Why wouldn't a qualified developer just run the code? Takes two seconds instead of ... whatever you're going for here.
Go on then, what answer do you get? Was it right?
Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
31–40 of 111 posts
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#32If such a trivial test really did[1] filter out many candidates (beyond the technical limitation of the test that some client devices will render the =, as mentioned by users leveraging reader mode), I wonder if there is a greater observation we could draw from it. Personally I would assume 100% of programmers could very easily answer the question in seconds, and if people really were copy/pasting to an AI tool[2], I would assume they are so jaded and exhausted of clever reviews, nine round hiring funnels, leetcode, blackboard code, and so on, that it's just another of countless applications they've made and they just don't care anymore.
[1] Yeah, I'm super cynical about stories like this, and know that many if not most are just invented shower thoughts manifested into a fictional reality.
[2] Alternately they're pasting to a normal editor -- even notepad -- for a more coherent programming font, where again the = appears.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#33I got the right answer but it was so easy I went in with doubt I had done it right.
Which I understand is my issue to work on, but if I were interviewing, I'd ask candidates to verbalize or write out their thought process to get a sense of who is overthinking or doubting themselves.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#34Why wouldn't a qualified developer just run the code? Takes two seconds instead of ... whatever you're going for here.
If you copy it, you will get an extra equals sign due to CSS trickery.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#35Peeking at the source, it's just a zero-width div, which is not accomodating of people with disabilities. This might open you up to litigation if you disqualify a blind person on the grounds he gave the wrong answer 'using AI', when he might have just been answering the question his screen reader read out.
For better or worse, screen readers tend to be less easily tricked by things like that now.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#36Why wouldn't a qualified developer just run the code? Takes two seconds instead of ... whatever you're going for here.
There's a hidden equal sign, so if you copy-paste the code you get a different answer than if you just do it in your head.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#37Wouldn't this eventually get you sued for failure of ADA compliance?
Safari's reader sees the =. Edge does not.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#38I think it’s important to test these systems. Let some % of candidates who get this wrong through to the next stage and see what happens. Does failing this test actually correlate with being a bad fit later? If you want to ineffectivly filter out most candidates just auto-reject everything that doesn’t arrive on a timestamp ending in 1.
_How_ can you be a good hire for a _software engineering_ position, if you can’t get that one correct though?
It depends why they didn't get it "correct" (asked ChatGPT bad, used Python REPL not so bad, used screen reader very not bad) and what "correct" even means for this problem.
There's a bizarro version of this guy who rejects people who do it in their head because they weren't told to not use an interpreter and he values them using the tools available to solve a problem. In his mind, the = is definitely part of the code, you should have double checked.
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#39For anyone who missed the (poorly-explained) trick, the website uses a CSS trick to insert an equals sign, thus showing different code if read or if copied/pasted. That's how the author knows whether you solved it in your head or pasted it somewhere.
The thing I found particularly fascinating, because the article was talking about discarding AI applicants, is that if you take a screenshot and ask ChatGPT, then it works fine (of course, it cannot really see the extra equals sign)
So this is not really foolproof, and also makes me think that feeding screenshots to AI is probably better than copy-pasting
Re: Here is the 15 sec coding test I used to instantly filter out most applicants
#40I think it’s important to test these systems. Let some % of candidates who get this wrong through to the next stage and see what happens. Does failing this test actually correlate with being a bad fit later? If you want to ineffectivly filter out most candidates just auto-reject everything that doesn’t arrive on a timestamp ending in 1.
> Let some % of candidates who get this wrong through Really, the better test would be to not discriminate on it before you know it's useful, but store their answer to compare later.
You're right. I agree.