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Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

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Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#621

Post by SwiftyBug »

jarjoura wrote: post #600
tornato7 wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have rejected candidates for that. When you're hiring for a startup it's absolutely vital to have people who believe in the mission and the product and not just doing the bare minimum for a paycheck. If that's all you want, go work for the government, or Facebook.

Facebook has the same vital requirement that you believe in its mission. You wouldn't make it past the screening stage if you didn't care about that.

What exactly is Facebook's "mission"? Would I be screened in if I firmly believed in invading people's privacies?

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#622

Post by cactus2093 »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #444
koheripbal wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One trend I've noticed that is markedly different from when I started programming in 1998, is how dependent we've become to program via Google/StackExchange searches. I'm not sure I know how to write anything from scratch anymore, because I just search/read/alter/test. The breadth of what I work on is 100x wider than it used to be, and so I've become absolutely dependent on quickly reading docs, copying code found on…

It's not just you :) A much more realistic way to test people is to tell them to bring their laptop, point to a problem on the whiteboard and say "here, solve it, and use whatever resources you need." I'm somewhat like you; I do a wide variety of tasks every day and simply can't keep all the different rules and syntaxes in my head. I'm terrible at tests anyway and would probably bomb a FAANG interview badly because o…

This has actually not been my experience. I generally agree with your reasoning and have tried to run coding interviews this way, thinking that it is most similar to doing real work. Candidates can use their own computer, their own editor and plugins, whatever framework and language they prefer, can google anything they need, etc.

It causes a surprising number of problems. A lot of candidates come in with their environments just very poorly configured, run into weird dependency errors, mismatched installed versions, no linting or syntax highlighting set up in their editor because they don't actually ever code on their personal computer, etc. It's not uncommon to spend half the interview watching someone debug their dev environment, or struggle to remember the basic syntax of their favorite framework since they aren't working on the same codebase that they're used to.

I've mostly come around again at this point and decided that even if I like this type of interview best in theory, focusing on standalone problems that can be done in coderpad with no dependencies is a more reliable approach.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#623

Post by cheschire »

username90 wrote: post #613

Managing your own emotions is a part of EQ. Why should we hire people with low EQ to a job as collaborative as software engineering?

Control is not a part of EQ. Awareness is. Being able to point to the source of your emotions is key in being able to identify the source of others' as well.

Fear responses are deeper than conscious thought. You can't expect a person to respond calmly to a life changing event like an interview anymore than you can expect them to stay completely calm in a locked coffin.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#624

Post by itronitron »

roldie wrote: post #258
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #115

I conducted a couple hundred interviews for my first FAANG employer, and I was constantly amazed at the percentage of candidates with years of Microsoft or Facebook experience on the resumes who apparently did not know how to program. I always thought, 'huh, guess I know why they quit after 3 years, amazing that they all lasted this long." Then I interviewed for another company and utterly bombed. It became suddenly…

The same is true for design/ux jobs interviews. Well, at least for me. I got laid off a couple of months ago, and have been interviewing pretty steadily since then. I have yet to receive an offer. I already know where my strengths and weaknesses are. I'm fine with 1 on 1s and all that, but when it comes to the technical part of the interview process like a take-home design project or a live design challenge, I usuall…

For a live design challenge I recommend slowing yourself down and asking for more input from your interviewers. If you appear relaxed and asking for input from others then you will seem more open to both collaboration and constructive criticism. My two cents and good luck.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#625

Post by groby_b »

thephyber wrote: post #413
lrem wrote: post #377

People bomb, including good people. That is sadly part of the system. Once I had this candidate. Damn, I know my questions are deceptively simple on purpose, but he literally couldn't do anything. Not even a trivial brute force. Not even any related simple knowledge questions. Couldn't tell an average from a median. The only good thing I could write in the feedback was "seems to know some basic syntax". It was quite…

> People bomb, including good people. That is sadly part of the system. It seems like there's probably some value in a "MoneyBall" company that identifies a way to interview without most of the anxiety. Perhaps hiring a few people with remarkably high EQ who customize the interview setting who review the inteviewees' work and watch them program over a few days in their own computer and IDE. I know I've interviewed pe…

These people are usually called "references" :)

As for interviewing for a few days... Yeah. No. Not in a country with an abysmally bad vacation policy like the US.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#626

Post by sequoia »

Judgmentality wrote: post #187
commandlinefan wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure he's advocating for it, just pointing out that it's true.

> My takeaway, I guess—parents, make your kids do debate! He's encouraging parents to make their kids learn this skillset. He is absolutely advocating for it.

He's saying "this makes you more likely to win at the game, perhaps you want to teach your kids this skill so they can win." He is not saying "the game is fair."

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#627

Post by whack »

typenil wrote: post #454
whack wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally know many people who conduct interviews, provide interview feedback, and make hiring decisions at Amazon. None of them operate the way you're describing. There's no "gotcha" as far as making you guess what LP they are trying to get at, or conforming to the Amazon borg. They are simply evaluating you based on your work accomplishments and aptitude, as demonstrated by the projects and experiences you choos…

A counterpoint: I work with a lot of ex-Amazon employees who continue to conduct interviews exactly in this way. Even my own interview, if I hadn't prepped a story for each of the LPs, I would've bombed.

> Even my own interview, if I hadn't prepped a story for each of the LPs, I would've bombed.

Not denying this part. Candidates at most companies are openly advised about the Behavioral Interview format, and told to come prepared with a collection of stories. Even Google's previous head-of-HR tells all job-seekers to do exactly this (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/win-every-interview-6-steps-l...). This isn't unique to Amazon in any way, and Amazon might actually be better because they give you very strong hints as to what the questions will be, instead of expecting you to know this implicitly.

My previous comment was mostly responding to stuff like "ask very veiled questions and you're supposed to know that they're asking about an LP" and drinking the Amazon kool-aid.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#628

Post by mleonhard »

username90 wrote: post #613

Managing your own emotions is a part of EQ. Why should we hire people with low EQ to a job as collaborative as software engineering?

Software engineering jobs typically do not have situations that are anxiety-inducing like job interviews.

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#629

Post by [deleted] »

rsweeney21 wrote: post #448

I'm a ex-FANG dev that started a recruiting company, so I am VERY familiar with the arbitrary tech interview process. I'm a huge proponent of contract-to-hire. Even started a company* to make it easier for companies to offer contract-to-hire. Now before you dismiss the idea because you are "too good" to do C2H hear me out. Everyone knows that actually working with someone on the job is the only way to get an accurate…

[deleted]

Re: Tech sector job interviews assess anxiety, not software skills: study

#630

Post by itronitron »

timClicks wrote: post #471
bumby wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard HR optimizes processes that limit Type I errors (false positive) at the expense of Type II errors (false negative). I've often wondered if this is because, from the HR perspective, false positives are much more costly. I.e., Those who would be helped by limiting the false negatives are project managers who are too downstream in the process for HR to care.

Yes this. Hiring the wrong person can be ridiculously expensive, especially if they linger on in a role for years corroding the culture.

obligatory request for citation
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