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

Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

yegor256.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

401–410 of 674 posts

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#401

Post by squeaky-clean »

perfmode wrote: post #306
yawaramin wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about their code quality, but we consume some of their data via APIs and they periodically randomly change their non-nullable data types to nullable. Fun times hotfixing those in prod.

When data comes in over the wire, you probably shouldn't be making assumptions about what's nullable. You should write a parser that fails gracefully if it receives unexpected input. It's the robustness principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

> When data comes in over the wire, you probably shouldn't be making assumptions about what's nullable.

I have to work with their APIs often (as well as Amazon, Facebook and a couple other big players, they're all equally awful).

Their documentation will tell you a type is an integer and will never be null. They will do this for 3 months, and then change it to send a string that can be nullable or empty string, without telling you or updating API versions. It goes beyond robustness. It's the "BigCorp will actively lie to you in their documentation" principle.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#402

Post by perfmode »

klodolph wrote: post #380
ethbro wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a functional difference between "my production code suddenly stopped processing work because it rejected a newly nullable input value" vs "my production code suddenly stopped processing work because it crashed on a newly nullable input value"?

Ideally it's more like "my production code skipped over 1% of batch jobs because it didn't expect the null values" or something like that. Handling errors gracefully is a bit of an art unto itself.

Indeed it is an art.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#403

Post by amorphid »

sratner wrote: post #341
amorphid wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of requiring someone to know a b-tree, how about just teaching it to them in an interview, and then walking through an exercise to see if they get it? That'd be more impressive to me. If someone claims to know what a b-tree, test them on a more advanced concept that builds on using a b-tree that they are unlikely to know. Then teach them that and see if they get it. Make the interview more about working toget…

This has worked quite well for me. I tend to ask one of two types of algorithm questions: 1. Pick a simple but relatively obscure data structure, something they are unlikely to have crammed the night before. I always start by asking the candidate if they are familiar with it; the answer is almost universally "no". I then pull out a wikipedia printout and a notepad, and spend 10 minutes explaining it to them, with dia…

Without knowing how well it works, I like this approach. It's thoughtful and engaging. Not perfect, and maybe that's a good thing.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#404

Post by biztos »

alaskamiller wrote: post #400
biztos wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are these "agencies" you speak of, and how do you tell the good ones from the bad? (This is a serious, non-ironic question: I don't know what you mean, but it sounds interesting.) Edit: I guess you mean recruitment agencies? How does one find the "good ones," other than through bitter experience and/or luck?

He means dev agencies that contract for projects. Agencies act as general contractors, augment your staffing, or provide consulting services. Agencies build whole or partial products, often times for stuff that you use on a daily basis. For example, there's an agency with relationships with many YCombinator companies and builds most of their mobile app or web apps.

Thanks.

Any idea how one finds the "good" agencies? Is it a networking thing?

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#405

Post by poikniok »

vinhboy wrote: post #55
sdenton4 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly false. Other areas have professional exams, but they're generally industry standards instead of given by the hiring company. This is more efficient if you're a candidate, since you only need to take the test once. (Or more if you don't pass the first time.) My house mate just got a professional engineer's certificate after being at work in the field for about five years. Of course, if we had this in swe land,…

This is actually a brilliant idea. > soon-to-be-obsolete tech of yesteryear Not if it focuses on things like basic algos, and understanding basic data structure. Then it would be timeless. And if that makes employers more confident in my abilities, then I will gladly do that. Because it's a lot easier to study for a standard test than a bunch of different tech interview scenarios.

We already have this, it is called a CS degree.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#406

Post by DataJunkie »

Google left a sour taste in my mouth after my first interview there. Recruiter was a mess. I had one phone interview with no coding questions. My resume could not be more clear that my best language was Python. Yet, every single question they said "use C, C++ or Java." It was very awkward and intimidating because although I knew those languages, I wasn't confident with them and the recruiter already knew this.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#407

Post by lwhalen »

ryandrake wrote: post #31

Unlike most of HN (it seems), I like hearing from recruiters, because despite the very low signal-to-noise ratio, there's always that remote chance that one of them could be able to set me up with a "dream job". It's zero cost to me to politely reply to a recruiter and ask for more info, and I try to at least respond to everyone. What I've found is that they must have a lot of candidates they're juggling because fall…

I take it one step further: the email address on my resume is a black hole. Its only purpose is to feed an autoresponder who kicks back a warm, generic, email thanking the recruiter for their time, acknowledging they have a difficult job, and lays out my requirements for any position: what I am and am not interested in doing, my salary/hourly/per-project requirements, my location requirements (100% remote), etc. At the bottom, there's another email alias along the lines of 'yesireallydidreadthisgiganticemail2017@mydomain.com' that goes straight to me. I ask the recruiters to not email that address unless they've read the whole thing, and their position matches my requirements. I get 200+ emails to the catch-all autoresponder a month, and maybe 1 (qualified!) reply to the 'its really me' alias every six months. About once a month, I get an email to the 'its really me' alias from a recruiter expressing joy, amusement, and thanks for spelling out what I'm looking for so early in the process. All in all, it's a far more pleasant way to go about passively searching for The Next Big Role(tm).

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#409

Post by ryandrake »

sumeno wrote: post #352
ryandrake wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've hit on a truth here. Most of the jobs available through recruiters are what I like to call "dog jobs". The ones that aren't filled internally and don't instantly get a line of top candidates because they are so good or pay so well--the ones that NEED someone to sell them. Those are the jobs that are available on job boards and that recruiters and are trying to fill--not the awesome ones. Think about it like th…

This assumes that the Venn diagram of "top candidates" and "people actively looking for jobs" overlaps significantly. The best candidate for a job may not be looking for a job so companies pay recruiters to find them. If the quality that companies were getting from regular applications was better than the quality they get from their recruiters why would companies pay to have recruiters?

I think we're agreeing with each other. Recruiters are needed if the job does not fill itself naturally, and a job will tend to get the candidate flow it deserves.

If there's an awesome job available out there, with way above average pay, benefits, great opportunities for advancement, good work/life balance, etc., you'll fill it with a top talent. You're not going to need a recruiter. Word will get around even to people who are not actively looking, trust me. Similarly, if you have an "average pay for an average worker" kind of job, you'll find that average worker.

When you have a ho-hum average job but you want top talent, then you're going to need that recruiter because the job needs to be actively sold.

I invite anyone who works at a company that pays 3X average salaries or is well known for being an unbelievably great place to work to reply and tell me they have trouble hiring.

Re: Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters

#410

Post by gaius »

davidw wrote: post #172
stcredzero wrote: post #148

There is no point in giving me binary-tree-traversing questions; I don't know those answers and will never be interested in learning them. Let's presume this is out of preference and not ability. It's a pretty basic concept. If your preference stops you from learning something as basic as this as a programmer, then it doesn't seem likely that you will be motivated to keep up with even more abstruse concepts. Nearly e…

> I'd rather hire someone who knows exactly why it's O(n^2) "How do we satisfy unlimited wants with limited resources?" - economics to the rescue again. Everyone would love to hire Linus Torvalds for that matter, but there are plenty of programming jobs where you don't really need to, or don't want to, or can't spend that kind of money. There are plenty of useful, productive positions for people who aren't up on thei…

Everyone would love to hire Linus Torvalds for that matter

Torvalds is very lucky to have found his niche because he is unemployable - the first sweary rant at a teammate and he'd be shown the door. Well except maybe at Uber.

Post reply on HN