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IBM's Asshole Test

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Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#531

Post by munificent »

cperciva wrote: post #31

When I interviewed at Google in 2006, one of the interviewers asked me to write code for solving a particular problem. I replied along the lines of "ok I need to think about this, it's not obvious how to solve it" and started thinking. Time ticked away. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. The interviewer started reminding me that he needed me to write some code and if there wasn't anything for him to copy dow…

I think you're operating under a misunderstanding of how these interviews work.

The goal is not to see how many algorithms you know. Algorithms are easy to learn on the job.

The goal is to see how you think in a social setting. How you approach a vague, imperfectly stated problem. Do you ask questions to gather more requirements? State assumptions? Then, based on that, how you try to break it down into smaller pieces. Are there different ways to model the problem or lenses you can apply? Can you think of this as a graph? A tree? A database? Can you incorporate ideas from the interviewer on the fly?

The software engineering job is about taking vague problems and turning them into working code with a help of a team, and the interview process is trying emulate that as best as possible under the weird limitations of an interview.

You can pass an interview without getting any of the "answers" "right" and you can fail them even while blasting out perfect algorithms on the whiteboard.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#532

Post by silversmith »

ALittleLight wrote: post #209
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 have seen several stories like this - the janitor, or secretary, or whoever is actually a trusted individual who is the true judge of character. To me, it seems implausible, more of a "feel good" story, but it also seems ill advised. Does the driver know he's part of the loop? Does the driver attend the debrief? Does the driver distinguish between great, normal, sub-normal, and bad social skills? What portion of je…

And maybe the candidate came in with a haircut that reminded the interviewer of an abusive ex partner. Let's not pretend that interviewers are somehow objective judges of character - each and every one of us has biases, and that's okay.

I very much doubt that the taxi driver in this story had hiring veto powers. But as a "does this person act as an asshole" test, with possible results of "yes" and "maybe" is still very valuable - you get to remove the (apparent) assholes from your selection pool, and focus on those that might have enough decency to not be assholes in public.

And often enough that's all you need. If you are always polite and respectful in public, but secretly get off on feeding baby chicks to your pet snake... that's weird, but not a dealbreaker for working together. As long as there's no spillover into your public life, I'm not here to judge.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#533

Post by greyhair »

rowanG077 wrote: post #385
gopher_space wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference you might see is that the stories all have increased rewards for good behavior. Good behavior isn't something that's rewarded outside of childhood, it's just expected to be your default as an adult. The comments above talk about punishment for bad behavior, which happens all day every day. Nobody cares about giving the candidate a 'fair shake' because if you know and trust someone enough to listen to t…

Good behaviour is not rewarded? You and I must live in very different worlds then. Good behaviour is literally rewarded to me everyday. The time you help a colleague with a problem a few times leading to them vouching for you for another job. Going the extra mile for a work project allowing you more leeway in your planning out your hours. Making chitchat with the fast food worker that you get your sandwich from once…

You and me both.

The last two thirds of my so far 38 (next month!) year career have been "call Doug, he knows this particular topic and he is a great team player". Most of those from people I never worked with, but they were asking friends for recommendations.

So yeah, good behavior has fueled the two thirds of my career where I earned about eighty percent of my income.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#534

Post by InfiniteRand »

rowanG077 wrote: post #385
gopher_space wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One difference you might see is that the stories all have increased rewards for good behavior. Good behavior isn't something that's rewarded outside of childhood, it's just expected to be your default as an adult. The comments above talk about punishment for bad behavior, which happens all day every day. Nobody cares about giving the candidate a 'fair shake' because if you know and trust someone enough to listen to t…

Good behaviour is not rewarded? You and I must live in very different worlds then. Good behaviour is literally rewarded to me everyday. The time you help a colleague with a problem a few times leading to them vouching for you for another job. Going the extra mile for a work project allowing you more leeway in your planning out your hours. Making chitchat with the fast food worker that you get your sandwich from once…

Years of good behavior has given me a very valuable reward. I have a mood disorder and anxiety issues, and while it is controlled by medication and therapy and coping techniques, etc. every now and then it does cause me problems. So occasionally I have a few weeks where my productivity drops significantly. But people in the company like me, because I have built a reputation as a helpful person, a hard worker, and a pleasant colleague. So I get the benefit of the doubt if I am having an off-week or two.

