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

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#841

Post by FalconSensei » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:21 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…

I hate this. People have IDEs and internet when working. Having to write something that can be compiled in a doc is just stupid.

As someone mentioned in another comment, I also never had to actually implement a sort since I left university more than a decade ago. I'm happy to discuss the different types and approaches to how they could be done - as to evaluate problem solving, logic, and general understanding - but to actually code in an interview...

In a similar way, this week I even jokes on Twitter how I'm doing many improvements and refactors on a codebase, but there's the occasional 'how I do join 2 lists on Java again?' moment when I completely forget something basic.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#842

Post by discmonkey » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:21 PM UTC

moistoreos wrote: post #776

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…

I agree w/ the sentiment of your last statement. However, I wholeheartedly could not disagree more w/ "having won the hiring lottery". 80+ hours of interviewing? No offense, that doesn't sound like winning the lottery. That sounds like you don't value your time. Unless you're getting paid for that many hours of interviewing or receive a signing bonus to make up for it, any company that does 10+ hours of interviewing…

Agreed that the hour invested may not be worth it for a large percentage of people (again I got lucky, I would feel so differently if I was rejected after 7 interviews).

Google's point is just that they prefer to avoid false positives at the cost of (potentially) a lot of false negatives. The current interview process is probably some local optimum;

I haven't worked at a company yet that is actually good at interviewing. Where good is optimized over high recall and accuracy and a small time investment.

I know that Google does have one big advantage, in that a good percentage of people that get the offer end up accepting. That (unfortunately) gives Google a lot more leeway and possibly less incentive to further optimize the interview process. Software engineers are in high demand, but also Google is in high demand among software engineers.

At my previous job, trying to find a candidate for a role essentially involved lowering the bar until somebody was no longer in demand, since we weren't "in demand".

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#843

Post by alxlaz » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #667

ladberg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Not all younger developers have to jump through those hoops. There are plenty of companies that don't do that kind of nonsense, because they're trying to hire good engineers, rather than, specifically, engineers -- good or bad, that'll get sorted out later -- who will happily sacrifice their spare time to figure out how to jump through the arbitrary hoops that their jobs entail.

Holding this kind of bullshit interview isn't a bad idea if you're a megacorp with chaotic teams and fourteen levels of management hierarchy where people spend most of their time on infighting and career building. You need people who jump through hoops, because successfully delivering most projects in these environments is 10% difficult technical work (which the good engineers can handle, and you can typically hire enough of them via recommendations), 40% YAML-poking bullshit work, and -- optimistically -- 50% jumping through all sorts of technical and non-technical hoops, most of them self-inflicted.

I navigated this kind of process successfully early in my career, and the only thing that made me more miserable than interviews like these was the work I got to do afterwards, after accepting the offers. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is probably just how these things are -- I'm now pretty convinced that the quality of the interview is (barring statistical accidents) highly correlated with the quality of the actual position.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#844

Post by sandyarmstrong » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

autarch wrote: post #840

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 th…

The way I read it is that "communication ability" is something people can use to justify racist hiring decisions. For example, labeling non-white speaking patterns as "unprofessional", or non-American accents as "poor communication skills".

When in fact, these candidates may have excellent communication skills, and in a blind interview situation the same interviewer might praise their writing abilities.

But you don't really know, because the interviewer is rating communication skills in a scenario that can easily bring out a lot of hidden biases.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#845

Post by towtow » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:23 PM UTC

Just recently experienced this. Interviewed at a FAANG company, process started 5 months ago, about 50 emails exchanged, a dozen or so phone calls of various kinds. 6 interviews, they came back and asked to re-do 1 of them, which I obliged. Then, they were silent for about 2 weeks, I asked about the status and they said they want to re-do 2 more interviews. I kindly refused and they said they wouldn't move forward.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#846

Post by bokchoi » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #765

rubicon33 wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liken it to what lawyers go through with the bar here in CA. It's gatekeeping. Just like I don't think the CA bar should have a pass rate in the 20% range, I don't think coding interviews should ask riddles that are nearly impossible to solve on the fly unless you get lucky and memorized THAT riddle in your studying.

Except that lawyers have to pass the California bar once in order to get licensed; we SWEs have to pass the "bar" every time we look for a new job.

Lawyers have to pay dues yearly and take a certain number of CRE (continuing education requirement) hours every year to maintain their license.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#847

Post by mring33621 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:24 PM UTC

OOPMan wrote: post #578

XorNot wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'm pretty sure FAANG hiring is just a random walk. Every now again someone happens to have looked at all the questions they ask recently for that particular interview cycle (or avoid the trap ones like that) and that person gets hired (and then put on the ad targeting team or whatever).

My profile on LinkedIn for the longest time stated "No PHP jobs please" as a way to weed out recruiters that would send me job offers for PHP roles on the basis that I once did some PHP. I've updated the profile to include "No FAANG companies" because I'm pretty sure I would not be a good fit for them but that didn't stop their recruiters from pestering me.

Ahh, reverse psychology!

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#848

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

throwawayboise wrote: post #667

ladberg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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've never written a sort from scratch since my college days, over 30 years ago

I didn't study CS at college, and I've never needed to write a sort on the job, so I've only ever written sorts in job interviews! I think I worked out a basic bubble sort, and told them it probably wasn't the fastest way of doing it but that it'd do the job.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#849

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:27 PM UTC

actually_a_dog wrote: post #765

rubicon33 wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liken it to what lawyers go through with the bar here in CA. It's gatekeeping. Just like I don't think the CA bar should have a pass rate in the 20% range, I don't think coding interviews should ask riddles that are nearly impossible to solve on the fly unless you get lucky and memorized THAT riddle in your studying.

Except that lawyers have to pass the California bar once in order to get licensed; we SWEs have to pass the "bar" every time we look for a new job.

From what I've heard, the bar is much harder than SWE interviews.

Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews

#850

Post by omgwtfbbq » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

AJRF wrote: post #469

XorNot wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point I'm pretty sure FAANG hiring is just a random walk. Every now again someone happens to have looked at all the questions they ask recently for that particular interview cycle (or avoid the trap ones like that) and that person gets hired (and then put on the ad targeting team or whatever).

Geohotz had a good rant about this once - the kind of people who need to cram leetcodes and memorize algorithms are not the kinds of people who Google wants to pass these interviews. Makes a lot of sense, you could solve all these questions without knowing specific algorithms as long as you are good at problem solving - which is, I assume, the intent of the process. Obviously it doesn't always work like that.

>Makes a lot of sense, you could solve all these questions without knowing specific algorithms as long as you are good at problem solving - which is, I assume, the intent of the process.

That's just absurd. If someone with no "algorithm" experience who was a good problem solver had to work out an answer from scratch for the interview its almost certain they're going to find the brute force answer and FAANGs pretty universally want the most efficient one so these people would routinely fail.

Its totally clear that what FAANG hiring optimizes for is recent CS graduates who passed tough Algorithm weed out courses at well known colleges in the past 18-24 months. They are young with no families or obligations and are happy to work 12 hour days at Google because they have hip open offices and ping pong tables.