Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#61

Post by enjo » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:11 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #12

felipe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "quiz" type of questions are pretty ineffective at filtering out candidates. You do filter out the bad candidates, but great ones could also be left behind. Who knows, the person could be an brilliant developer who got nervous during the interview and had a blank. Or the phone call is breaking up. Or the person is in a non-ideal location. Etc... I would not filter out a potential hire just because the person…

i can agree with this. i don't like quiz types of questions either. if i were to hire someone, i'd rather hire someone who i know i can rely upon to get a job done, regardless of their knowledge. someone who knows how to teach themselves, who is able to learn and learn quickly. but, i still think that a longer-form, more essay-like quiz is better than grilling someone over the phone and expecting them to continuously…

I agree. I used to make the mistake of screening on language trivia and simple functional ability (like they're doing here). HUGE mistake.

Now I screen on much bigger topics that tend to be more philosophical in nature. The role of design patterns, benefits of one language over the other (particularly functional languages), value of unit tests...

They submit their answers via e-mail, and within a minute or two I already know if there is any value in at least talking to them in a more formal interview setting. I've found that folks who understand development at this much higher level always handle the basics well.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#62

Post by warfangle » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:11 PM UTC

vax_11 wrote: post #31

Part of it may be your questions, and part may be HOW you're asking (e.g. over the phone, or putting someone on the spot). 2) Not a lot of people write SQL by hand anymore. I used MySQL for years, long ago, and never wrote a join. Then ORMs came along and handle joins automatically, so I've still never written one. So not being able to do it without looking it up doesn't really tell you anything. I've written far, fa…

I don't think the violinist comparison is fair.

Any violinist worth their salt has practiced sight reading to death. Absolute death. It's difficult to do, yes, but if you're playing in any sort of group situation (orchestra, etc), sight reading is extremely important.

Unless you're saying "I drew some lines on this piece of paper that represent the strings on the violin; I want you to play the piece of paper like you would the instrument." In which case it's a worthless interview. Whiteboards are fairly common for code snippits and pseudocode at most of the jobs I've worked. Pieces of paper with representational lines for the strings are used as individual studies (e.g., sheet music) - not for collaboration. That's usually done in jam-format..

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#63

Post by pj » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:19 PM UTC

gojomo wrote: post #38

pj wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... I see your point. Perhaps we disagree on the word "work." When I think of "work" I think of moving a company in a desired direction. A lot of people think of work as "sitting in a cube." The question is, "How do we determine if the candidate's definition of work matches the employer's definition of work?" Maybe what you think you are doing when you are working is actually causing more problems and moving the c…

Or perhaps better: the week's pay is given to the new employee if hired, or to a mutually-agreed charity if not hired. Then there's no financial incentive for the company to cycle through candidates for a free week's consulting.

Excellent! I really like this idea. I'm going to work on how to implement this in my hiring strategy.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#64

Post by Leon » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:21 PM UTC

Eliezer wrote: post #60

Good developers get hired and removed from the pool. Bad developers go to the next interview. http://lesswrong.com/lw/gy/you_are_not_hiring_the_top_1/

That doesn't imply the top 1% isn't there; just that they are more likely to be under-represented. Also, programmers are prone to move to new areas that are more interesting, especially the top/best, so that can skew it back in favor of the upper echelons. It always seems that the mid range to bottom developers are more likely to find somewhere and stay, as they have so much trouble finding a new place to go to. They are the ones that have 'stickyness'.

What is the biggest factor, from what I can tell, is that the best don't send out their resumes but get poached by other companies or use their networking to land a job.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#65

Post by DanielBMarkham » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:31 PM UTC

I would be careful with your questions. There's a lot of bias that you can create without being aware of it.

I once had an interviewer ask me for the five rules of database normalization. Beat the heck out of me at the time -- I was just drawing a blank. I could do the work all day long, but I couldn't remember the stupid names he was looking for.

Similarly, I had a guy ask me to name the seven categories of this course he was interested in that I had taught years ago. Same deal -- just couldn't recall it, although I was very familiar with the material and had no problem teaching it.

The problem with memory questions is that they bias against people who don't currently have the answer in working memory. Simply because somebody has done something recently is no indicator of performance. The best interviews warm up on general questions about the material before diving deep. That gives a candidate time to "change gears"

I also very interested in "why" questions over "how" questions. Classrooms and cram-lessons are really good at "how" questions -- it takes some degree of actual work to understand the "whys" of something.

