Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

meekg33k.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 247 posts

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#41

Post by david38 »

sethhochberg wrote: post #25
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and multiple people interviewing, as a hiring manager I really need to know whether my top choice is serious once we're having a discussion about signing a contract - because if they aren't, or are still trying to land better offers from other places because they h…

The hypocrisy is that to even get to the point where you have a 24 / 48 hour exploding offer, you (the candidate) had to often wait weeks to get a response to the application, phone screen, on-site, decision.

So I don’t buy this fairness argument. If we’re talking about fairness, the process would be super quick, and then I would get a week to think about a decision that will affect YEARS of my life. To say nothing of things like asking previous salary, salary expectations, etc. Everyone knows why it’s done. If you wanted to be fair, the salary would simply be posted with the criteria that would influence it up or down. There is a reason unions and public sector jobs do this.

Companies have access to far more market salary data than I do. It’s not close to fair.

My job is far more influential to me than the company. It’s 100% of my income and yet I’m only one of many for the company. This should be taken into consideration.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#42

Post by kylecordes »

nullserver wrote: post #11
jtsiskin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The current job market” - tech stocks and revenue is exploding, is the job market difficult currently?

I got an offer from a place (hot startup)that I wasn’t really interested in. Had a call to talk about it, see if I might be into. Oh can you talk to so and so, hey can we do a coding exercises really quick, hey can you chat with founder really quick. 3 days from hearing about company, I had an offer. Then was being pestered about background check. Wait, how did I get to this point? I wasn’t even really interested. Fe…

In a tepid defense of the anonymous company… I would probably also interpret someone in the situation doing a coding exercise as a sign they are interested in a position.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#43

Post by jnwatson »

LaserToy wrote: post #20

Had similar marathon 8 years ago and it is draining. Now, being on the other side (hiring folks for a startup), I would argue that some of flags are a bit misleading. Examples: “Undue pressure to accept an offer letter” - interviews are not free, companies are investing eng time into evaluating each candidate and once they find great one, they really want them to join. They also do not want to be part of a bidding wa…

Especially for a small company, the biggest reason for an exploding offer is there might be a second-best candidate in the wings. The longer it takes the first candidate to make up their mind, the longer the company has to hold off the second candidate.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#44

Post by paxys »

majormajor wrote: post #6
jtsiskin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The current job market” - tech stocks and revenue is exploding, is the job market difficult currently?

I've anecdotally heard from former colleagues that it's gotten tougher to find entry-level or mid-level positions, not sure how broadly that applies, though.

Only because entry level now includes folks who did a coding bootcamp or a couple of Coursera courses. Every college CS graduate I have known was juggling multiple full-time offers months before graduation.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#45

Post by kylecordes »

mooxie wrote: post #17
jtsiskin wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The current job market” - tech stocks and revenue is exploding, is the job market difficult currently?

My understanding from younger colleagues is that entry-level positions are much more competitive than they were when I was leaving college and entering the tech market 10 or 12 years ago. At that time, my experience was that if you knew Linux (at all) or Windows/Mac administration - and were otherwise a good interviewee - you essentially had your choice of jobs. People entering the market now talk about it like it's…

There are many people entering the industry that can already demonstrate their skills well, and interview in a way that shows that even if they are technically entry-level, they likely won't stay there for very long.

This probably contributes to a very competitive situation for traditional entry-level "actually I need to learn this job once I get there" candidates.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#46

Post by glitchc »

sethhochberg wrote: post #25
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and multiple people interviewing, as a hiring manager I really need to know whether my top choice is serious once we're having a discussion about signing a contract - because if they aren't, or are still trying to land better offers from other places because they h…

It’s quite fair. Are you hiring the best candidate or just any candidate? If the former, you make your offer to the best candidate and wait a reasonable time for their response, a week is usually sufficient. If you wish to offer to any candidate, offer to them all and see who accepts, but as you may find out, that’s not actually legal.

But of course you are looking for the best candidate right? If so, waiting for their answer is ultimately the one that serves you best.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#47

Post by statstutor »

vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

"I don't know how to do this, so I will google and skim a youtube video" is very much a culture, isn't it?

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#48

Post by arenaninja »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #31
sethhochberg wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and multiple people interviewing, as a hiring manager I really need to know whether my top choice is serious once we're having a discussion about signing a contract - because if they aren't, or are still trying to land better offers from other places because they h…

I liked to ask the question, "If I extended an offer you like, would you accept it?" It helps facilitate a regular conversation about if & when someone would accept an offer, and if any steps can be taken to make an offer happen.

I was asked this question point blank and it took me by surprise. Then they asked me to name the comp for me to accept their offer and when I did they still exceeded it

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#49

Post by hombre_fatal »

neilv wrote: post #33
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

> I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. If people in a company don't know what they're doing, yet (it appears) have a deathgrip belief in the equivalent of something they found on StackOverflow or in a blog post... doesn't that reflect something about the compan…

It reflects that they might not do interviews so well, but it just doesn’t seem to say anything worth extrapolating to your day to day at that company. Some of the best jobs I’ve had were at companies where engineers ruled and also were the ones sucking at conducting interviews. At those places it was almost a good signal that the interviews sucked. A group of people solving interesting problems, not optimizing for applicant comfort in an interview. Oh well.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#50

Post by vkou »

neilv wrote: post #33
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

> I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. If people in a company don't know what they're doing, yet (it appears) have a deathgrip belief in the equivalent of something they found on StackOverflow or in a blog post... doesn't that reflect something about the compan…

> If people in a company don't know what they're doing, yet (it appears) have a deathgrip belief in the equivalent of something they found on StackOverflow or in a blog post... doesn't that reflect something about the company?

No, all that it reflects is that the company does not prioritize hiring people who interview well, or training people to interview well.

The company also probably does not prioritize hiring people who speak Finnish, or training people to speak Finnish.

Neither of these two signals are any indication that the day-to-day work environment is going to suck.

Post reply on HN