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My experience is that the programming exercise never deterred a candidate I really wanted to interview. That might be a little surprising, but I always work ver

by kwindla 11y ago

My experience is that the programming exercise never deterred a candidate I really wanted to interview. That might be a little surprising, but I always work very hard to make sure there's a good conversation in the initial phone screen, so I think that helps a lot. Also, programmers (myself included) always underestimate how much time it will take to write a given piece of code, so maybe that helps, too! I do think it's valuable to talk about previous experience in the ways you suggest -- what do good teams/processes look like, etc. I usually try to do that in a pretty casual way, during the in-person interview, and have those conversations bleed over into the lunch/dinner discussion, too. Basically, I'm interested in learning about how a person thinks about their work. And introspection about team dynamics is definitely part of that.

cableshaft 11y ago
You might not have that experience, but I've seen otherwise. A company I worked for hosted an on-site two hour coding exercise (they gave you a computer, some boilerplate code, and a several tasks that were complete when you passed their unit tests) that was outlined during the phone interview so candidates knew what to expect. But while I worked the boss would regularly complain about people refusing to do the onsite exam, people cancelling last minute, people refusing the exam once they were shown what they were about to do, people excusing themselves in the middle of the exam and ditching, etc. These are people with 5-10 years of experience on their resumes given to him by recruiters. I personally thought the test was a little overwhelming (not hard, just too much considering the intense pressure of an interview) but I managed to get through it, and so did everyone else he had hired up to that point. He churned through a lot of people, though.

by kwindla 11y ago

cableshaft 11y ago

You might not have that experience, but I've seen otherwise. A company I worked for hosted an on-site two hour coding exercise (they gave you a computer, some boilerplate code, and a several tasks that were complete when you passed their unit tests) that was outlined during the phone interview so candidates knew what to expect. But while I worked the boss would regularly complain about people refusing to do the onsite exam, people cancelling last minute, people refusing the exam once they were shown what they were about to do, people excusing themselves in the middle of the exam and ditching, etc. These are people with 5-10 years of experience on their resumes given to him by recruiters. I personally thought the test was a little overwhelming (not hard, just too much considering the intense pressure of an interview) but I managed to get through it, and so did everyone else he had hired up to that point. He churned through a lot of people, though.