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On asking job candidates to code

philcalcado.com

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Re: On asking job candidates to code

#321

Post by rozap »

logfromblammo wrote: post #175
kasey_junk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is giving out an 8+ hour programming project as part of the application process really considered good hiring practice? I'd say 8 hours is too long. I always strive for a 4 hours, but I've seen that 4 hours chop 16 hours off of the candidates time and more than 32 off of the companies. > What's the point of maintaining an online portfolio and a github profile full of code The vast, vast, vast majority of candidates…

Exactly. My after-work profile consists mainly of my non-driving kids getting to their non-school activities on time, the custom-built furniture in my living room, the lawn calibrated to give the HOA conniptions without actually breaking any covenants, the brake fluid level in my 2001 car that is definitely leaking it very slowly, my almost-completed low fantasy novel that I started for NaNoWriMo in 2012, DIY pajamas…

Leaky brake hydraulics aren't anything to mess with, you should fix it or have it fixed soon. It could be something (relatively) harmless like a common hydraulic system shared between the clutch and the brakes (VW uses this design, perhaps others) in which case a failing master/slave cylinder in the clutch could cause the level to drop without compromising the brake system, but even then, soon you will be clutchless. But barring that unusual circumstance, the brake system is compromised and that's dangerous.

Otherwise I agree with what you said, and the best way to tease those details out of a candidate is to have an informal, personal discussion like getting lunch or getting beers together. But that's not enterprise scale.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#322

Post by dpeck »

dandersh wrote: post #219
dpeck wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there are plenty of people who can regurgitate things but not be able to do much with it. I've seen it with CS grads from good schools, its disconcerting and confusing.

That's why you drill down when a statement sounds like it came from a blog/book/screencast. While I agree it's frustrating dealing with someone like this, often times it's easy to pick out the statements/topics that the person is regurgitating.

Agreed, but for people who have to justify hire/nohire/fire decisions to their bosses or other parts of an organization an objective metric is very useful.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#323

Post by spike021 »

w8rbt wrote: post #311
spike021 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the screenshot I took at the time: http://i.imgur.com/FXEHuhc.png

Wow, they are leaving a lot of great EE/CS schools out. No worries, the competition will hire them ;)

FWIW, someone else in this comment thread said they had interviews at top companies without going to a top school.

So don't necessarily count yourself out immediately. Take what I said with a grain of salt.

However, since they do have lists like that (they being unicorn-type companies, I think) they quite likely do use it as a metric- maybe not necessarily a requirement.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#324

Post by mordocai »

mooreds wrote: post #272
mordocai wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We literally never hire someone without a technical interview, but we do look at github/bitbucket/gitlab/whatever code we can find the day or so before the interview. If there's something interesting we'll ask questions about it during the interview. So far, there hasn't been one candidate that had anything resembling a portfolio online, but we don't hire all that often and i've only been doing it for a bit over a ye…

What is your opinion on a technical blog? like http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/ (note, this is mine) Is that more or less useful than a github profile? Just curious.

I think it is about equally useful.

It shows something slightly different than a github profile since it doesn't typically show full projects but both can show off competence pretty well IMO.

Someone with a well written technical blog or good github portfolio is definitely going to have an advantage in any hiring I do.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#325

Post by SilasX »

aprdm wrote: post #73

A startup in Berlin gave me a code challenge that would take at least 20 hours, I had even to deploy in specific version of the libraries, they give the datasets and etc. I was very suspicious of being an actual feature development. I've said I would only do that if they would pay me to. They answered that they feel very sorry for me because a lot of the candidates feel the coding challenge very challenging because t…

Considering German labor laws, that sounds like it should be extremely illegal.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#326

Post by ctrlalt_g »

rbritton wrote: post #316
philbarr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got laid off recently and was applying for all the jobs I could find. So I had to do a bunch of these programming projects. I don't mind them per-se, but it takes so long to do each one and you have to be ultra-clean with each one. I don't think companies take into account that you might not have that much free time. It's particularly stressful when you don't get through. On pair programming tasks, I had a pair pro…

I'm actually in the hiring process at a place currently, and their process is reasonable for someone in my position coming from freelance: 1. Phone screen amounting to about 45 minutes. 2. Skype interview with small code samples between two interviewers at 45 minutes each. 3. 2-week paid trial doing real work. I had #2 yesterday and am currently waiting to hear back from them about moving onward.

