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Oh gosh, this is totally true. I honestly find it almost disrespectful when you feel some company is putting you through a pipeline. They set up an interview d

Oh gosh, this is totally true. I honestly find it almost disrespectful when you feel some company is putting you through a pipeline. They set up an interview day, line everyone up, grind through them one by one. The other thing is the technical interview which is unreflective of the job itself. In one recently, I was told before going in I had to code on a whiteboard. I ask, "Can I have I use a text editor, not an IDE or anything, just a text editor?" I get told, no (for nonsensical reasons I won't list here). That sort of arbitrariness and inflexibility turn me off, not to mention the standoffishness of having people stare over your shoulder and judge you rather than work as collaborators. So I walked away from the interview. I'm happy where I am and you're gonna have to woo me, just a little bit, to get me to care. Sometimes I wish we were unionized so we could set some standards (for many other things, but this as well).

elcct 10y ago
Lucky you, I was once asked to write code on a napkin and on another occasion to say lines of code over the phone :)
dmoy 10y ago
On the flip side, as an interviewer I give all candidates the opportunity to use a text editor, and less than 15% of candidates take it. The rest opt for whiteboard.
- boardwaalk 10y ago
  That really truly surprises me. I'm so much quicker and more in my element with a text editor.
- majormajor 10y ago
  This was my experience as well (actually, even more extreme). Here's a room with a whiteboard or a laptop+TV. All 10 people I interviewed in that room chose the whiteboard. One of them mentioned feeling less pressure to have perfect syntax and everything at a whiteboard than in an editor. In retrospect, wish I'd asked more of them about their preference, although at the same time, it wasn't something I judged them on so I wouldn't want them to think I was nitpicking their choice. I'd probably choose a whiteboard too, honestly, for spatial reasons (able to write up separate things off to the side, easily annotate stuff in a different color to step through the code, etc).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sigsergv 10y ago
  I think that's because a lot of people are already trained to use whiteboard during interview.
wpietri 10y ago
For what it's worth, one of the things I did with my interview process was to make all the coding involve an actual computer. I gave the interviewee their choice of editor, and was happy to let them use their own computer. My theory was that in an interview I wanted to see people at their best. I wasn't hiring them to code on whiteboards or learn how to use new text editors; I was hiring them to spend a lot of time coding in an environment they liked. More details here: http://williampietri.com/writing/2015/slightly-less-awful-hiring/ http://williampietri.com/writing/2015/slightly-less-awful-hi...

elcct 10y ago

Lucky you, I was once asked to write code on a napkin and on another occasion to say lines of code over the phone :)

dmoy 10y ago

On the flip side, as an interviewer I give all candidates the opportunity to use a text editor, and less than 15% of candidates take it. The rest opt for whiteboard.

boardwaalk 10y ago
That really truly surprises me. I'm so much quicker and more in my element with a text editor.
majormajor 10y ago
This was my experience as well (actually, even more extreme). Here's a room with a whiteboard or a laptop+TV. All 10 people I interviewed in that room chose the whiteboard. One of them mentioned feeling less pressure to have perfect syntax and everything at a whiteboard than in an editor. In retrospect, wish I'd asked more of them about their preference, although at the same time, it wasn't something I judged them on so I wouldn't want them to think I was nitpicking their choice. I'd probably choose a whiteboard too, honestly, for spatial reasons (able to write up separate things off to the side, easily annotate stuff in a different color to step through the code, etc).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sigsergv 10y ago
I think that's because a lot of people are already trained to use whiteboard during interview.

wpietri 10y ago

For what it's worth, one of the things I did with my interview process was to make all the coding involve an actual computer. I gave the interviewee their choice of editor, and was happy to let them use their own computer. My theory was that in an interview I wanted to see people at their best. I wasn't hiring them to code on whiteboards or learn how to use new text editors; I was hiring them to spend a lot of time coding in an environment they liked. More details here: http://williampietri.com/writing/2015/slightly-less-awful-hiring/ http://williampietri.com/writing/2015/slightly-less-awful-hi...