I've interviewed a lot of developers over the years. 99% of them really aren't anywhere near as good as they think they are. That's sad, but it's also an opportunity for developers who care about their work to get ahead. It doesn't take much ongoing effort to be truly outstanding.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#66

Post by sokoloff » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:31 PM UTC

pj wrote: post #42

lutorm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case appealed. There are definitely people who are capable of solving problems but whose performance drops appreciably under pressure. Now, you may not want to hire those people, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with external motivation or making excuses, and you can keep your contempt for yourself.

As an employer, I want employees who can solve problems whether they are under pressure or not. You really want an employee working for you, or even a team member in your group who can't work under pressure when your site is down and they are the only one who can fix it? If you can't work under pressure, you can't work. Or maybe you can work, but I'd rather work with someone who can work under pressure or who can't.…

Under pressure and "in a strange environment" are two different things. You could put interview candidates in SCUBA gear and take them down 5 fathoms to see how they'd do under pressure, but that's also completely unrelated to predicting their actual job performance.

We don't ask trivia questions (what's the order of arguments to fputs, list all the overloads of foo in class bar) because knowing that (or anything else that's a 5 second lookup or context-sensitive help away) doesn't predict how someone will actually perform on the job.

Can any of us code as effectively on a whiteboard as we could in our favorite editor? I'd expect not, and if you were equally able on a whiteboard as in an editor, I'd wager that it's because you're not particularly good at either.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#67

Post by vax_11 » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:33 PM UTC

warfangle wrote: post #62

vax_11 wrote: post #31

Part of it may be your questions, and part may be HOW you're asking (e.g. over the phone, or putting someone on the spot). 2) Not a lot of people write SQL by hand anymore. I used MySQL for years, long ago, and never wrote a join. Then ORMs came along and handle joins automatically, so I've still never written one. So not being able to do it without looking it up doesn't really tell you anything. I've written far, fa…

I don't think the violinist comparison is fair. Any violinist worth their salt has practiced sight reading to death. Absolute death. It's difficult to do, yes, but if you're playing in any sort of group situation (orchestra, etc), sight reading is extremely important. Unless you're saying "I drew some lines on this piece of paper that represent the strings on the violin; I want you to play the piece of paper like you…

> Unless you're saying "I drew some lines on this piece of paper that represent the strings on the violin; I want you to play the piece of paper like you would the instrument."

Yes, that's it.

> In which case it's a worthless interview.

I'd say the same applies to whiteboards. I have never sketched out code on a whiteboard except in an interview. Of course you can do so and become accustomed to it, just like you can finger a paper violin or piano.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#68

Post by kleevr » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:35 PM UTC

pj wrote: post #28

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would actually enjoy a one week type engagement to get a good fit for a company So would I. But since I'm WORKING for that one week, I expect to be paid for it. I really don't think anyone should be surprised by that!

Hmm... I see your point. Perhaps we disagree on the word "work." When I think of "work" I think of moving a company in a desired direction. A lot of people think of work as "sitting in a cube." The question is, "How do we determine if the candidate's definition of work matches the employer's definition of work?" Maybe what you think you are doing when you are working is actually causing more problems and moving the c…

> This reduces the risk for the employer while also giving the employee a chance to examine the company and be paid if the work is satisfactory.

How about a one week stipend. You're view point is too company-centric, I MUCH prefer to work for people-centered companies. Either way you need something a little more symmetric if you don't want to become standard laughing stock among developers. (Or maybe you and your-co are so badass you can't do wrong and developers intrinsically trust you so it doesn't matter.)

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#69

Post by planck » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:37 PM UTC

vax_11 wrote: post #31

Part of it may be your questions, and part may be HOW you're asking (e.g. over the phone, or putting someone on the spot). 2) Not a lot of people write SQL by hand anymore. I used MySQL for years, long ago, and never wrote a join. Then ORMs came along and handle joins automatically, so I've still never written one. So not being able to do it without looking it up doesn't really tell you anything. I've written far, fa…

"PG, RTM, and TLB would probably fail your test -- they don't use SQL, they use flat files."

Well, then they likely wouldn't be a good fit for the position the OP is hiring for, since it requires using SQL, not flat files.

Re: Ask YC: Does interviewing developers leave you depressed?

#70

Post by jasonkester » Fri, Aug 07, 2009, 5:38 PM UTC

tocomment wrote: post #3

Just out of personal curiosity, you should try to find out if any of these failed candidates are actually skilled developers but there's something about the questions or interview that's messing them up? For example I consider myself a reasonable programmer, I can certainly do any project put in front of me. But I failed a YouTube phone interview because they asked me to "say" a function for finding the longest commo…

No, that sounds about right. 70% of the people you interview will not be able to code their way out of a sack. It actually sounds like he must have done some form of initial screen just to get the success rate up to 30%.