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>>"In an effort to simulate their work environment, they bring in 50 job candidates at one time and pair them for 20 minutes. This is because work at Menlo is d
by throwaway_374 10y ago
>>"In an effort to simulate their work environment, they bring in 50 job candidates at one time and pair them for 20 minutes. This is because work at Menlo is done in pairs, two people sharing a single computer, passing the mouse back and forth while brainstorming ideas.
They give them an exercise typical of the kinds of work done at Menlo. While the pair work together, a staff member observes their interactions. At the end of 20 minutes, everyone will get new exercises, new partners, and new observers. Twenty minutes later, they will switch for a third time."
Talk about extreme - excuse the pun - commoditisation of programming. Your experiences no longer matter. Just walk in, do your audition, and hope you can shine against the herd. This is frankly ridiculous and I cannot think of a single benefit this would yield.
- netzone 10y agoThat sounds horrible indeed, I think I would just walk out if I was faced with such an interview.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoSo ... they pair the people who are competing for a limited number of jobs. This is one way to hire a bunch of aggressive A-Holes.
- headcanon 10y agoThey have a ridiculous turnover, so I'm not surprised. However they have a strict adherence to Scrum Agile (as in, by. the. book.) and they're an agency with some pretty good clients, so they stick around pretty well despite the churn. (source: I live/work in the area)
- noer 10y agoI was "interviewed" like that once. I found it incredibly unsettling. It devolved into three politely introducing ideas while trying to outdo the other two in discussion while three people watched silently from across the room. I didn't feel like the discussion was organic or actually moved to solve the problem.
- Bartweiss 10y agoThe problem is pretty much always that if there's a breakthrough or hard part to be handled, everyone feels like they need to be the one to do it. (And they're probably right, which is an even bigger problem.) I've heard of collaborative interviews that work well, but they're almost always collaborations between people who aren't competing for the same role.
- ashark 10y agoSeems like a good step toward dropping programming from Middle Class or High Prole to Middle Prole, to me (following Fussell's descriptions of classes).