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

IBM's Asshole Test

johnpublic.mataroa.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 604 posts

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#501

Post by Ntrails »

DarylZero wrote: post #463
apocolyps6 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The driver was a specific person that the company knew. Maybe they were a secret homophobe or something, but you could say that of all the company's employees with just as high a likelihood. > It's absurd to trust this person like this If your friend told you "man, my last customer was a jerk" you would distrust that?

A secret homophobe? Who said it was a secret? It's just as likely that it wasn't particularly secret. If a homophobe was working for HR (in 2022) they would hide it, even to the extent of making sure to hire some percentage gays no matter what they thought personally. > If your friend told you "man, my last customer was a jerk" you would distrust that? My personal friend? That's the standard we're expecting from a gi…

> That kind of thing is just gross, is my point.

Observing how people behave around nominal subordinates is not a new trick or one that is gross. It's an interesting data point. This is unusual as rather than a receptionist or security guard, it is someone who doesn't work for the company.

That you think it's impossible to trust someone without formal vetting is really interesting to me. It suggests that formal vetting by Big Corps is useful but knowing someone from a significant number of interactions/conversations is worthless. I don't buy into that at all, I'd argue pretty strongly the inverse is true and vetting is garbage and interpersonal interactions are useful.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#502

Post by actually_a_dog »

kragen wrote: post #328
actually_a_dog wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pair program under time pressure similar to interview conditions? Really? I find that hard to believe. As for giving talks that way, I would not say that qualifies as a high stakes environment. Your likely worst case scenario is that either your code or some bit of technology involved doesn't work right, so you laugh it off and explain what was supposed to happen.

When I'm working on a product I'm under time pressure: we need to get this feature done so we can move on to the next, or we need to fix this bug — possibly the site is down, or the customer's system is compromised, until we get it done. In an interview there's a sort of "pressure" but it's like the pressure of playing a video game or taking a math test or lifting weights: I'm working hard to do my best, but nothing…

You're either missing or conveniently ignoring the fact that almost all deadlines are artificial, and the only thing that happens when they get missed is that someone's quarterly plan doesn't match up to reality. I had a whole bit about that written up in my editor that I decided not to include, but, needless to say, reality disagrees with you here. Software projects are notoriously late, and people generally don't get fired as a result. Your other scenarios of "site down" or "customer system compromised" aren't even examples of time pressure, so I have no idea what you were even getting at.

Oh, and if you look like a dogmatic jerk in front of an audience, there's nobody in the back row waiting to make a mark on your permanent record as a result, just so you know.

But, back, now to interviews. I've been in I don't know how many interviews (hundreds, easily, if we count both the ones where I was the interviewer and those where I was the candidate), and I can tell you for a fact that time pressure, performance anxiety, and every single other thing I've mentioned impacts people's interview performance, and does so in such a way that it wouldn't be relevant on the job. I could even cite research to that effect if you like.

For whatever reason, you're now so out of touch that it's absurd. I had a whole point by point refutation of every single thing you wrote here, because for the average individual, it's totally wrong, and it would cause them harm if they tried to incorporate what you wrote into their world view.

Maybe you truly don't feel the same type of anxiety in technical interviewers that most people do. Fine. The fact that you're (a robot, a Zen master, financially secure enough that having a job doesn't matter, a 99th percentile 10x programmer who crushes technical interviews with both hands behind your back and using the whiteboard marker in your teeth, or whatever it is that makes you feel this way makes you not qualified to give advice on the matter to typical, average people.

TL;DR: No. Just no. I can tell you're not going to convince me of anything, and I suspect I can't convince you of anything, either, but my conscience just won't let me let this go unanswered.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#503

Post by allisdust »

eej71 wrote: post #67

Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…

I'm assuming its for positions having customer interactions. If not, the rejected ones are the lucky ones because the company sounds like too smart for its own good.

What's next? sending a fake date during probation to evaluate how they behave with their spouses?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#504

Post by tsukikage »

angarg12 wrote: post #432
synicalx wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't do weird or obscure tests. I beg to differ. The one and only time I've interviewed for an engineering role at AWS, I was told to be successful I would need to memorise a list of "management principles" handed down by none other than Bezos himself, all of which were meaningless generic platitudes that could have easily been copy pasted from anywhere. And sure enough, they quizzed me on them quite thoroughly…

I suppose you mean the leadership principles. Yes, that feels cult-ish, but is part of the company culture. I personally like part of them, but that's a topic of its own. For the purpose of the interview, Leadership Principles are dressing for behavioral questions. Actually I think this reinforces my point: rather than generic behavioral rounds, you know which areas you'll be asked about. Also you shouldn't memorize…

Not the grandparent, but I'm encountering this particular part of the AWS interview structure right now, and trying to decide whether to bother continuing.

The ask, AFAICT, seems to be for me to prepare a collection of glib little short stories I can recite on demand in response to a "tell me about a time when..." question from a small list of possibilities.

Certainly I can do this; however, I am applying for a role as an engineer, not an actor or a storyteller. It is unclear what useful information this kind of prepared storytelling could possibly convey, and it is unclear whether, if this kind of activity is what the position actually entails to any great extent, I would want the position.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#506

Post by FabHK »

Corrado wrote: post #486
Fezzik wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat related to the anecdote you’re skeptical of: I was a law clerk for multiple years for a presiding judge and if you were a wise attorney rule #1 was be kind to the administrative staff at the courthouse - judges would find out if you were rude and while no-one was ever unethical, in my opinion, arrogant attorneys were definitely grilled more than polite ones. Kindness gets you a long way. And if you were a je…

I've realized the same thing during my career in IT. Being nice (to everyone, but especially) to the boss's assistant paid off time and again. I can't tell you the number of things I got done for me around the office specifically because I wasn't a jerk. Need new batteries for my pager? Done! Would like some updated business cards? Done! My desk phone needs replacing. Done!

The power wielded by the secretary and assistant of the boss seems to be under-appreciated by some here.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#507

Post by jimmydorry »

eloisius wrote: post #484
listenallyall wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cursed out a taxi driver because he wasn’t careful enough loading the luggage But what if this taxi driver really did toss around the interviewee's expensive luggage, with his best interview clothes and perhaps some materials or documents for an important interview the next day? Does the taxi driver report back, yea he got upset, but it was my fault? What if the interviewee just got off a long flight, wants to rest…

What if the driver actually became a taxi driver so that he could embed himself into the company's hiring process, gave dozens of fair, yet informal candidate reviews, spent years gaining everyone's confidence, all specifically so that one day he could sabotage his arch nemesis' interview by lying and denying him a job! This subthread is really getting absurd. It's a perfectly good test to hear whether a candidate mi…

What's the point of having dedicated personnel, a human resources management division if you will, if an unaccountable outsider has the power to veto the entire hiring process? If you take it a few steps further, why not outsource the entire interview process?

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#508

Post by CaptainZapp »

eej71 wrote: post #67

Decades ago, in the days before uber, my employer would fly in candidates from college campuses as part of an onsite interview. The candidate would fly in the night before and we relied on a taxi service to bring the candidate to the hotel. Then in the morning the same service would bring them to the onsite and of course bring them back to the airport at the end. It was a whole curated process. Little did the candida…

A man who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice man.

Dave Barry

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#509

Post by zw123456 »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #443
zw123456 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beats the heck out of me. You tell me, Like I said, I am not sure I know what that even is TBH.

I wasn't alive when the telecom dinosaurs roamed the planet. So I'm about as clueless. Was the study you were a part of ever printed somewhere, like the HBR or WSJ?

the Published a book about it, I have a copy of it some place, I think was called Management Development or something like that.
Post reply on HN