The rise of never-ending job interviews • Hacker News Board

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#831

Post by dahart » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #803

dahart wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasing risk of liability for firing is real, as is increasing oversight of discrimination law. You can be fired on the spot for breaking company policy, or doing something illegal. Without more info, that’s what I might assume you saw. But getting fired for mildly low performance without notice is not normal, at least not among engineers in large companies, and assuming it’s not because a division or the company…

> result in legal action compelling the company to prove the employee was failing The company doesn’t have to prove that the employee was failing. It’s perfectly legal for a company to fire an employee because they the employee likes the wrong football team. The employee or people pursuing legal action on behalf of multiple employees has to prove that the company fires the employee(s) because they were a member of a…

> The company doesn’t have to prove that the employee was failing.

They do if the employee sues claiming age discrimination, for example. At least, they have to defend the accusation to show it’s not discrimination. When someone has been at the company for 25 years like in the parent’s example, and they get fired abruptly without notice for liking the wrong football team, it’s likely the stated reason is untrue and inviting a challenge.

> If an employee decides to sue, whether you had them on a documented performance improvement plan for 6 months or 6 days isn’t going to be the deciding factor.

It certainly helps show that the company isn’t discriminating arbitrarily, and gave the employee notice and a chance to improve the situation.

BTW actual legal action isn’t necessary for firing to be getting harder. The fear of legal action is all you need, and that is in fact going up.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#832

Post by nothing_special » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

We are a mid/small-sized company (~3K) which is hungry for "freshers" (those just out of college). We are out competed by the big sharks who pick the best of the students and we have to search among the remaining. Our hiring pipeline involves a written test (coding - mix of Multiple choice and coding - in favour of only MC nowadays and analytical skills) provided to us by a third party. The test isn't really great (fixed small set of questions which doesnt change, some arcane C coding questions (the likes of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28034019), etc.). So we have 2 rounds of TA (technical assessment) and 1 HR round at the end. This is resulting in a lot of filtering and we get a success ratio of about 4-5 per 1K students.

Management does not like this and blames the assessment team for having "high standards" and feels that we are wasting previous time (of assessors) and not getting desired results. The assessment team feels that the written tests are not a good indicator of coding skill and that most applicants fail in the basics of coding (logic, for loops, pointers etc.). Management has given a new target to reduce the time to hire and increase our hit rate.

The solution will mostly consist of removing HR round (no value add, can be assessed in TA), reducing or eliminating TA (!) and relying solely on the written test. Given the written test quality (though it has mininal configurability in terms of the split between MC and coding questions) this seems likely to get in a lot of "false positives".

My questions - is it really feasible to use only a online automated assessment (not specifically the one we are using) to get a right coding assessment done for freshers? is there a "good" (efficient and effective) "standardized" framework/solution for fresher assessment which one can follow which you have used? (Note: we are a software company providing solutions and consulting in domains like automotive, networks, devices, embedded, etc.)

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#833

Post by majani » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

amznbyebyebye wrote: post #701

buro9 wrote: post #593

Ah Amazon... 14 interviews, an additional 5 hour technical test, spanning a total of 3+ months. Only to be informed at the end that I was too technical for the role they had in mind but they were offering me a Senior Principal SDE role instead. By the time we got to the end of the process I'd already concluded that the hiring process was a reflection of their internal decision making and that this was not a company (…

Sr principal is like L8 so you’re easily taking close to 1M/year salary.. 14 interviews is still a bit much, but you’re basically one step away from distinguished engineer which is pretty much end of the road for the engineering track at amazon

If he has the skills to get such offers, then he's in a power position with employers, which explains his demeanor towards them

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#834

Post by Twirrim » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:09 PM UTC

I had a friend who had a similar experience to the candidate in the article, but at T-Mobile.

He was unemployed. They interviewed him 5 times over a month and a half, and tried to get him on site for a 6th interview loop roughly 2 months after starting the whole process. They were most put out when he told them he'd already got another job. He was amazed at how offended they were, especially that he'd wasted their time.

He was, apparently, supposed to just sit around and wait for them to make a decision, because who needs money to pay for things like rent, food etc?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#835

Post by discmonkey » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

clint wrote: post #815

discmonkey wrote: post #727

Having recently won the google hiring lottery, I wanted to add my experience total length of time ~ 7 months emails sent/received ~ 50 phone calls ~ 20 technical interviews: 7 (1 with screen with recruiter, 6 with engineers) team match interviews: 3 (for me at least these were real interviews, in that I "flunked" the first 2, and decided to take the 3rd one very seriously before getting an offer) Before getting hirin…

sounds like a literal nightmare, and your prize is... working at Google? No thanks!

For what's its worth, I really didn't think the technical interviews were nightmares. It was mostly talking with very intelligent people who were volunteering their time to screen candidates. Though how much one enjoys brain teasers over productive work is of course a matter of personal perference. Everything else (emails, phonecalls, etc) were definitely tedious.

