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Ask HN: Do interviews give higher signal than an online tests like HackerRank's?

• clint_v 10y ago
  It's good to know that a candidate gets the right answer, but just as important to know how they got to the answer (communication, thought process, coachability). Tells more about what working with them would be like. Online tests can't do that Also, to your second point, I can tailor to candidate - i.e., hints for someone struggling or adding layers of complexity.
• kohanz 10y ago
  Are you talking about solely evaluating the technical ability of the candidate? Because that's only part of the equation to making the right hiring choice.
  • pradeep_m 10y ago
    True, but how often are candidates truly rejected because of non-technical abilities? I'd guesstimate that 75% of candidates are rejected because of technical abilities (didn't get design right or algorithm right or coding standard is poor, etc).
    • greyostrich 10y ago
      Then I must be in the 25% group. I have pretty much failed all non-tech interviews. I have little control over whether I pass them. I'll give you an example: 1) Several weeks ago, an HN user referred me to a defense contractor position. 2) They asked me about three questions: 2a) "Are you more interested in back, front, or full stack?" (I don't care, but I lean toward full stack) 2b) "Do you think you could pass the background check?" (absolutely) 2c) "Why did you leave your last position?" (it was a contract) I haven't received a reply since then. There was a similar incident with another referral, where the recruiter deemed me unworthy due to a "lack of Java keywords" on my resume. The interviewing process is messed up at most companies. I did luck out with a contract (not the defense one mentioned above) position, I did pass their behavioral phone screen, behavioral on-site, and technical on-site. I only did well with them, because there were no recruiters nor HR involved in the process. If you're wondering about my current situation, I am unemployed.
• rafiki6 10y ago
  Neither choice is valid. Software development interviewing is broken. We are starting to finally collect data to prove this. https://blog.interviewing.io/technical-interview-performance-is-kind-of-arbitrary-heres-the-data/ https://blog.interviewing.io/technical-interview-performance... Humans are bad at evaluating candidates and generally we do a bad job of creating criteria to assess people because what we are doing is attempting to assess risk and humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk. Here is one example of how poorly investors assess risk because of our inherent biases and bad information http://www.nber.org/papers/w22143 http://www.nber.org/papers/w22143. The same concept applies in interviewing. With all due respect, the software community has no established criteria for what makes a good software developer or engineer bases on hard evidence. It's all anecdotal and every hiring manager leans on their own flawed biases based on their experiences.
  • ng12 10y ago
    > Software development interviewing is broken Do you know what interviewing in non-tech fields is like? Complete bullshit. It's more about making your resume sound impressive and being buddy-buddy with the interviewer. At least we have meritocratic ideals, even if some companies implement them poorly.
    • askafriend 10y ago
      Is there really value in raising up an ideal that doesn't hold in practice in any way shape or form? It seems as if our interviewing methodologies are designed simply to have a guise of meritocracy whereas in other fields that guise is dropped entirely and we see what really exists for what it is (mostly bullshit).
      • ng12 10y ago
        I think it's more of a cargo cult type thing, where a lot of companies saw Google's hiring process and tried to copy it without having a deep understanding of how it works. There's no reason for coding interviews to be bullshit. I only give one interview question: fetch some data from an endpoint, manipulate it and display it. It's simple and the best proxy for what day-to-day work is like that can be completed in an hour.
• mojoe 10y ago
  Every software development position is going to have slightly different hiring criteria. In-person interviews allow you to focus on evaluating a candidate based on your own specific criteria, which may or may not stress generic algorithmic coding ability.
• bsvalley 10y ago
  Are you gonna tell your product manager that it will take you 5 days to write a linear solution for your feature? O(n). Are you gonna fix a critical bug in production by using a depth first search instead of a breadth first search? What does it even mean? When are we gonna stop lying to ourselves? The only way to evaluate someone for a software engineer position is to assign a mini coding project. The result should be a working product, packaged and ready to be shipped. It will tell you how fast someone can deliver a solution, how someone would design a solution, code quality, performance, etc. It doesn't have to be a gigantic app or website, just a basic working product and not a basic CS coding question that no one cares about. If you're applying for a backend position then it should be about building a backend. If you're applying for a mobile dev then it should be about building a mobile app, etc. The whole hiring process is a joke, companies like google are focusing too much on college stuff and not enough on reality. Plus look, It's clearly written "Masters Degree in CS" on my Resume, that alone should tell you I already got evaluated on basic CS crap. So, let's talk about what I can really do to help your team and the company. What can I bring on the table besides a Masters Degree?
  • pradeep_m 10y ago
    While I agree that interviews have high variance and a lot of times the interviews don't test what's required for the job, mini projects are a huge time sink for candidates too. Most candidates aren't going to spend a couple of days working on a project just to apply to a company. Unless all companies decide to just switch to using project-based interviewing, interviewing is here to stay (despite its quirks).
    • bsvalley 10y ago
      The hiring process in 2017 is: 1. First CS exercise - phone screen (1h) 2. Second CS exercise - phone screen (1h, optional) 3. Onsite (full day of CS exercises on a white board or on a computer) 4. Sometimes you get an extra coding assignment when they still can't make up their mind What I'm saying is that all we need is step 4 + culture fit, which could be done in one single day. So we could get rid of all the other useless steps.
  • 10y ago
• gaius 10y ago
  Here's the real answer: no-one is hired purely to program. You are hired to sit with the team 9 hours a day, possibly next to your interviewer, and he/she wants to be sure you'll get along. Companies are social and I don't mean as in "social media". There will never come a time when you do an online quiz then should up the next day and sit down, apart from the most commoditized of temp work.
  • throwaway_374 10y ago
    Absolutely. I've been to more than one final round where the feedback was "not technically strong enough" but it was clear from the interviewer's attitude that it was largely about "fit" and whether they wanted to "let you in".
• master_yoda_1 10y ago
  Software engineer is a very generic role which has different definition in each companies. Here is some example. If you need to come up with optimize algorithm as part of your job, hackerrank signals are good. If you need to do simple code change or fix some bug for which it need to communicate with many people, then in person interview give good signal. I think there must be other websites, testrank, bugfixrank, assemblyrank, devopsrank temaleadrank, managerrank etc, then it would be easier. Software interview is broken because big companies hire in herd and small company follow the same generic interview practice.
• deleted 10y ago
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