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You strike me as the type who would also balk at fizzbuzz and other 'typical' interview questions. What do you propose? Say you have to interview a candidate fo

by kelvin0 11y ago

You strike me as the type who would also balk at fizzbuzz and other 'typical' interview questions. What do you propose? Say you have to interview a candidate for your own startup? How would you go about it?

hackinthebochs 11y ago
I agree with the parent that take home projects (as the initial filter) are a non-starter. It's because they're flat out abusive. The employer uses their position to offload the cost of their hiring onto job seekers. The fact that our first interaction is exploitative couldn't be a bigger red flag. However I am completely fine with fizzbuzz tests, even take home fizzbuzz. But this literally needs to be something that will take no more than 10 minutes, and for most people a couple of minutes tops. And in the question have a disclaimer: if this takes you more than 10 minutes to do, this won't be a good fit, so save yourself the trouble. I actually don't mind the idea of take home projects, but only after significant investment on the part of the company. They need to have something on the line as well if I'm to devote significant time to it. Paying a good hourly rate for the time to complete it is the most straightforward way.
chrisper 11y ago
I actually like fizzbuzz and stuff like that. My most recent and best coding challenge experience was one from Cloudera. It was 2 questions and I had 70 minutes time in total. The difficulty was not something crazy. To me it felt like something you would get as a homework in Uni, but slightly more complex. I was able to finish it in 40 or so minutes and even had fun doing it, because I did not get frustrated by lack of details in the problem description. But when a company sends me 2 hours on some weird platform that tells me 3 out of 10 test cases work, but doesn't tell me why or what even the input is, I just get frustrated. One of the worst coding challenges was asking me to implement the cd (change directory) functionality. But the details were so bad that I had no idea if I have to invest time or not into edge cases etc. I basically had to guess the test cases, but eventually failed the test since I ran out of time.

by kelvin0 11y ago

hackinthebochs 11y ago

I agree with the parent that take home projects (as the initial filter) are a non-starter. It's because they're flat out abusive. The employer uses their position to offload the cost of their hiring onto job seekers. The fact that our first interaction is exploitative couldn't be a bigger red flag. However I am completely fine with fizzbuzz tests, even take home fizzbuzz. But this literally needs to be something that will take no more than 10 minutes, and for most people a couple of minutes tops. And in the question have a disclaimer: if this takes you more than 10 minutes to do, this won't be a good fit, so save yourself the trouble. I actually don't mind the idea of take home projects, but only after significant investment on the part of the company. They need to have something on the line as well if I'm to devote significant time to it. Paying a good hourly rate for the time to complete it is the most straightforward way.

chrisper 11y ago

I actually like fizzbuzz and stuff like that. My most recent and best coding challenge experience was one from Cloudera. It was 2 questions and I had 70 minutes time in total. The difficulty was not something crazy. To me it felt like something you would get as a homework in Uni, but slightly more complex. I was able to finish it in 40 or so minutes and even had fun doing it, because I did not get frustrated by lack of details in the problem description. But when a company sends me 2 hours on some weird platform that tells me 3 out of 10 test cases work, but doesn't tell me why or what even the input is, I just get frustrated. One of the worst coding challenges was asking me to implement the cd (change directory) functionality. But the details were so bad that I had no idea if I have to invest time or not into edge cases etc. I basically had to guess the test cases, but eventually failed the test since I ran out of time.