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We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#31

Post by krzyk »

elgenie wrote: post #27
marcosdumay wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They think in their head I'm left wondering why this would be a problem.

Not being able to successfully and clearly communicate their thought process about a simple problem one-on-one is a bad signal for being able to communicate clearly about a difficult problem in a group setting or being a useful sounding board for technical ideas.

Yeah, but if you shoot for elaborate ones you will get politicians/lawyers not coders.

I don't have any source but from my experience mathematical/computer minded people are more likely to be introverted/talk less then arts people.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#32

Post by Jemmeh »

Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

Something I've learned from making Youtube tutorials is that you need to have a deeper knowledge to actually teach something. The point at which I study a topic and have it "click in my head" comes way before I can actually manage to "explain it back clearly". As I'm writing the script for the tutorial I often realize there's a gap in my understanding that I have to go back and work on.

The old saying "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" applies here I think. :)

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#33

Post by [deleted] »

watwut wrote: post #24
lettergram wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually how I conduct interviews. It's been immensely successful at weeding out candidates within 5 minutes; although most interviews are 45 - 60 minutes. Basically, give them less than ten lines of code, ask them what it does, where are a couple bugs, ask what would you name the function, etc. Then we talk about how to improve it. I'd say, less than 20% of people I interview pass. It's actually amazingly low…

"Half the people don't even tell me what they are thinking." Maybe they are introverted or simply need to think before they talk. Around 50% of people are introverted (less in usa). Many people are like that and simultaneously quite skilled. Moreover, some environments punish errors, so people who worked/studied there tend to be conditioned to think before talking. "And no matter how many times I try to work with the…

[deleted]

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#34

Post by Jemmeh »

marcosdumay wrote: post #18
lettergram wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually how I conduct interviews. It's been immensely successful at weeding out candidates within 5 minutes; although most interviews are 45 - 60 minutes. Basically, give them less than ten lines of code, ask them what it does, where are a couple bugs, ask what would you name the function, etc. Then we talk about how to improve it. I'd say, less than 20% of people I interview pass. It's actually amazingly low…

> They think in their head I'm left wondering why this would be a problem.

Because you might need to work with the team at some point to help each other solve a problem.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#35

Post by Jemmeh »

lettergram wrote: post #14
Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

That's actually how I conduct interviews. It's been immensely successful at weeding out candidates within 5 minutes; although most interviews are 45 - 60 minutes. Basically, give them less than ten lines of code, ask them what it does, where are a couple bugs, ask what would you name the function, etc. Then we talk about how to improve it. I'd say, less than 20% of people I interview pass. It's actually amazingly low…

Just curious, if you've weeded them out at around 5 mins, why does it take 45-60 mins?

Also, could you possibly just do an initial phone/Skype interview to save time in that case?

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#36

Post by elgenie »

krzyk wrote: post #31
elgenie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being able to successfully and clearly communicate their thought process about a simple problem one-on-one is a bad signal for being able to communicate clearly about a difficult problem in a group setting or being a useful sounding board for technical ideas.

Yeah, but if you shoot for elaborate ones you will get politicians/lawyers not coders. I don't have any source but from my experience mathematical/computer minded people are more likely to be introverted/talk less then arts people.

Having a high signal-to-noise ratio is (obviously) also critical to communicating successfully about code / technical issues. Talking for the sake of talking or waxing poetic about the understood 5% of the problem at the expense of the 95% remainder is a negative signal too.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#37

Post by BeetleB »

marcosdumay wrote: post #18
lettergram wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually how I conduct interviews. It's been immensely successful at weeding out candidates within 5 minutes; although most interviews are 45 - 60 minutes. Basically, give them less than ten lines of code, ask them what it does, where are a couple bugs, ask what would you name the function, etc. Then we talk about how to improve it. I'd say, less than 20% of people I interview pass. It's actually amazingly low…

> They think in their head I'm left wondering why this would be a problem.

I don't know if the following is what the GP meant, but:

I've often had the pain of dealing with people who try to do it all in their head. Sure, one or two are good enough where it's not a problem. The rest of them? They keep getting confused and making mistakes. For things that are not very complex. If they had only written it out or drawn on paper/board, they would not get confused.

It's most obvious when I try explaining some code's algorithm to them. They'll begin with understanding, and then 70% of the way through they'll keep getting confused because they couldn't hold it all in their head.

I've often had to tell these people "Don't try to do it in your head!"

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#38

Post by benjaminjackman »

Jemmeh wrote: post #32
Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

Something I've learned from making Youtube tutorials is that you need to have a deeper knowledge to actually teach something. The point at which I study a topic and have it "click in my head" comes way before I can actually manage to "explain it back clearly". As I'm writing the script for the tutorial I often realize there's a gap in my understanding that I have to go back and work on. The old saying "If you can't e…

That has been my experience as well, one level abstracted. Back when I was a position when I last had to organize teaching employees technical domain-specific skills, the best way we found for them to learn was for them to teach others, this was accomplished by having one generation of employees train the next and then reviewing the newly trained employees.

Then for the next round of hiring, advance the employees up the education pyramid. The trainees become trainers, and the previous trainers mentor the new trainers by reviewing the newly trained employees.[1] It was one of the things I think we did we really well and that I am really proud of (even though the business went belly-up).

When training is done is this pattern, hopefully a virtuous cycle of education is established throughout your organization.

1: Note that this was at a quickly growing company, with recruits that had little to no relevant actual know-how to do what we did.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#39

Post by leeny »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #15

>> An average, successful candidates interviewing in Python define 3.29 functions, whereas unsuccessful candidates define 2.71 functions. This finding is statistically significant. The "average" is too sensitive to outliers and should not be used for such a comparison... [Edit] Being bored I calculated the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic based on the chart. It is between 10%-10.5%. The number of defined funtions seems t…

We actually did the KS test as well, but we omitted the results for narrative clarity. Our KS test statistic is also < 0.05.

Re: We analyzed thousands of interviews on everything from language to code style

#40

Post by cr0sh »

Jemaclus wrote: post #5

> Furthermore, no matter what, poor technical ability seems highly correlated with poor communication ability – regardless of language, it’s relatively rare for candidates to perform well technically but not effectively communicate what they’re doing (or vice versa), largely (and fortunately) debunking the myth of the incoherent, fast-talking, awkward engineer. My interpretation of this is that interviewees who can c…

I've never experienced an interview like this, but it sounds like it would be both challenging and fun - especially if it was done in a language (or pseudo-language) that you'd never seen before (then again, they could lob BF at you or something eso like that!).

Based on other responses to your post, it's heartening to see that others do this kind of interview, so maybe in the future I might encounter it.

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