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Hiring without whiteboards

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Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#81

Post by zerr »

jonasvp wrote: post #25

I'm responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate's work experience and interesting problems that she/he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing/CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that's being done. That said, I'm always surprised how many candidat…

> one solution that they're proud of.

Pride is a very strong word, especially for those of us with impostor syndrome...

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#82

Post by throwaway_374 »

nherment wrote: post #54
jonasvp wrote: post #25

I'm responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate's work experience and interesting problems that she/he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing/CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that's being done. That said, I'm always surprised how many candidat…

We're in Denmark and currently hiring. I'm not sure why there is such extreme hate for the whiteboard. Yes it has plenty of caveats when it comes to actual coding and recruiters should not expect any candidate to write precise code on that medium. I do use the whiteboard for trivial CS questions limited to 5-10 minutes. Think fizzbuzz and string reversal. Candidates have the option to use my laptop (not ideal because…

It took me 5 minutes on my laptop at home to code out a problem that I danced around for an hour on a whiteboard being stared down at by 2 engineers in silence. Yes, I had the benefit of hindsight, but unless you've actually done a whiteboard interview yourself where your livelihood is on the line for an hour, don't act like a trivialising nonce.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#83

Post by gedrap »

jon-wood wrote: post #67
tragic wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this is an endless cycle. At some point, the company has to apply some test to see if the candidate is appropriate, IE, can code to the required standard. That will require a time investment from the candidate. You could simply get rid of the take home test; that will shift the burden to the resume and cover letter, to the advantage of humanities graduates like me. You could mandate a full day on-site, which will…

I'm not really advocating for getting rid of take home tests entirely. There's a lot of value in seeing how someone approaches a known problem and being able to compare that to other solutions. What I am asking is that companies don't ask me to invest hours of time before they decide if they're even interested in talking to me. At the very least I want to have had a phone interview and the chance to assess whether I'…

This is exactly what I meant. Home tests are totally fine, given there is some reasonable interest from the company already.

Home test is totally fine after a phone call or a two. However, they are not fine at all just after submitting an application and no real contact.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#84

Post by pm215 »

sgift wrote: post #76
bbcbasic wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, I'm always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they're proud of. I have trouble recalling the details of things I worked on even say a week ago sometimes. I also don't find most of the work I do that interesting as I've been coding along time solving the same kinds of problems. However to play the game i would of course…

> I have trouble recalling the details of things I worked on even say a week ago sometimes. No problem here, it probably wasn't very exciting but have you never encountered something which stuck in your mind? Or that you could at least recall some part of a project if someone asked "So, you've written here that you've worked on project xy and did this and that, can you tell us a bit more about it"?

Asking about project xy is different though, it's more guided. I think it's much easier to answer than the really open ended ones that ask you to pick an incident from all 10-15 years of your work history: the field there is so wide that unless I've specifically considered the question in advance I'm likely to sit there going ummm for a bit.

In general I think the question format favours people with a good memory for anecdotes and story telling ability.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#85

Post by throwaway_374 »

nallerooth wrote: post #18

As a follow up to the first interview, we give promising candidates a quite simple task to solve at home and then send back via email the next day. This is used both for some basic evaluation of developers skills (whether they actually solved the problem, did they catch the small oddities hidden in the data set, did they document and write tests, etc.) and as something to discuss during the second interview, in which…

Yeah why not just ask a surgeon to perform in a janitor's cupboard. No gauze? No problem, improvise with a mop. Remember, the aim is not to actually perform the procedure, just see if you solve problems under stress.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#86

Post by pmiller2 »

et-al wrote: post #60
jonasvp wrote: post #25

I'm responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate's work experience and interesting problems that she/he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing/CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that's being done. That said, I'm always surprised how many candidat…

> That said, I'm always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they're proud of. It could be that this technique favors people good at telling stories. Personally, I'm a horrible storyteller. If you were to ask me what I did over the weekend, I'll offer some facts like "oh, went swimming in a river and Bob lost his hat, but we found it…

Or, they just don't find the work terribly exciting. There's a lot of unexciting work to be done in software, and somebody has to do it.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#87

Post by hocuspocus »

bogomipz wrote: post #12

I would like to see a compilation of companies that aren't requiring a "coding project" as part of their interview process. I much prefer to write on a whiteboard as part of an onsite interview than to do a "coding project" for every single company that "might" be interested in me. My experience lately has been an immediate request to complete a coding project right after speaking to a recruiter but before speaking t…

> The whiteboards seems far more respectful of people's time at least.

Some companies will happily bring you on site for a full round even though they have no idea whether there is an open position for you (infamous example, you can pass Google's hiring committee and then be told there's no headcount). And you've just wasted one day off.

On the other hand, take-home projects can be used in a way that saves everyone a lot of time. I don't disagree with you, they shouldn't be used for screening though.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#88

Post by storafrid »

If it lasts longer than 20 minutes, you're doing it wrong. But more importantly, are we talking about hiring a security expert? Or hiring for a product development team? Or hiring for the devops team? Context is rarely given in the "whiteboarding issue" discussion, e.g. at HN. I currently hold candidate interviews for a solution architect role, and I certainly don't want to hire someone who can't hold a whiteboarding session with a client or their partner's SME.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#89

Post by mikulas_florek »

jon-wood wrote: post #53
lj3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not disrespectful for a company to ask you to write a little code for them. They're just as invested on the time front as you are since they have to read and analyze what you send them. Now, if you were to tell me that nobody ever looked at the test after you sent it in, then it becomes disrespectful. I had several companies do that to me a few months ago. Not that it matters much. I don't think code tests will…

A little time is fine but last time I was applying for developer jobs almost all of these tasks would take at least an hour to complete, probably more like two or three to do it in a way I'm willing to show to someone screening me on that basis. By requiring these tasks you're implicitly screening not only people who can't code but also people who don't have three hours to spend on applying to your company. If all yo…

An hour of time for a homework is completely fine. A whiteboard interview would consume much more of both party's time. Just travelling there and back can easily take an hour of applicant's time.

I used to invite people for an interview without any prior testing, but it was generally such a big waste of time for both me and applicant. What's more, quite often I can see from CV that someone is underqualified, but I do not want to reject them immediately without giving them a chance, so I send them a homework. Finally, you would be surprise how often even people with good CVs turn out to be quite bad.

Re: Hiring without whiteboards

#90

Post by andrewingram »

jonasvp wrote: post #25

I'm responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate's work experience and interesting problems that she/he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing/CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that's being done. That said, I'm always surprised how many candidat…

Generally speaking, someone's ability to recall things is very dependent on how they're feeling. If you're happy, it's easy to recall positive things, if you're depressed it's practically impossible.

A lot of developers also have imposter syndrome. After I've solved an interesting problem, within a few days i'll probably have dismissed it as not being a big deal and started to forget about it.

These kind of questions are useful, but candidates should be preparing their talking points, because the risk of forgetting the story that's going to get you hired is too high

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