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It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

simonwillison.net

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Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#301

Post by colinmhayes »

cassonmars wrote: post #177
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I forgot how to write binary search The binary search algorithm isn't something you can "forget". For a literate programmer it's like forgetting how to write the letter 'A' or forgetting which pedal is the gas and which is the brakes.

I think you’re overestimating most people’s ability to withstand the stress that quiz show style Leetcode interviews can put on people. I’ve literally blanked on an interview before when I was tasked with writing a simple parser and I’ve written entire compilers. The interview processes are broken in most companies. Pair programming sessions with debugging and incremental graduation of the problem scope are way bette…

Stressful situations happen at work. If you're not able to handle it in the interview you might not be able to during crunch time.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#302

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

cableshaft wrote: post #288
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some day I'm actually going to try this in an interview. Interviewer: "Why do you want to work for us?" Me: "Honestly, I don't want to work for anybody because I have too much other stuff I'd much rather be doing with my time. But I need an income to sustain myself so, if I'm going to work, I want to work here because I think it'll be easy, provide decent benefits, and it's a 20 minute bike ride from my house."

If I were in charge of hiring (I'm not), I very well might hire you for that :)

That might very well be why you aren't in charge of hiring.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#303

Post by lmilcin »

maxFlow wrote: post #268
lmilcin wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my experience, for a pure engineering role, nobody seems to care. I am interviewing a lot of people. I look very suspicious at these kinds of moves to try to impress me. I don't necessarily ignore, but I try to figure out if this is some kind of shallow engagement. It impresses me if you can stick to something meaningful and do it regularly for years but you can just as well hurt your chances if you propose 5 si…

I don't keep a blog to impress you. Nor to "try to teach other people"; if anything I use it to teach myself (ie to organize my own thoughts and to document my learning). Blogs are simple media to share one's thoughts, because one likes to write and... to share---that is it. If you don't care for my writing and my sharing then you're free to move on. The beautiful thing about knowledge is that it's free and open to a…

And that is perfectly fine.

You know what is not fine? Telling people they need blogs or open source projects to get better chance at getting work.

Because then I get candidates that spent a lot of their time and effort doing something they did not really want to do rather than getting better at what they want to.

> I feel sorry for the people having to interview with you or working under you, that need to code themselves "out of a paper bag" to impress you.

I feel sorry for the people that have to work with you if you feel ability to demonstrate you can program is not a prerequisite for working in a development team.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#304

Post by swanndev »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #232
adamors wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is nonsense. Nobody is writing binary searches in their day-to-day jobs, and if they do it's once in a blue moon, not every day. You're using pedals every time you drive.

Binary searches should be internalized as part of your life's vocabulary if you're a programmer. You don't use all 10000 words of your native language every day. You don't ride a bike every day. Nevertheless, that's part of you and you don't need to make a conscious effort to remember which way the pedals spin when you ride a bike after a long hiatus.

I don't think those examples are really applicable here. You don't use all 10000 words, but our brains are evolved to process language and you interact with language everyday. Riding a bike has you engaging in a physical activity which is also something that we're geared to remember.

Programming is already pretty unnatural and implementing binary searches and other basic algorithms is really only something you do constantly in the beginning. Over time that "muscle memory" will fade. It's also something that's easy enough to look up and understand in a couple minutes.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#305

Post by commandlinefan »

adamors wrote: post #197
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I forgot how to write binary search The binary search algorithm isn't something you can "forget". For a literate programmer it's like forgetting how to write the letter 'A' or forgetting which pedal is the gas and which is the brakes.

This comment is nonsense. Nobody is writing binary searches in their day-to-day jobs, and if they do it's once in a blue moon, not every day. You're using pedals every time you drive.

The last time I actually wrote a binary search was in college in 1992. I still remember exactly how to do it... because it's really basic.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#306

Post by codeOnMaster »

arethuza wrote: post #262
throwawaylinux wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've made lots (thousands? hundreds at least) of commits to the Linux kernel and have been working on it since pre (git) history, have developed a number of novel concurrent data structures / algorithms for it. I decided to talk with a FANG recruiter a couple of years ago who must have scraped my name from mailing list or commit histories. Despite first making it clear by email I wasn't interested in a job interview…

A couple of years back I managed to have three job offers at the same time - all of which I turned down. One recruiter got really angry with me, one basically disappeared the moment they heard I wasn't immediately accepting their offer and the third had a sensible and mature conversation about it. Guess which one gave me a good impression of their company and who I might work with again?

I'm curious why you put in the effort to apply to several places and passed up on all the offers.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#307

Post by driverdan »

carnitine wrote: post #176
kebman wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this mean that the whiteboard coding interviews are flawed, or that guys like us, who has made a ton of more or less great projects are flawed? Why would a company rather have a guy that can solve binary search in five seconds, than one that has showed continuous progress with several finished projects over the years? Do they think accomplished guys somehow are a liability? Or is it that they want a blank sheet…

Binary search? I would never hire anyone who couldn’t implement it from scratch. There’s no complex idea or trick to remember, it’s the most basic algorithmic around.

Has anyone who's worked for you had to write binary search from scratch on the job? It's pointless to ask candidates to write code that they'd never have to do in the real world.

I've been writing code for 25+ years, 15 years professionally, and the only time I had to write any search algos from scratch was in school. I'm sure I could do a binary search given enough time but I'd probably just refuse and end the interview.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#308

Post by akhilpotla »

It makes the job of the person referring you so much easier. If we agree that getting a referral is the easiest way to get a job, which I think it is, then making the job of the person referring you is the most important thing.

If they can talk about you for a couple of minutes and then email their boss a link to a well written blog post, you derisk the act of referring you. You allow the boss to sell himself by providing the material, so your friend isn't on the hook as badly.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#309

Post by driverdan »

jdenning wrote: post #118
jameshush wrote: post #27

In my experience, for a pure engineering role, nobody seems to care. I had credits at large companies, posted talks online (interviewers rarely looked at them), but if I forgot how to write binary search in 10 minutes in an interview it didn’t matter. This actually made me realize being just an IC wasn’t actually my goal though. Once I started interviewing for management and sales, all of those things _really_ matter…

Definitely. I use a link shortener to track visits to my portfolio links. (Almost) Nobody looks at your public work.

When possible I bypass shorteners so candidates won't know when I've looked, eg add + to the end of bit.ly links.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#310

Post by borroka »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #299
throwawaylinux wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To play devil's advocate, having a standardized process for all candidates has some benefits. I've witnessed otherwise stellar candidates with amazing open source contributions absolutely bomb coding interviews. Real "write a function that does X" in whatever language you're comfortable with and whatever tools or resources you want. Simple stuff. I'm not sure if you're playing devil's advocate very well here, becau…

> I'm not sure if you're playing devil's advocate very well here, because this suggests to me that the interview process did not work well. Do you want to hire someone who can write a binary tree insertion in 30 minutes, or someone who can make amazing contributions to real software projects? Most companies want malleable, fungible engineers. Most companies are not stable, something is usually in flux -- projects, te…

I apologize for the "one-liner". I am busy, I interview and hire many people, and I read resumes. You can do it too, it is one page and it is often interesting, including the lies here and there that disqualify candidates.
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