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>> As someone seeking a job, yes, it's unfortunate. But from an employer's perspective, false negatives are safer than false positives. - Are you an employer

by NTDF9 10y ago

>> As someone seeking a job, yes, it's unfortunate. But from an employer's perspective, false negatives are safer than false positives. - Are you an employer complaining there is a shortage of good developers? - How many candidates have you rejected in the past? - How many of those were because of a bullshit interview question? (Eg: Find the maximum subarray of an input array in O(n)...cannot be brute force....within 20 mins) - If you have faced a shortage of developers, have you considered calling back the people you rejected for bullshit questions? - If you don't have a problem finding engineers who can solve bullshit problems, your technique succeeded right? How many of those successful bullshitters have you fired or been disappointed by their performance at work? If the answer is zero..great. Don't ever fire them. Else, review your interview process. Thanks

rosser 10y ago
The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I've been in that situation: Once, at an old job, I had put in for a new role that had been created. There was also an outside candidate who'd applied for the role. Management felt that having me interview this candidate would have been a conflict of interest, considering, so I wasn't asked to participate. I knew within 30 seconds of meeting him that he wouldn't last. He didn't. They gave him three months, and we all agreed in retrospect that he shouldn't have been hired at all. In the interim, I did my old job, as well as his job (in the form of handholding him through everything he did more complicated than surfing the web), and was very quickly given the title of "Senior $role", with him as a direct report. The other engineers and I spent hours, daily, working hand in hand with him, correcting his code, repeatedly suggesting the same things he could do to avoid having those problems with his code in the first place, &c. That's just one example of what the thing I thought the grandparent meant by "false positive" can cost you. I'm sure there are worse.
- NTDF9 10y ago
  >> The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I'm familiar with the argument. Erring on the side of caution is wise. Thinking that the current interview process saves you from this is stupid. Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different The current interview process is a GAME. From the employer perspective, they can never be sure if they hired someone who memorized stuff for the interview or a really smart guy. It's very similar to the current US election process. Everyone thought the forefathers made a rock solid constitution. The few cracks it had was fixed with amendments. Lo and behold, the only person who could make it to the top was the one who gamed the system and not someone with real merit. Aren't the parallels strong? P.S.: Not claiming Hillary is meritorious, but at least she's not one to make radical decisions without counsel
  - lj3 10y ago
    Downvoted. This thread is about interviews, not politics. There are more than enough political posts on the front page right now if you're in the mood for political commentary.
  - mesid 10y ago
    >> Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different >> The current interview process is a GAME. Exactly what I've been thinking about recently. Isn't this true for a variety of things? The education system judging on the outcome of exam scores, elections, making money, marketing etc. I wonder whether all this can be really be 'fixed'.

by NTDF9 10y ago

rosser 10y ago

The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I've been in that situation: Once, at an old job, I had put in for a new role that had been created. There was also an outside candidate who'd applied for the role. Management felt that having me interview this candidate would have been a conflict of interest, considering, so I wasn't asked to participate. I knew within 30 seconds of meeting him that he wouldn't last. He didn't. They gave him three months, and we all agreed in retrospect that he shouldn't have been hired at all. In the interim, I did my old job, as well as his job (in the form of handholding him through everything he did more complicated than surfing the web), and was very quickly given the title of "Senior $role", with him as a direct report. The other engineers and I spent hours, daily, working hand in hand with him, correcting his code, repeatedly suggesting the same things he could do to avoid having those problems with his code in the first place, &c. That's just one example of what the thing I thought the grandparent meant by "false positive" can cost you. I'm sure there are worse.

NTDF9 10y ago
>> The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I'm familiar with the argument. Erring on the side of caution is wise. Thinking that the current interview process saves you from this is stupid. Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different The current interview process is a GAME. From the employer perspective, they can never be sure if they hired someone who memorized stuff for the interview or a really smart guy. It's very similar to the current US election process. Everyone thought the forefathers made a rock solid constitution. The few cracks it had was fixed with amendments. Lo and behold, the only person who could make it to the top was the one who gamed the system and not someone with real merit. Aren't the parallels strong? P.S.: Not claiming Hillary is meritorious, but at least she's not one to make radical decisions without counsel
- lj3 10y ago
  Downvoted. This thread is about interviews, not politics. There are more than enough political posts on the front page right now if you're in the mood for political commentary.
- mesid 10y ago
  >> Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different >> The current interview process is a GAME. Exactly what I've been thinking about recently. Isn't this true for a variety of things? The education system judging on the outcome of exam scores, elections, making money, marketing etc. I wonder whether all this can be really be 'fixed'.