As for working at Google, I think it really depends on the person. For me it was a good gamble in terms of both immediate learning and future opportunities; for others it won't be. I do find the opportunity to have my code (or what's left of it after reviews anyways) reach billions of people a thrill like no other though.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#836

Post by abeppu » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:11 PM UTC

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #749

buro9 wrote: post #593

Ah Amazon... 14 interviews, an additional 5 hour technical test, spanning a total of 3+ months. Only to be informed at the end that I was too technical for the role they had in mind but they were offering me a Senior Principal SDE role instead. By the time we got to the end of the process I'd already concluded that the hiring process was a reflection of their internal decision making and that this was not a company (…

I honestly think this is a product of large corporations being essentially incapable of firing bad resources. Companies are terrified of litigation and bad PR so the only control mechanism is the interview process.

Why are companies afraid of litigation? My understanding has been that, excluding discrimination on the basis of a few protected categories, sexual harassment retaliation, and whistle-blower protections, in the US private employers can fire non-union employees at any time without cause. (IANAL)

Are large companies really afraid of PR in firing individuals? If a company with many thousands of employees fires one person, outside of the C-level officers is that a news story? Even if disgruntled former employee tries to say anything disparaging, doesn't that immediately make them less credible as a source?

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#837

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

ladberg wrote: post #226

silisili wrote: post #119

My one and only Google interview went this way years ago. Each round they'd send me more books to study, which frankly I couldn't be bothered to read given the circumstances. My experience ended when an interviewer in round 3 or 4 asked me an obviously scripted question. I answered sarcastically, he got peeved, and I never heard from them again. I'm not claiming I'm Google caliber, whatever that means. Obviously I'm…

I had a similarly bad Google experience that I've talked about before[0] but will copy here: I was asked to do a task that eventually boiled down to a topological sort, and I thought the question consisted of recognizing that the answer was a topological sort and moving on because it was over the phone. However, that was not the case. The interviewer wanted me to code it all out over Google Docs, but I didn't remembe…

[deleted]

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#838

Post by bear8642 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #683

throwawayboise wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never written a sort from scratch since my college days, over 30 years ago. Also never had a job interview that asked me do to so, or any other coding questions. I'm planning more for retirement than a next job at this point, but I shake my head at what my younger colleagues need to go through these days for the opportunity to write JavaScript with IDEs that do most of the work for you.

I sometimes have to implement a sorting algorithm when I write bare metal code that doesn't have any sort of standard library available. Of course, being a 1337 hacker, I then resort to the state of the art bubble sort. Or maybe an insertion sort if I'm feeling fancy. But enough bragging.

> I then resort to the state of the art bubble sort

Remember reading Bentley's Programming Pearls and fairly sure that's what he starts Sorting section with a short implementation of

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#839

Post by nemonemo » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:16 PM UTC

mox1 wrote: post #771

endtime wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standard disclaimer: everything below is my own opinion based on my personal experience, and I'm not speaking on behalf of my employer. > I thought I was done, then the interviewer said she would go go copy my code and compile it after the interview to see if I was right, which blew my mind. I've been interviewing at Google for nine years and have never done this. I generally don't think it's fair to ding a candidate…

How would you feel if you were going to a job as a writer, and the interviewee asked you to put a story, poem, etc. down on a napkin, with a crayon? Like thats how I would feel writing code into freakin google docs during a job interview...with Google. Tie 1 arm behind by back as the synax goes wonky, I'm fighting the spacing, etc. etc. Or put mario Andretti into a ford focus, then test his lap times, with 0 warning.…

I consider google doc coding an extension of the white board coding, which often happens in pair programming. I do not think it should aim perfectly working code, but at least I would personally expect reasonably good whiteboard coding hygiene from a colleague, at least for a report to the committee.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#840

Post by autarch » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

theshadowknows wrote: post #670

I work at Big Ass Corporation, Inc. in the US (there’s a very strong chance you use one or more of our services). Hiring is fucking awful. First of all it’s nearly impossible to get approval for a req in the first place. I’m actively looking to leave just because of that…but that’s a different rant than this one. Once a req is approved then it goes out to the team to disperse as well as hr. Some roles get handed off…

> communication ability (this is very, very close to being racist…draw your own conclusions)

I'm trying to draw my own conclusion but I'm confused. Communication ability is very important for developers and other technical roles. We need to be able to talk to each other about our work, and in many organizations we also need to be able to work effectively with other non-technical staff.

Of course, this doesn't mean that you have to speak or write the company's primary language in some particular way, as long as you can make yourself understood. Nor does it require that you speak that language as your first language.

Is there something specific about _how_ Big Ass Corporation is evaluating communication ability that is racist?