Good luck!

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#327

Post by innertracks »

innertracks wrote: post #101

Last week, I finished 2-3 hours of on-site interviews which required a flight and an overnight stay after an initial phone screen, a phone technical interview, and a short technical challenge online. I was surprised how a couple really basic concepts evaporated from my head during the in-person white boarding. The questions though were reasonable and the interviewers were friendly. All in all a positive experience ju…

Just found out I didn't get the job. Gave me solid feedback on strengths and weaknesses. I very much appreciate a transparent interview process.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#328

Post by Chris2048 »

kozukumi wrote: post #128
jcadam wrote: post #89

A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). During the phone-discussion after turning in the project, the mid 20-something lead developer couldn't find anything to nitpick (I could have) and even told me he…

> A couple of months ago I did a 'homework' assignment for an interview (it involved writing a simple REST service in go, even though I have at least one personal project demonstrating exactly this skill -- to an even greater degree -- in my github profile). I would have asked them to look at that code and ask me any question they have about it. If they are not willing to do that I wouldn't have bothered continuing t…

I think it's unfair to say a 25yo is too young to be a lead. I'd also note that the term 'these kids' isn't particularly respectful...

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#329

Post by kafkaesq »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #303
kafkaesq wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your degree is not from a good school" Next time they do that, I hope the candidate says whatever profanities they feel obliged to say to the interviewer's face. And then walks out. By all means, keep posting + telling your friends about this experience.

Its all too common. Probably for the usual reason - it works so well. Many candidates from a 'good school' have been filtered for ability, so essentially come with an endorsement. Those from other schools don't have that endorsement. They may be equally capable, but then again they may not. In fact, often not. So, discrimination is rampant because it works so well. Its not fair, possibly not legal, but hard to stamp…

They have a perfect right to use educational background as a filter. But that's not the issue here.

If that's the filter they want to use -- the time to apply it is before inviting the candidate to take 3 days out of his/her life to fly across the country for an interview. If it's such a huge "ding" for them that a candidate doesn't come from a certain set of preferred schools -- fine, don't invite them for an interview. It's really quite simple.

Of it's a "ding", but they want to give the candidate a "shot" -- that's fine too, but there's no need to blatantly neg the candidate right to their face. It serves no purpose; it's just uncivil and unprofessional. (No purpose, that is, other than to give the interviewer an ego rush, and thereby provide a temporary defense of sorts against their own very deeply rooted insecurities. That, and to basically deep-six the candidate's performance, and nullify whatever enthusiasm they might have had for Airbnb during the rest of the, by that point, manifestly pointless "interview").

And the fact that such allegedly highly educated people would so quickly resort to numbskull behavior like this suggests that maybe's it's not such a good filter, after all.

Re: On asking job candidates to code

#330

Post by troels »

markbnj wrote: post #162
philbarr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got laid off recently and was applying for all the jobs I could find. So I had to do a bunch of these programming projects. I don't mind them per-se, but it takes so long to do each one and you have to be ultra-clean with each one. I don't think companies take into account that you might not have that much free time. It's particularly stressful when you don't get through. On pair programming tasks, I had a pair pro…

>> The best process was the one where I finally got a job. We talked on the phone for an hour and a half and by the end you could just tell we had that, "developer bond". His approach was the best I'd seen. He just talked through some of the problems he had, I proposed solutions and we talked through pros and cons. He treated me as an equal from the start. After that we had the face-to-face HR questions (how do you r…

    I don't think that, when this sort of interaction occurs, you know the person is going to be good at writing production code. But at least you do know they're the "sort" of person you would expect to be good at it, and frankly none of the other methods discussed do a better job at providing that assurance.
I some times feel that part of the problem with hiring is that people expect too much of an interview process. Whatever tricks you pull to test out people, there's only so much that you can actually learn about people through a few hours of interaction, in a contrived context. Talking tech with developer candidates is great because a) it puts you in a natural conversation, which affords you to get some idea whether you like the person or not and b) it reveals at least something about their technical skill - it's hard to fake deep knowledge, if you don't have it.
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