So yeah, my experience lines up with yours.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#535

Post by greyhair »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #115
f0e4c2f7 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This story strikes me as pretty funny. As if he might say "damn, I was hoping you knew. We've been working on this one for weeks!"

I once walked into an interview where some code was already written on a whiteboard. It was presented to me as a "find the problem with the code" sort of puzzle, and I pointed out the one big logic problem with it's algorithm and wrote a quick fix. The interviewer responded with "hold on", and grabbed a colleague, pointed at the whiteboard, and the colleague said "yes! that'll fix it!" and ran off. I was offered the…

I had an interview question that dealt with knowing some crazy shit about C data structure layout and pointers and casting. (Embedded development position)

You had to solve it on a blackboard, with chalk, and the intent (I later learned) was not necessarily that you got the right answer, but how you worked through it. Did you just lock up? Did you get frustrated? Did you ask the interviewer to clarify with more data? They wanted to see your thought process.

I was able to answer it (not everyone that got hired did), and when I was done, I looked at the interviewer and asked "Do you write code this way, here?". He laughed and said 'no, no no no'. I told him, I wasn't sure I would want to work there if they did. We both laughed. He ended up being my first supervisor at that company.

Hello Dan! (If you happen to read this...)

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#536

Post by InfiniteRand »

b20000 wrote: post #405
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…

proud of yourself for being a bunch of psychos? what is worse, this, or the guy under severe stress taking a taxi and not “engaging” because he has other shit on his mind?

I think the issue isn't if the taxi driver actively likes a guy but more if the person does something so egregious to leave a deeply negative mark (or at least that's how I would use such a report from a taxi driver).

Stress is a reasonable excuse, but it's also reasonable for many jobs to require a minimal level of curtesy even under stress, especially in a highly collaborative environment

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#537

Post by dekhn »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #434
dekhn wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's definitely not true. Even post-IPO, the stock has had tremendous growth and RSUs are evergreen.

This was before Facebook broke the SV no-poaching ring, so the offer probably wasn’t that spectacular. Also, in 2006-2010 any RSU’s would be rather horizontal.

I don't know why people think that the SV no-poaching thing really had a large effect on people hired at Google when it was active. It didn't.

I don't know what "horizontal" RSUs are, but they were options back then, and every year, you got a bigger (more value) pile of them. My total comp doubled without me getting a promotion in roughly 5 years.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#538

Post by FredPret »

jdlshore wrote: post #458
deathanatos wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a flight attendant admonish me for being out of my seat when the fasten seatbelt light was on. But honestly, she was right: it was way too turbulent and my butt ought to have been in a seat. Problem was that nature was calling and the turbulence seemed interminable, and wasn't helping with the nature's call part. (I ended up taking a seat in the rear for a bit & riding it out until a slightly smoother portion.…

Stowing large electronic items (bigger than a cell phone) is a safety requirement, and it’s likely that flight attendants have much less leeway in safety requirements than other aspects of the job. (Please note that I’m not arguing that’s it’s a reasonable requirement, just that FAs likely don’t have the authority to ignore violations.)

If the plane crash lands during takeoff, all that stuff might catch fire/get in the way of a quick exit for the passengers crawling out

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#539

Post by Leherenn »

To get into the national airline pilot training program in France, there is something similar. You're then debriefed by a psychologist. In that case it's not just about not being an asshole, but also about being able to speak up when required, and so on.

Re: IBM's Asshole Test

#540

Post by raverbashing »

Ntrails wrote: post #501
DarylZero wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vetti…

Given how people are reacting, sounds like even telling the story is enough to make people out themselves

A similar way is to take the candidate out and see how they deal with the waiter.

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