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Asking developers to program in front of strangers is primarily testing for ability to perform in front of strangers and developer skills secondarily (if at all
by ebbv 10y ago
Asking developers to program in front of strangers is primarily testing for ability to perform in front of strangers and developer skills secondarily (if at all.)
I never ask people to code in front of me. I ask them questions to get a feel for where their areas of expertise are, and to get to know them.
I wrote a post about my feelings on it last year:
https://medium.com/@ebbv/my-case-against-coding-tests-6b15c1cb2ca4#.dsqyw3hwe https://medium.com/@ebbv/my-case-against-coding-tests-6b15c1...
- ng12 10y agoA good interview should be conducted more like pair-programming than performance art. The interviewer should be explaining things about the problem space and asking questions about the interviewee's code (especially when they're going astray).
- jackmott 10y agothere is experimental evidence suggests that the ad hoc approach is the worst approach. why not have them write code, not in front of people. give them a laptop and some time alone?
- ebbv 10y agoMy approach is not ad hoc. I have refined my questions and technique over a decade of conducting interviews and much more being on the other end of them. Let me be clear; it's what works best for me. It may not work best for everyone. But I feel our industry doesn't even really put much thought into interviews right now. They just find some coding puzzles online and say "Here do these." That sucks. There's always something better you could be doing IMHO.
- GFischer 10y agoThe job I actually landed had the technical part of the job interview just like that - a laptop, a set of requirements (fixing an existing application), internet access, and some time. I did a lot better than I do on whiteboard style interviews, so I'm definitely biased to preferring this :) .