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AI Broke Interviews

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Re: AI Broke Interviews

#41

Post by floundy »

TrackerFF wrote: post #18
vasilzhigilei wrote: post #14

Interviews should be in-person.

In every practical sense, online interviews are the part of the early screening process. The sheer amount of applicants means that you need to do some filtering before inviting people to do on-site interviews.

So the process is now:

1. Embellish your resume with AI (or have it outright lie and create fictional work history) to get past the AI screening bots.

2. Have a voice-to-text AI running to cheat your way past the HR screen and first round interview.

3. Show up for in-person interview with all the other liars and unscrupulous cheats.

No matter who gets hired, chances are the company loses and honest people lose. Lame system.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#42

Post by tavavex »

mtneglZ wrote: post #31

I still think how many golf balls fit in a 747 is a good interview question. No one needs to give me a number but someone could really wow me but outlining a real plan to estimate this, tell me how you would subcontract estimating the size of the golf ball and the plane. It's not about a right or wrong answer but explaining to me how you think. I do software and hardware interviews and always did them in person so we…

I feel like the stereotype about this question is different from your approach, though: supposedly, it started with quirky, new tech-minded businesses using it rationally to see people who could solve open-ended problems, and evolved to everyone using it because it was the popular thing. If someone still uses it today, I would totally expect the interviewer to have a number up on their screen, and answers that are too far off would lead to a rejection.

Besides, it's too vague of a question. If I were asked it, I would ask so many clarifying questions that I would not ever be considered for the position. Does "fill" mean just the human/passenger spaces, or all voids in the plane? (Cargo holds, equipment bays, fuel and other tanks, etc). Do I have access to any external documentation about the plane, or can I only derive the answer using experimentation? Can my proposed method give a number that's close to the real answer (if someone were to go and physically fill the plane), or does it have to be exactly spot on with no compromises?

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#43

Post by floundy »

amrocha wrote: post #37
captainkrtek wrote: post #13

I’ve conducted about 60 interviews this year, and have spotted a lot of AI usage. At first I was quite concerned, then I realized that in nearly all cases I’d spotted usage, a pattern stood out. Of the folks I spotted, all spoke far too clearly and linearly when it came to problem solving. No self doubt, no suggestion of different approaches and appearance of thought, just a clear A->B solution. Then, because they of…

The real problem will be in 5 years, when current university students having their brains melted by AI that somehow luck into entry level positions can’t ever get to senior level because they’re too reliant on AI and they literally don’t know how to think for themselves. There will never again be as many senior engineers as there are today. There won’t be any good engineers left to hire. Look around you. 15 years ago…

Most departments at companies run on zero to two good engineers anyway. The rest are personality and nepotism hires limping along some half-baked project or sustainment effort.

Most people in my engineering program didn’t deserve their engineering degrees. Where do you think all these people go? Most of them get engineering jobs.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#46

Post by nradov »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #33
makeitdouble wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing sounds to me like just caring for the place we'll be spending half a decade or more and will have the most impact on our health, financial and social life. I'd advise anyone to read the available financial reports on any company they're intending to join, execpt if it's an internship. You'll spend hours interviewing and years dealing with these people, you could as well take an hour or two to u…

kinda silly given the ability of most people to infer anything substantial through finances and marketing copy really company reviews is all that matters and even that has limited value since your life is determined by your manger best you can do is sus out how your interviewers are fairing are they happy? are they stressed, everything else has so much noise to be worse than worthless

It matters a lot whether the organization is growing. If you get assigned to a toxic manager in a static organization then you're likely to be stuck there indefinitely. In a growing organization there will be opportunities to move up and out to other internal teams.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#47

Post by saulpw »

Freedom2 wrote: post #27
captainkrtek wrote: post #13

I’ve conducted about 60 interviews this year, and have spotted a lot of AI usage. At first I was quite concerned, then I realized that in nearly all cases I’d spotted usage, a pattern stood out. Of the folks I spotted, all spoke far too clearly and linearly when it came to problem solving. No self doubt, no suggestion of different approaches and appearance of thought, just a clear A->B solution. Then, because they of…

> most engineers contemplate ideas, change their mind, ask clarifying questions I don't disagree at all. I find it slightly funny that in my experience interviewing for FAANG and YC startups, the signs you mentioned would be seen as "red flags". And that's not just my assumption, when I asked for feedback on the interview, I have multiple times received feedback along the lines of "candidate showed hesitation and ind…

Hotshot FAANG and YC startups don't want humans, they want zipheads[0].

[0] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ziphead

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#48

Post by storus »

Universities and education overall also had their foundation detonated by AI. Some Stanford classes now do 15 minute tricky exams to reduce the chance of cheating with AI (it takes some time to type it so the point is to make the exam so short that one can't physically cheat well). I am not sure what the solution for this mess is going to be.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#49

Post by nradov »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #34
neilv wrote: post #8

> Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and system design rounds. Before that, it was brainteasers. Before Google, AFAIK, it was ad hoc, among good programmers. I only ever saw people talking with people about what they'd worked on, and about the company. (And I heard that Microsoft sometime…

> And we could interview like adults, instead of like teenagers pledging a frat. I think you're viewing the "good old days" of interviewing through the lens of nostalgia. Old school interviewing from decades ago or even more recently was significantly more similar to pledging to a frat than modern interviews. > people who are genuinely enthusiastic This seems absurdly difficult to measure well and gameable in its own…

Being personable does count for a lot in any role that involves teamwork. Certain teams can maybe accommodate one member whose technical skills make up for bad interpersonal skills as a special exception, but one is the limit.

Re: AI Broke Interviews

#50

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

neilv wrote: post #8

> Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and system design rounds. Before that, it was brainteasers. Before Google, AFAIK, it was ad hoc, among good programmers. I only ever saw people talking with people about what they'd worked on, and about the company. (And I heard that Microsoft sometime…

IIRC Google had an even higher bar in their early days: candidates had to submit a transcript showing a very high GPA and they usually hired people only from universities with elite CS programs. No way to prep for that.

They only gave it up years later when it became clear even to them it wasn't benefiting them.

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