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The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

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Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#731

Post by stevenwoo »

hellbanner wrote: post #729

I just got one of these for a mobile position. "Please complete this coding interview. It should take about 3 hours." Me: "I've been writing mobile apps since the app store launched in 2008. Can we skip this step?" Corp: "Sorry, good luck on your search!"

Is it just me thinking it is weird to get hackerrank tests where they use a lot of Java stdin stdout on the test for a mobile position? It might be because that's the only way to grade tests on the platform but I have never used that in an Android app.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#732

Post by mtnGoat »

i think its utterly insane for companies that are well funded to ask skilled labor to work for free. if you want the best talent, attract it. i have refused every interview asking me to work for free, and ive never had problems finding gainful employment. these companies are just losing out on great talent by being shortsighted. only desperate people will work for free, and they are usually desperate for a reason. my $0.02.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#733

Post by Clubber »

TheGRS wrote: post #463
Clubber wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you decided to filter out good candidates in a new way; the take home test.

I don't think this assertion that the technical interview is inherently filtering out great candidates is being very honest (you responded similarly to another comment of mine the same way). One quality being tested is "can you try to do the thing that we're asking for?" That's a measurement in competence and the willingness to get something done. If said candidate is saying "this test is ridiculous and a waste of my…

>I don't think this assertion that the technical interview is inherently filtering out great candidates is being very honest

There are plenty of people telling you the same thing, you just don't want to hear it. Here's a data point. I would never do it unless I was absolutely desperate. I mean about to lose the house desperate. There are just too many other companies around.

I mean if you are trying to pay junior rates and maybe pull a decent mid-level guy, it may be a good tactic. If you are at all interested in top talent, you'll turn many if not most of them away. Unless your company offers something no other company in the area offers, tops generally have no time or patience for that, especially if they just handed you a loaded resume with tons of references.

If you're just a boring ole company like all the other companies, believe me, you're turning top people away.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#734

Post by stevenwoo »

sudosteph wrote: post #692
zaidf wrote: post #441

I wish companies would figure out a way to have their best engineers do blind-shopper-style interviews where they regularly see if their best engineers would be able to make it through their current interview process. This can be tricky to implement but if done right, would provide lots of insight into the types of candidates their interview process is geared to pass. I asked a friend who worked for years at a large…

That reminds me. At Amazon there was a concept called "raising the bar" that was applied during interviews and promotions. The idea was that you should only hire or promote people with the capacity to do the job better than 50% of the people already doing it. I often wondered how sustainable that was. Will be interesting to see if they keep that strategy long-term.

Combine that with stack ranking for evaluations and firing the bottom 10%, though I think they quit doing that recently.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#735

Post by stevenwoo »

naskwo wrote: post #524

My dad was first concertmaster of the VSO, and my wife is a pianist. What's interesting is to look at the parallels between auditioning for a position in a prime orchestra and "auditioning" for the position of software engineer/developer. When you get called to audition, you spend a ton of time preparing at in your "free time". If you want to apply as a (senior) sw engineer, it makes sense to have an idea about the d…

The other side of that coin is many orchestras now do auditions blind - nobody evaluating the artist can see the artist, they can only hear them. The numbers indicate that this eliminates most of the bias orchestras traditionally had for visual attractiveness/friends of the orchestra/white males.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#736

Post by stevenwoo »

cdoxsey wrote: post #51
NTDF9 wrote: post #3

Can someone explain why we need: 1. A phone coding interview (Potentially another phone coding interview) 2. A homework 3. An onsite with 5 rounds Seriously, what does that additional tree traversal round prove?

It provides a diversity of opinion. You might be surprised at how much disagreement there is about most candidates. Its probably one of the few parts of the process that actually makes sense, but the fact that people rarely agree belies the deeper problems with tech interviews. The selection criteria is way too subjective and the bar at so many companies set artificially high. In my experience your best bet is still…

Did they do something to correct the intern not being hired or they just wanted extroverts/loud people?

I've erred on the wrong side going the other way, recall one interview on a team where I thought something was off with the candidate because they were so abrasive and then they got into a shouting match with one of my teammates (we thought they were fighting in the conference room), but when it came down to it I didn't want to be the only no and reject them. That was my fault because they turned out to really be a sociopath after a couple of months.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#737

Post by tytytytytytytyt »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #393
monocasa wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to hate it, but have now performed enough interviews of supposedly senior devs with decades of experience. I've literally seen someone who did firmware for the space shuttle grind for 45 minutes on fizz buzz without making progress. Like, I'd they struggle for ten minutes or so, I take a step back and say "Ok, screw syntax, let's just vaguely talk about what needs to happen and mock up some pseudo code.". Even…

I’m going to show some vulnerability… this happened to me this week. I’m probably like a lot of you here: professional software developer for 20 years, have shipped countless products in multiple languages / technologies. Work has appeared on tv and print media multiple times. Have generated millions and millions in cost savings and revenue for employers and clients. But I totally failed a technical screen. It’s been…

> I wrote a long blog article this week about what I think the interview process should be, will be posting it soon. There are ways to fix this process.

I really hope that's true. Every solution I've heard so far is unrealistic at best, like using take home assignments, as if no one would cheat or complain about those.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#738

Post by toephu2 »

ex_amazon_sde wrote: post #660
toephu2 wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it should have been. The fact that you have a PhD means nothing to Google, Facebook, and the like (except possibly a slightly higher base salary than a new grad w/ only a BS) The question is, can you whiteboard? They will be testing that. If you can, then all is golden and you probably didn't need to waste those 4-6 years getting that PhD because what you will be working on will have nothing to do with your topic…

Me and my colleagues never asked this trivial question when interviewing for Amazon, just like you don't ask a driver what a brake is.

I assumed OP was referring to white board coding questions when he said "trivial programming task", which Amazon indeed does ask you to do throughout the interview process.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#739

Post by mratzloff »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #474
pwthornton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell if someone knows what they are doing by talking to them and having them walk you through what they have worked on. Also, in the United States, you could fire someone easily if they were really incompetent. Considering how much time and money people spend per candidate to interview, it's probably much cheaper and more efficient to hire faster and fire faster. Some companies are spending tens of thousands…

You really can't. There are some people who have a skill for talking about what they've seen others do, and for memorizing what others said. If that person has sat in a post-mortem for some failure, they'll be able to tell you all the things that went wrong, how "they" fixed them, and why. And yet they can't code. I'm not hiring people who can talk and not code. I'm hiring people who can code (and, ideally, talk). Th…

Well, in that case, what you definitely want to do is optimize your entire interview process around the 1% of people who can pull this off, instead of just firing them when they can't execute on the job.

Re: The latest trend for tech interviews: Days of unpaid homework

#740

Post by waylandsmithers »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #465
waylandsmithers wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who does a lot of interviewing, I tone down the technical stuff as the experience and responsibility level increases. I think a lot of the annoyances you mention still make sense for an entry level position, because there are a lot of folks who actually can't write code who apply for those jobs. For candidates with many years of experience, obviously they can and have been writing software effectively, so…

> For candidates with many years of experience When I was younger, I often wondered how it was that New Senior Guy was totally incapable of actually programming, but very good at handwaving and bullshitting, and being patronizing. Now I know how those people got hired. Thanks.

That's a fair criticism. The approach does need to require a finely tuned BS detector.
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