Interviews are an "activity" for HR/Managers to fill in their time sheets;
The rise of never-ending job interviews
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#852Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the probation time period in which they could let go of someone with ease (usually under 60 days) Is this a thing? I would certainly judge a company doing this, and likely leave a manager who hired someone with an expectation that the beginning is just a probationary period, if I’m understanding you correctly (I hope i’m not). Leaving a safe job for a probationary period puts too much risk on the employee that the…
Some companies do "hire fast, fire fast"... so yes. But I choose not to work for those companies, instead I prefer a strongly opinionated hiring process that won't play with anyone's life like that. That said, treating probation as probation is definitely a thing. Especially in legal domains such as France and Germany. In the USA it's far less of a thing as employers can mostly let go of people at almost any time if…
I see. I could imagine accepting something like that if I got legal protections afterwards like some of those countries have.
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#853Earlier 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.…
Google Doc is specifically designed for writing and reading and used probably by more people than any other piece of software ever for that task. And you think it's fair to compare it to crayon and napkins? What a world we live in. Programming is often about thinking through the problem, but if you can't separate yourself form your IDE when writing code and it's about syntax then that says more about your style.
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#854Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Definitely, if you’re being recruited for L8, thats a level of distinction all on its own..
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#855Earlier 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 happened to have, by chance, practiced writing sort from scratch right before an interview where they asked me to do just that. Doing it correctly in just a few minutes gave me pretty high status. Higher than I deserve. The randomness cuts both ways.
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#856Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
OT: I wish I could relocate a blog post (on Microsoft’s site, I think) about a very a naive and “obviously wrong” sorting algorithm that a dev identified in their (Excel?) codebase. Turns out the code was naive because the vast majority of their users were sorting very small sets of data and the implementation actually performed much better in those circumstances.
Maybe it's this one? https://ericlippert.com/2020/03/27/new-grad-vs-senior-dev/
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#857Earlier 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…
Googler here. At some stage of the interview process, we have to check whether you're able to code, there's no way around it if you're applying for a coding position. So yes, we'll have you code the solution to a problem. Of course in the real world we'd use a library or look up the algorithm on stack overflow like everyone else. Good for you if you came up with a workable algorithm for the problem quickly. But that'…
I would never want to work with someone like this.
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#858What’s happening is that companies want to completely remove risk from the hiring process. In the real world, you cannot remove risk. You can manage it, but you cannot remove it. Asking candidates to go through 6 interviews before making a decision and not telling them when a decision will be made signals a risk adverse culture that cannot make decisions.
The risk is artificially inflated by how hard it is to fire people.
This is actually true. A bad hire, once in the door, can be very expensive and time consuming for an employer to rectify. This is what leads to all sorts of weirdness like “contract to hire”.
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#859Since I finished college I was on a interview loop. I'm so tired, at this point making my own company and freelancing seem more reasonable.
I don't understand why there must be 4 different persons asking me the same questions just so in the final to give me a lower offer than we previously discussed or to ghost me.
I had a bad opinion about HR when I was a student and didn't work based on how a few of my friends and family treated, now that I'm looking for work and have to deal with their bullshit daily I literally started to hate the people working on this dep and their lack of respect.
Re: The rise of never-ending job interviews
#860Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is also scripted. Google used to use internal people do to the screening but not anymore, they have outsourced it to agencies. And a random recruiting agency drone on the phone, paid minimal wage, can't be expected to ask sensible questions, so they get a script to choose questions from, along with expected answers.
I can't believe that Google would outsource their hiring process, do they think they can keep their quality this way?
I doubt Google has outsourced their entire process.
But many recruiters work as independent contractors or in recruiting firms. They often do a minimal phone-screen, vs sending a candidate "cold" to the hiring company.