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The rise of never-ending job interviews

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Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#561

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

vmception wrote: post #292
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I follow. If FAANG companies would offer you 1x, and non-FAANG companies in your area of specialty would offer you x/3, who's paying 3x?

Solo. Right now I can make 3x FAANG comp on a new idea annually without reaching out to my network or needing outside capital. Given how many ways there are to do that and much more, I would like the structure of someone else’s idea to focus (aka being an employee). Doing things solo has overhead costs and liability risks, whereas employment has almost none but half to 3/4ths of your compensation is withheld the whol…

You know that it's pretty easy for senior engineers take make >$500k at FAANG atm, right?

Can you share some things in the past that were easy money that netted you $1.5M in a year? I'm genuinely curious.

I used to have a ton of ideas that I thought if I did everything right I could've maybe made $300-600k. But then you can just get that as a paycheck at FAANG.

None of my ideas ever were easy and could realistically generate more than that. Plus there was always a risk they would generate $0.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#562

Post by ballenf »

ladberg wrote: post #226
silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

I had a similarly bad Google experience that I've talked about before[0] but will copy here: I was asked to do a task that eventually boiled down to a topological sort, and I thought the question consisted of recognizing that the answer was a topological sort and moving on because it was over the phone. However, that was not the case. The interviewer wanted me to code it all out over Google Docs, but I didn't remembe…

My lesson learned was "don't listen to what they say, watch what they do". As in, don't trust them to tell you what they're looking for, understand that figuring out what they're actually testing is also part of the screening process.

I don't see a lot of focus on the hide-the-ball aspect of interviews, but is something I've experienced a few times and bothers me way more than anything else.

The clearest time this happened I was told the company was big on pair programming, so I'd be doing a pair programming session. It turns out they meant I'd be tested on whether I could finish a coding exercise in the allotted time with someone watching. There was zero "pair programming" of any kind involved and time spent on collaboration counted against me.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#563

Post by pwdisswordfish8 »

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

> Google caliber, whatever that means

It means the sort of people for whom Golang was designed.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#564

Post by bluedino »

trinovantes wrote: post #301
ladberg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similarly bad Google experience that I've talked about before[0] but will copy here: I was asked to do a task that eventually boiled down to a topological sort, and I thought the question consisted of recognizing that the answer was a topological sort and moving on because it was over the phone. However, that was not the case. The interviewer wanted me to code it all out over Google Docs, but I didn't remembe…

I once had an in-person interview where they gave me a sheet of printed code and asked me to point out the syntax errors. Some interviewers are absolutely insane.

I worked at a place that did something similar. VBA code, printed out in a proportional font, no word wrap so long lines spilled over...

"What does this code do?"

That was a pretty easy one to figure out, it pulled coordinates from a database table, and then it stepped along all the lines trying to find the longest one (they were a metal shop).

"Do you see any evidence that this code has been optimized?"

That was the dumb question.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#565

Post by signal11 »

emptyfile wrote: post #410
Nition wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet if they ask you for an answer to a quirky question like "why are manhole covers round?", they expect a clever answer like "they can't fall in", rather than a pedestrian answer like "well, probably they just started making them that shape for some simple production reason, and then everyone else just kinda of did the same thing because it worked."

What? Manhole covers aren't round. Silly americans. http://lh4.ggpht.com/_LWPSf1_ugFI/TA4tx-22QRI/AAAAAAAAFx0/T1...

Manhole covers come in a variety of shapes. A non-ironic "why are manhole covers round" question speaks more to lack of life and/or travel experience than anything else.

There are triangular[1] and even more exotic-shaped[2] covers.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/g826ve/m...

[2] https://manhole.co.il/doSearch.asp?tp=114

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#566

Post by wjamesg »

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

But you were correct

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#567

Post by bryanrasmussen »

I had a round at accenture about 8 months ago, multiple interviews over a month and a half maybe; and it went first interview with a manager wanted me to go forward, second interview someone who okayed me for tech interview and what position I should be looking at, third interview tech interview said fine now you need to talk to HR head and she will make final determination, HR head said send you info later in day some days later still nothing, about a week later message from HR needed to have another interview with someone, consulting offer came in I figured well this isn't going anywhere took consulting offer.

1 week later the managerial guy called up and said ok everything went through now we can talk about the job I said "sorry, I took a job". He wished me good luck but I'm not sure from his voice if he really meant it.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#568

Post by sdevonoes »

AJRF wrote: post #469
XorNot wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'm pretty sure FAANG hiring is just a random walk. Every now again someone happens to have looked at all the questions they ask recently for that particular interview cycle (or avoid the trap ones like that) and that person gets hired (and then put on the ad targeting team or whatever).

Geohotz had a good rant about this once - the kind of people who need to cram leetcodes and memorize algorithms are not the kinds of people who Google wants to pass these interviews. Makes a lot of sense, you could solve all these questions without knowing specific algorithms as long as you are good at problem solving - which is, I assume, the intent of the process. Obviously it doesn't always work like that.

> the kind of people who need to cram leetcodes and memorize algorithms are not the kinds of people who Google wants to pass these interviews.

I thought it was exactly those who Google wants to pass. Anecdote: ex-colleague of mine who is not specially bright studied 3 months how to "crack the coding interview" and got a job at Google. His knowledge about algorithms and data structures was like mine: I know what a tree is, I know there exists operations one can perform on them and some of them are more performant/efficient than others... but I would need to Google how to "reverse a binary tree" if I had to do it in less than 1h.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#569

Post by lordnacho »

XorNot wrote: post #264
ladberg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similarly bad Google experience that I've talked about before[0] but will copy here: I was asked to do a task that eventually boiled down to a topological sort, and I thought the question consisted of recognizing that the answer was a topological sort and moving on because it was over the phone. However, that was not the case. The interviewer wanted me to code it all out over Google Docs, but I didn't remembe…

At this point I'm pretty sure FAANG hiring is just a random walk. Every now again someone happens to have looked at all the questions they ask recently for that particular interview cycle (or avoid the trap ones like that) and that person gets hired (and then put on the ad targeting team or whatever).

> At this point I'm pretty sure FAANG hiring is just a random walk. Every now again someone happens to have looked at all the questions they ask recently for that particular interview cycle (or avoid the trap ones like that) and that person gets hired (and then put on the ad targeting team or whatever).

This might actually be part of the retention strategy. If everyone who works at FAANG knows that they're somewhat lucky to get in, regardless of ability, it means they are less likely to jump ship. What's the point in applying for another job when you're already paid well and it's unlikely to end in anything but lost time? You're unlikely to win a 10% lottery twice, given the amount of time you'd bother investing.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#570

Post by supersereneblue »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #408
theonething wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is this person not fired?

We have too good employee laws. As long as you are trying your best it is really hard to fire anyone. There needs to be evidence that they aren't capable and even then they need to be given multiple chances over multiple months to correct this problem. Only way to fire someone on the spot is if they are breaking law or refusing to do the work

Which part of the world is this happening in?
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