6 ms·
It's well publicized what to expect at interviews for these firms. It shows that you're willing to put in the preparation to make it work. In addition to puttin
by unoti 10y ago
It's well publicized what to expect at interviews for these firms. It shows that you're willing to put in the preparation to make it work. In addition to putting in the work of memorizing the algorithms, a candidate needs to know how to apply them, and to write code, and to accept feedback, and to collaborate and communicate.
If a candidate isn't willing to put in the work to prepare, it's not much of a cognitive leap for me to envision them telling me that implementing this or that feature is dumb, impractical and not needed. Many developers have this "start with no" defeatist attitude as their default position on most problems of moderate complexity, and it's a real problem. Given a chance to select for candidates that instead figure out a way to make it happen I'd rather take the winners.
- tobz 10y agoDo you not find it strange, or at least confusing, that you're arguing a point here that is predicated on studying for an interview, rather than the actual position? "This person didn't study for the interview, so what did they expect to happen?" Oh, I don't know, maybe to be asked questions directly related to the position, amongst other things.
- unoti 10y ago> Do you not find it strange, or at least confusing, that you're arguing a point here that is predicated on studying for an interview, rather than the actual position? No, I don't find it strange that I want them to prepare for something they're not going to use normally, but agree it might be confusing. For the actual positions I'm hiring for, nobody in the world outside our teams understands the systems. The candidates are going to need to work hard to learn what's going on when they start their new job. Some of it is going to be hard to do and not always a complete pleasure. Essentially I see it as a personality test that selects for the kind of people that figure out how to overcome technical adversity. Willingness to do the work to be prepared and eagerness to dive into technical arcana despite it being not very easy-- these things are very relevant to the positions I hire for at Microsoft.
- tobz 10y ago> I want them to prepare for something they're not going to use normally <mind blown GIF goes here..> > Essentially I see it as a personality test that selects for the kind of people that figure in it how to overcome technical adversity. This seems at odds with the original "ask", as it were: study up on some basic CS algorithms, and now I know you can handle what we're going to throw at you here. Ignoring the obvious "well, we need to make sure they can learn basic things", how is this even a viable test if your environment is so advanced, so high up, that you expect new candidates to encounter actual adversity?
- enjo 10y agoI use Google Hangouts every day, whatever they're using for selecting engineers clearly isn't working.
- spinlock 10y agoMicrosoft is a great company to work at ... if you're an MBA.
- kkapelon 10y ago> I want them to prepare for something they're not going to use normally I think this pretty much sums up what is wrong with hiring.
- Chris2048 10y agoTesting for adaptability?