewers when they think that 1) they are smart 2) therefore if you're smart you have the same way of thinking 3) also you have the same knowledge (and gaps!) about irrelevant details Therefore instead of checking your knowledge they check whether you're like them. It's just amateurish.

Nope, the inode question is part of the 50-ish long trivia quiz that a sourcer uses to figure out if a candidate is worth putting on the phone with an engineer.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#297

Post by arp242 »

mitsuchen wrote: post #191
yarky wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You made the mistake to assume that we are idiotic enough to be emotional for job interviews. And that's a risk that could potentially be spotted by a competent HR. > It's harder to deal with people who think they are competent and know it all than emotional kids. Maybe, but juniors are (unfortunately) seen as a commodity by the market. Commodities are about uniformity and adherence to some standard, rather than un…

> And that's a risk that could potentially be spotted by a competent HR. It's a risk that could only be spotted be HR, don't know about the "competent" part. There would be no emotional-kid risks to speak of if it weren't for useless HR. > Maybe, but juniors are (unfortunately) seen as a commodity by the market. Commodities are about uniformity and adherence to some standard, rather than uniqueness. It's making even…

The most difficult people I've worked with were not because of technical reasons, but due to reasons outside of that: inability to disagree constructively, unwillingness to compromise, or just general assholes. That kind of stuff.

Someone without the required technical chops can be useless, which isn't good, but these people can be worse than useless as they can derail and/or demoralize an entire team. I've seen it happen; it's not pretty.

This isn't unique to younger people, but in my experience the risk is quite a bit higher in younger people. I say this also as someone who, in hindsight, was quite difficult to work with when I was younger for various reasons. As I've grown older, I've learned a thing or two and I think that now I'm actually a fairly nice person to work with (I hope so, anyway...)

Everything else being equal, I'd rather take someone with a 9 (out of 10) on soft skills and a 6 or 7 on technical skills, than someone with a 3 or 4 on soft skills but a 10 on technical skills.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#298

Post by aseerdbnarng »

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

Good for you for having a spine. I had a similar experience (not google). I was expected to do prepwork and the interviewer couldn’t be bothered to think up any questions other than following a script is incredibly rude and telling of that company’s culture

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#299

Post by lrem »

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

Now, the inode question is part of the pre-screen. That's normally _before_ you get put on phone with any engineers. How the heck did you get it in "round 3 or 4"? Was your process started from scratch for some reason?

The question is meant to be asked by a sourcer - a contractor whose list of requirements does not include being answer themselves any of the questions they ask. Famously even if you know the answer pretty well, say because you were the original creator of the thing, but answer in a way that they can't link to the answer key, you still fail.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#300

Post by vmception »

atomlib wrote: post #276
vmception wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and I'm in an underrepresented group, we all have the ability to conform our experiences to the reason that matches what other people say will limit our opportunities. It is equally important to weigh each experience against the similar experiences. I've seen plenty of linkedin posts and blogs about people bragging about their quests to get competing offers in tech, some interviewed at 60 companies and did 100 interv…

What's stopping you from claiming you spent 700 hours on Leetcode? (Not everything people say online is true.)

Ok. Not the point.

It wouldnt take me 700 hours to get familiar with all the abstract problems and concepts I’ll encounter, but it would take me a very long time to, and longer to synthesize solutions that are above average, and regurgitating that on the spot for an interview in a quicker time than other candidates.

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