4 ms·

Yes, and I think the appropriate response is to rate-limit the interviews to one that you can handle easily. 1/week? Employers typically have pipelines design

Yes, and I think the appropriate response is to rate-limit the interviews to one that you can handle easily. 1/week? Employers typically have pipelines designed for hiring throughput, so they won't mind spacing out stages longer (modulo any recruiter metrics, but I haven't heard of a case of that). And as they're all similar style questions, they should just read up on these. Hold off on interviews until you're confident, or just schedule the less-desirable firms first, so that you have enough time to read up. Interviewees know that these questions are coming, they can control the schedule, and they're the only ones who know their own energy and state. Nobody tells them that it's up to them to do flow control. But it's a hot market and people want good programmers. Even if you don't do tree searches or inversions in your normal work day, you can show that you're good because you can understand this stuff. Most candidates can't. So please, take your time, skim the textbooks, take a few notes, maybe do a few flash cards.

bpchaps 11y ago
So, are you suggesting that folks take one day off per week? That seems a little ridiculous. The number of employers who haven't even looked at my resume, even after a month long process, is insane. Is it really that hard to read a resume beforehand? Why waste everybody's time?! So please, take your time, skim their resumes and maybe do a bit of github code reviews before inviting someone to sit down. Hell, do it while you're taking a shit in the office if you, as an employer, are overworked. There's a pun in there.
- lallysingh 11y ago
  I read the resumes, and if the code description is interesting, I'll pull up the github repo. I read a lot of them because I do a lot of interviews, and the resumes that get passed to me for interviews all look fantastic and incredibly similar. Because good programmers have remarkably similar resumes as bad programmers -- one was made by sweat & blood, the other with bullshit. It's just text on a page, there's no way of knowing which one's which. As for their code, I learn a little bit about their programming style -- and it's often unflattering and unhelpful, as these are usually personal projects where people write code below the standard they'd use at the office -- but it tells me little of what parts were hard, what parts involved real insight from the candidate, and what parts were pasted from stack overflow. Given a github URL, how much time do you think it takes to figure out where the interesting parts are? And what's the information payback of that time, given the little information you get about a person's actual capabilities from a bunch of text saved on a server? I know that everyone's their own special snow flake, but I don't have more than the 45 minutes to give them a fair shake. And it has to be fair - a question that they should probably have enough context to know, and who's answer can't be bull-shitted. I've got 45 minutes to give as objective an interview I can, balancing the Type 1/2 errors of missing someone good, and hiring someone bad. 1 a week was an example of what I was doing when I went interviewing. I mentioned that as slow enough to read up as much as you need. Did you want more? Less? [Edit: not speaking for my employer, whose name I don't want to mention. ]
  - bpchaps 11y ago
    All I'm asking is for a bit of empathy. If you're willing to have someone fly out to you, that's an enormous hassle for them but very little for you. I kind of get the impression you're bitter or projecting something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Not trying to be snarky, just saying.
    - lallysingh 11y ago
      Try re-reading the first paragraph as if you were the recipient of your message. And where do you think it's no hassle for me? I spend somewhere around 4 hours every week on interviews, for years now. Job hunting is a big deal. It's real work, and literally everyone who's doing an interview has been interviewed, almost certainly in the same process. I studied up before my interviews, and I worked to manage my energy and capability when doing them. The article's premise that they should walk into an interview room and mystically get evaluated on traits that you can't directly measure, or compare objectively, is ridiculous. I read the article thinking this is the same type of guy that probably complains about having to see homeless people in SF. Completely entitled. I take offense to the premise that I don't have empathy for the candidates - evaluating a person for a job is a deeply emotional affair. I have to walk a fine line between the needs of the candidate and employer. I can't hug you or take you out for drinks, as that could result in a lawsuit. The best I can do is find the interview question that lets you show off the best of your talents. Asking for empathy without giving any in return isn't going to get you very far.
      - bpchaps 11y ago
        The reason I can't put my finger on your reply is that you immediately applied everything I said to yourself and blew it up into a lengthy reply. If you're one of the "good" interviewers, then none of what I said applies to you - that simple. Yet, even if that's the case, I still can't help but notice that your reply then, and now, feels like personal projection of some kind.
        lallysingh 11y ago

bpchaps 11y ago

So, are you suggesting that folks take one day off per week? That seems a little ridiculous. The number of employers who haven't even looked at my resume, even after a month long process, is insane. Is it really that hard to read a resume beforehand? Why waste everybody's time?! So please, take your time, skim their resumes and maybe do a bit of github code reviews before inviting someone to sit down. Hell, do it while you're taking a shit in the office if you, as an employer, are overworked. There's a pun in there.

lallysingh 11y ago
I read the resumes, and if the code description is interesting, I'll pull up the github repo. I read a lot of them because I do a lot of interviews, and the resumes that get passed to me for interviews all look fantastic and incredibly similar. Because good programmers have remarkably similar resumes as bad programmers -- one was made by sweat & blood, the other with bullshit. It's just text on a page, there's no way of knowing which one's which. As for their code, I learn a little bit about their programming style -- and it's often unflattering and unhelpful, as these are usually personal projects where people write code below the standard they'd use at the office -- but it tells me little of what parts were hard, what parts involved real insight from the candidate, and what parts were pasted from stack overflow. Given a github URL, how much time do you think it takes to figure out where the interesting parts are? And what's the information payback of that time, given the little information you get about a person's actual capabilities from a bunch of text saved on a server? I know that everyone's their own special snow flake, but I don't have more than the 45 minutes to give them a fair shake. And it has to be fair - a question that they should probably have enough context to know, and who's answer can't be bull-shitted. I've got 45 minutes to give as objective an interview I can, balancing the Type 1/2 errors of missing someone good, and hiring someone bad. 1 a week was an example of what I was doing when I went interviewing. I mentioned that as slow enough to read up as much as you need. Did you want more? Less? [Edit: not speaking for my employer, whose name I don't want to mention. ]
- bpchaps 11y ago
  All I'm asking is for a bit of empathy. If you're willing to have someone fly out to you, that's an enormous hassle for them but very little for you. I kind of get the impression you're bitter or projecting something, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Not trying to be snarky, just saying.
  - lallysingh 11y ago
    Try re-reading the first paragraph as if you were the recipient of your message. And where do you think it's no hassle for me? I spend somewhere around 4 hours every week on interviews, for years now. Job hunting is a big deal. It's real work, and literally everyone who's doing an interview has been interviewed, almost certainly in the same process. I studied up before my interviews, and I worked to manage my energy and capability when doing them. The article's premise that they should walk into an interview room and mystically get evaluated on traits that you can't directly measure, or compare objectively, is ridiculous. I read the article thinking this is the same type of guy that probably complains about having to see homeless people in SF. Completely entitled. I take offense to the premise that I don't have empathy for the candidates - evaluating a person for a job is a deeply emotional affair. I have to walk a fine line between the needs of the candidate and employer. I can't hug you or take you out for drinks, as that could result in a lawsuit. The best I can do is find the interview question that lets you show off the best of your talents. Asking for empathy without giving any in return isn't going to get you very far.
    - bpchaps 11y ago
      The reason I can't put my finger on your reply is that you immediately applied everything I said to yourself and blew it up into a lengthy reply. If you're one of the "good" interviewers, then none of what I said applies to you - that simple. Yet, even if that's the case, I still can't help but notice that your reply then, and now, feels like personal projection of some kind.
      - lallysingh 11y ago