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What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

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Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#91

Post by lessnonymous »

mavelikara wrote: post #82
lessnonymous wrote: post #76

As a hiring manager, the thing I find most interesting on posts like this (ignoring that the analogy is TERRIBLE) are the comments of people used to being on the other side of the desk. I don't think we (as interviewers) do a good job of explaining why we ask the questions we ask. And I don't think we do a good job of communicating what our job is. Our job is to stop you getting hired. If we get 100 people applying f…

"Our job is to stop you getting hired. If we get 100 people applying for the job, then our job is to not employ at least 99. So we are looking for anything that identifies you as being one of the 99." If you have only position to fill and 100 people applied for that position, yes, your position makes sense. But if you have 100 positions to fill, will you still insist that you must interview 10000 people to fill those…

If you're hiring 100 people, you still only get the same number of applicants. If you get 100 applicants, you're not going to fill your 100 positions. (Note the "at least 99" in my post)

If I'm desperate to hire 100 people and I can't get 100 qualified applicants, that's when I start looking to people who could be the right people in very quick order. I've done that and ended up with some true super stars. But that was a three month investment that could have failed. I'd rather hire someone who already has the skills I need.

Whether you're hiring 1 person or 100, you're still looking for reasons to cull them.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#92

Post by biot »

mmorett wrote: post #83
lessnonymous wrote: post #76

As a hiring manager, the thing I find most interesting on posts like this (ignoring that the analogy is TERRIBLE) are the comments of people used to being on the other side of the desk. I don't think we (as interviewers) do a good job of explaining why we ask the questions we ask. And I don't think we do a good job of communicating what our job is. Our job is to stop you getting hired. If we get 100 people applying f…

"That you could go away and learn what color the middle wire is is great. But the guy next to you has been fixing wiring in distributor caps for years. And right now, I need people that know what color the middle wire is." If you're hiring a mechanic, yes. However, the analogy was pointing out that the person being asked the question was a potential car renter. That specific knowledge is not relevant as a car renter.

Now you're torturing the analogy. The equivalent programmer translation is "What is the middle parameter to this library method?" I'm sure most people competent at using Google can tell you in 60 seconds what that parameter is. In a large enough company you can afford to take the productivity hit as someone who is "smart and gets things done" gets up to speed on a new technology or with new libraries. However, if you're in a small team and you need to execute on your business fast without holding up development, you want someone who is "smart and gets things done" and also knows that library inside out.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#93

Post by koide »

RegEx wrote: post #67
ProblemFactory wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that analogies are a poor argumentation technique overall, even if they are not hyperbolic. It's always possible to find similarities between wildly different and even opposing ideas. The details matter.

I find analogies very good for explaining concepts (to make the details easier to understand), but absolutely horrible for debates. Analogies generally over simplify issues, and hackers are particularly bad at arguing the analogy to an absurd extent instead of arguing the main premise behind it. It happens here all the time.

I take it you mean "hackers are particularly good at arguing the analogy to an absurd extent"

(This being an example of course)

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#94

Post by mikeash »

ProblemFactory wrote: post #36
rosser wrote: post #13

Maybe it's because I just made the egregious mistake of getting drawn into a gun-control debate with a friend and his friends on Facebook, but hyperbolic arguments by analogy feel really silly, cheap, and disingenuous to me right now...

I find that analogies are a poor argumentation technique overall, even if they are not hyperbolic. It's always possible to find similarities between wildly different and even opposing ideas. The details matter.

Analogies aren't an argumentation technique at all. Analogies are only useful for explaining stuff. They are utterly useless for forming an argument, despite what many people would like to think.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#95

Post by jff »

mieubrisse wrote: post #66
sergiotapia wrote: post #42

I became unreasonably angry while reading this. I guess it struck a nerve with me for some reason. During my interviews, I was very charismatic, confident in my skills, was asked technical question that were things I would need day in day out. I landed the job on 100% of those interviews. There was this one time were the guy kept asking me crap I would never EVER need while working for his company. Binary tree's, lin…

Out of curiosity, why do you consider binary trees, linked lists, and pointer arithmetic to be so out of the bounds of possibility for work at a job? Those strike me as skills I might find invaluable in one of my software engineers depending on the job.

You probably won't be doing pointer arithmetic in C#. It's been about 5 years since I wrote any C#, but I don't remember any... mostly I remember it as a Java clone, which would preclude pointer arithmetic.

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#96

Post by koide »

amalcon wrote: post #73
venomsnake wrote: post #20

Why no one asks questions that show deep understanding of the work and not technical details that can be googled in a second. Like - can you land Curiosity with off the shelf java and JVM? Why or why not?

Hah, now you've got me thinking about how one might technically satisfy that requirement. None of the possibilities I've come up with are good ideas.

You will very likely need real time guarantees the JVM does not provide. (The "off the shelf" bit's a hint)

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#97

Post by RegEx »

koide wrote: post #93
RegEx wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find analogies very good for explaining concepts (to make the details easier to understand), but absolutely horrible for debates. Analogies generally over simplify issues, and hackers are particularly bad at arguing the analogy to an absurd extent instead of arguing the main premise behind it. It happens here all the time.

I take it you mean "hackers are particularly good at arguing the analogy to an absurd extent" (This being an example of course)

Save the topic of pedantry for another thread my friend ;)

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#98

Post by mmorett »

w33ble wrote: post #29

The poor interview process is one thing, but what irks me most is that almost nobody offers you a chance to meet the team, even when they make you an offer. That's been my general experience so far anyway. It sucks, because your only exposure to anyone was the hiring manager, and maybe a lead, and all they did was ask questions about what you memorized about whatever language(s).

My pet peeve is that you are interviewed as though you should be God, and you would be so lucky and privileged to work on this pristine, perfect codebase...only to find out that the codebase is not all that perfect, and the development processes are not scrum or agile or XP, but instead "run around like chicken with your head cut off, just get it done!"

Perhaps this is the queue for someone to suggest "that's why we try so hard to prevent bad people from getting hired". :-)

Re: What If Cars Were Rented Like We Hire Programmers?

#100

Post by falcolas »

acchow wrote: post #77

What's with this "only Subaru" analogy? What I've found is more along these lines: "Are you sure I'm qualified? I don't feel like I'd be very useful. I've never done Java, only C++ and JS and lisp" "No, you'll be perfect. We don't hire people for specific languages"

I think you're lucky.

Of course, my experience is with Python, and trying to get hired by a Ruby shop (no matter my experience outside of work with Ruby or any other language, or my experience with the rest of the stack) is impossible.

Perhaps it's a different world the lower down the language abstraction level you look.

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