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Don’t do interviews, do discussions

thinkingthrough.substack.com

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Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#61

Post by kube-system »

mattnewton wrote: post #53
kube-system wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interview and I explicitly adjust for this in my interviews. Anxiety is not too hard to pick up on, especially if you know family and friends who have it, and I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt in the case that I do notice it. Many people with social anxiety are excellent writers and I make sure we always have a written portion of our evaluation to give them.

I also do interviews, but find it is really hard to adjust for this. If a person repeatedly locks up and you give them space to come down from their anxious position for example, you simply get less signal than the person who confidently talks through their thought process the whole time and arrives at the right answer. Is the written portion the way to offset this in your experience? In addition to being hard to squ…

I’ve had some candidates who were mediocre in the verbal portion who blew me out of the water with their writing. They were clearly smart and capable people but were just anxious. I recommend these people be hired.

I’ve also had people who did great in the verbal portion completely make a fool of themselves in the written portion. They have the confidence and social ability, but they often show they’re missing the skills. They’d probably make better sales people than engineers.

I haven’t yet had someone who totally bombed the verbal do a good job in the written portion. All of the ones I’ve had were just overall poor communicators. If you can’t communicate an idea verbally or written, it’s going to be tough to work with a team of people who like to self-organize.

I don’t put the written portion in any time-block, if that’s what you’re saying. I normally give it via email and give people a week to get back to me.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#62

Post by marcodave »

CalRobert wrote: post #26

I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

> If nothing else, it's _amazing_ for negotiating. "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders

My cynical self is thinking whether this is (one of) the reason why young people are preferred in our industry.

Young = Less experience in negotiating = lower wage

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#63

Post by pdpi »

jstx1 wrote: post #25
monocasa wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discussion style interviews aren't about pretending they're not interviewing you though.

The title is "Don't do interviews, do discussions". That's repeated in the main text. The author seems to be concerned about the feeling of "I am being evaluated". I think that's counterproductive because it's false - being evaluatated is the whole point of the conversation and it's better if both sides were honest about it instead of lying to each other and playing games.

"Interview" is ambiguous here. No matter what you do, it's always true that you're interviewing the candidate in the "assessing a candidate" sense, but you don't have to do this by interviewing them in the sense of "question and answer format you'd see a journalist use".

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#64

Post by jstx1 »

jfengel wrote: post #60
jstx1 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm kind of stiff in conversations with strangers but decent at programming, does that mean that your company doesn't have a place for me?

The problem with "decent at programming" is that it's often only a fraction of the job. You rarely get formal specifications and clear orders. Nearly everything involves discussion of the user's needs or eliciting the circumstances of a bug. Real programming is very little like they teach in school and even less like coding competition. Being good at programming is great, and mandatory, but if you can't also have a c…

In my experience there's a big difference between an interview and talking/communicating/collaborating with coworkers. I don't think that you can use one as a reliable predictor of the other.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#65

Post by jfengel »

jstx1 wrote: post #64
jfengel wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "decent at programming" is that it's often only a fraction of the job. You rarely get formal specifications and clear orders. Nearly everything involves discussion of the user's needs or eliciting the circumstances of a bug. Real programming is very little like they teach in school and even less like coding competition. Being good at programming is great, and mandatory, but if you can't also have a c…

In my experience there's a big difference between an interview and talking/communicating/collaborating with coworkers. I don't think that you can use one as a reliable predictor of the other.

I think that's the point of TFA. You can never predict perfectly but it might be a closer approximation than a traditional interview.

At least you're talking about programming, something you should know about. In the actual job you'll have to talk about the subject domain, which you aren't always an expert in.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#67

Post by ab_testing »

I think the author has not really interviewed in the past couple of months / years. Now-a-days I see interviewers skipping the pleasantries and straight jumping on to LC style questions. In fact, in a lot of companies, the first couple of rounds are online assessments where you try to pound on LC mediums or hards without even talking to anybody else

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#68

Post by chiefalchemist »

> This makes me (and I guess most of us) nervous.

It doesn't me nervous. It makes me wonder if they know what year it is. :)

Ultimately, it's a relationship. Yes, it has to work for them. But it has to work for me as well. Fit matters.

If they're doing all the asking and I'm doing all the answering that's a red flag. If we get to the end and they say "We have a couple minutes left...do you have any questions?" That's another red flag.

Put another way, as I've said before:

How you hire is who you hire.

So if you're hiring ppl that can't see your red flags...well...um...that's a red flag ;)

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#69

Post by chiefalchemist »

mattnewton wrote: post #32
CalRobert wrote: post #26

I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If no…

I wonder how much "interviewing" is really testing the kind of performance anxiety that people without other good offers yet have. I experience this too as I not just as I progressed in my career, but even within one batch of interviewing. I've always tried to batch as many interviews as I can. By the third interview I am feeling much less anxious and just perform much better and by the fourth or fifth I am nailing t…

Do you really want to work for any outfit that believes that's a tactic that brings out the best in someone?

Hard pass.

Re: Don’t do interviews, do discussions

#70

Post by vmception »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #41
sillysaurusx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the proper way to negotiate. Most people don't do it while they have a job, only when they want one, and it puts them at a serious disadvantage.

The flip side is it will often get you dropped out of most interview funnels since you're likely to be a waste of time.

Which is fine because you arent desparate
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