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I have no idea why people who otherwise are against practices like stack ranking think that companies like "Hacker"Rank which assign you a score based on a set

I have no idea why people who otherwise are against practices like stack ranking think that companies like "Hacker"Rank which assign you a score based on a set of simplistic algorithm are a good idea. If you are a manager and your company uses HackerRank as a hiring filter, I request you to take a good, hard second look at it – specially if you lament that you are unable to find any developers. These companies make bank from both sides (the person interviewing who is cramming on their material, and the employer), and leave out important things like how well you work with teams, how fast you adapt to new frameworks, or how maintainable your code base is. I guess it is no surprise that another of their "featured" blog posts talks in extremely glowing terms about someone for coding for 24 hours without any sleep. (http://blog.hackerrank.com/recap-how-mimino-solved-78-project-euler-problems-in-under-24-hours/ http://blog.hackerrank.com/recap-how-mimino-solved-78-projec...).

chezinn 10y ago
"Make bank from both sides" Can you point me to the part of the HackerRank website where they ask people (not businesses) to pay them money?
- parennoob 10y ago
  I am sorry -- since Gayle's book of the same name is a product worth ~$30, I assumed there was a paywall at some point behind https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/tutorials/cracking-the-coding-interview https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/tutorials/cracking-the-co... -- I guess I was wrong? It doesn't clearly say on the page that it was, and I don't want to sign up for their product. A slightly weaker version of that argument is that having a vast base of signed-up users and data about their challenges is still making bank out of the efforts of individual users, but clearly not as bad as requiring you to pay for this tutorial.
  - chezinn 10y ago
    Had a look myself. There isn't.
  - jakebasile 10y ago
    They make money by selling the snake oil that are these tests and interviews. They need interviewers to believe they are useful and diagnostic, and they need interviewees to put up with them and think it's acceptable to be put through it.
gaylemcd 10y ago
You're right -- HackerRank does leave out those things. It's a filter, not a replacement for the entire interview process. By having a filter, it allows a company to evaluate a lot more people and not rely entirely on the resume (which might not do a good job of representing your skills). Presumably, they are already doing these same style of coding+algorithm questions later on in the process, so this is just weeding out people who clearly wouldn't pass (and identifying people who would unexpectedly pass). Not a bad thing. If a company is using it as total replacement for the hiring process then, yeah, that's broken. They won't be able to evaluate team work and a bunch of other things.
- fail2fail2ban 10y ago
  For filter fun, try Googling "photo filters". Filters are generally bad, unless you actually want a biased output.
  - thedufer 10y ago
    The only two alternatives to not filtering candidates are to hire every candidate or not hire anyone. How could these possibly be better?
    - fail2fail2ban 10y ago
      Yes, not filtering is good, interviewing is good, hiring qualified candidates is good, not insulting senior candidates is good, blind filtering is bad.
      - thedufer 10y ago
        Interviewing _is_ a filter. Each step where you eliminate candidates is a filter; that's what that word means. I think what you're really trying to say is that blind filtering is bad (okay, you said this part explicitly) and you think that HackerRank is a blind filter. Unfortunately, this is pretty obviously not true. HackerRank uses quite a bit of data. Arguments that HackerRank is using the wrong data, or using what data it has poorly, would make a lot more sense than what you've said so far.

chezinn 10y ago

"Make bank from both sides" Can you point me to the part of the HackerRank website where they ask people (not businesses) to pay them money?

parennoob 10y ago
I am sorry -- since Gayle's book of the same name is a product worth ~$30, I assumed there was a paywall at some point behind https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/tutorials/cracking-the-coding-interview https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/tutorials/cracking-the-co... -- I guess I was wrong? It doesn't clearly say on the page that it was, and I don't want to sign up for their product. A slightly weaker version of that argument is that having a vast base of signed-up users and data about their challenges is still making bank out of the efforts of individual users, but clearly not as bad as requiring you to pay for this tutorial.
- chezinn 10y ago
  Had a look myself. There isn't.
- jakebasile 10y ago
  They make money by selling the snake oil that are these tests and interviews. They need interviewers to believe they are useful and diagnostic, and they need interviewees to put up with them and think it's acceptable to be put through it.

gaylemcd 10y ago

You're right -- HackerRank does leave out those things. It's a filter, not a replacement for the entire interview process. By having a filter, it allows a company to evaluate a lot more people and not rely entirely on the resume (which might not do a good job of representing your skills). Presumably, they are already doing these same style of coding+algorithm questions later on in the process, so this is just weeding out people who clearly wouldn't pass (and identifying people who would unexpectedly pass). Not a bad thing. If a company is using it as total replacement for the hiring process then, yeah, that's broken. They won't be able to evaluate team work and a bunch of other things.

fail2fail2ban 10y ago
For filter fun, try Googling "photo filters". Filters are generally bad, unless you actually want a biased output.
- thedufer 10y ago
  The only two alternatives to not filtering candidates are to hire every candidate or not hire anyone. How could these possibly be better?
  - fail2fail2ban 10y ago
    Yes, not filtering is good, interviewing is good, hiring qualified candidates is good, not insulting senior candidates is good, blind filtering is bad.
    - thedufer 10y ago
      Interviewing _is_ a filter. Each step where you eliminate candidates is a filter; that's what that word means. I think what you're really trying to say is that blind filtering is bad (okay, you said this part explicitly) and you think that HackerRank is a blind filter. Unfortunately, this is pretty obviously not true. HackerRank uses quite a bit of data. Arguments that HackerRank is using the wrong data, or using what data it has poorly, would make a lot more sense than what you've said so far.