4 ms·

I've been a programmer for a bit over ten years. I've worked at scrappy little startups, midsized companies, now for a tech giant for a few years. The engineers

by hobls 10y ago

I've been a programmer for a bit over ten years. I've worked at scrappy little startups, midsized companies, now for a tech giant for a few years. The engineers I work with at the tech giant are consistently better engineers than my other coworkers have been, and I credit the very structured interview process. We're trained to ask specific questions, look for specific types of answers, and each interviewer is evaluating different criteria. Also, it is quite often not the technical questions that end up making us decide not to hire someone. That's just one area. I know it's the part that sticks out, and candidates give a lot of weight to it in their memory of the interview, but you shouldn't just assume it was that your whiteboard code wasn't quite good enough. I actually don't think that's the most common thing we give a "no hire" for.

dikdik 10y ago
Which of the companies paid the best/has the best benefits? If it's the tech giant, it's very possible they attract better candidates because they offer more.
- NikolaeVarius 10y ago
  In my experience, the big Corps don't tend to offer anywhere near as much compensation but better days off etc etc. The best sofware guys I've ever seen work at those big corps. The big corps are the ones that have the resources to work on the REALLY hard problems and not writing the same CRUD app over and over again. Those same companies also provide tons of educational benefits so that you become an expert in your field. Things like fighter jet software are fantastically complex. You hear about the dumb mistakes that are made (International Date Line Issues), but you never hear about the thousands of hours of testing every change to code goes through and the insane calculations that are made every second in even standard level flight. I have no idea why there is such a backlash against interviews. What's so hard about studying for a job you want? Even if you don't USE knowledge, you should at least be able to rederive things using your base knowledge. Thoe interviews I've seen at aero companies are damn hard. Tons of grilling on if you actually understand mechanics and fliud dynamics.
  - Clubber 10y ago
    >I have no idea why there is such a backlash against interviews. What's so hard about studying for a job you want? That's a really good question and I had to think about why I don't like interviews. 1. It's an interrogation and the stakes are extremely high. There are so many aspects of it you don't control. Some guy had a shitty morning, or just doesn't like you, dropped your resume on the way back to his office, etc. 2. It's completely phony and it starts with the first question, "So why do you want to work at generic company X?" "I need money," is not an acceptable answer. Now I have to be phony and tell them why their company is awesome (it's not) which makes be feel like a kiss ass. I have to pretend to be excited about working at a boring ass company. Just shoot me. 3. We have to do it, unless we have rich parents that died young like Batman. 4. The person or people that are interviewing you have no notion of what you've accomplished aside from skimming your resume. All the hard work I've done to produce miracles in the last 20 or so years means, really nothing. 5. Companies only reward tenure at that company. It signals the start of something new but that's typically a bad thing when it comes to work. Less vacation, less credibility, less influence, etc. 6. You really don't know if the person or people you are interviewing are bozos or not. It doesn't matter, they cut the checks, they have the power. 7. As the article insinuates, they're fairly pointless.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  they may also be able to hire more, and let people leave on their own (or let them go later), keeping the 'better' ones on board. Smaller companies can't make the same number of hires in the first place.
- hobls 10y ago
  The tech giant, for sure.
davidf18 10y ago
Thanks...could you please cite specific examples?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- hobls 10y ago
  Added some above.
dlandis 10y ago
> I actually don't think that's the most common thing we give a "no hire" for. Can you cite any of the more common things you give no hires for?
- hobls 10y ago
  Some common ones: - Lack of self awareness and introspection. Not being able to give specific examples of times you've made a mistake and how you learned from it. - Shit talking old coworkers, general attitude that you're great and nothing is your fault. - Being unable to talk about YOUR specific contributions; "we did this, we did that, the project made money..." Okay, what did YOU do? Surprising amount of people fail on that one. - Not being able to give context about the "why" of what you worked on, what other options you considered, etc. - Not thinking about the end user; "I used this technology because it sounded cool" instead of "I wanted this result for my customers." Tell us about the situation and why you made the right or wrong choices. - Interrupting the interviewer and not asking questions. This is a weird one. We want you to do well, so sometimes if you're going down the wrong path we'll try to help. I've had candidates talk over me and just barge ahead down a totally incorrect path. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Obviously most weaknesses can be overlooked if there are serious strengths. I've done a lot of interviewing, happy to answer questions.
  - muyuu 10y ago
    >- Lack of self awareness and introspection. Not being able to give specific examples of times you've made a mistake and how you learned from it. >- Shit talking old coworkers, general attitude that you're great and nothing is your fault. These are fair enough, although you did say above that the other coworkers in your old scrappy startups were much worse. > - Being unable to talk about YOUR specific contributions; "we did this, we did that, the project made money..." Okay, what did YOU do? Surprising amount of people fail on that one. Some people will struggle to take credit because of politeness. Isn't taking credit trivial to do? Especially when the interviewer cannot possibly check up on that. I'm absolutely not convinced about this one, although I do make a point to talk about my contributions when I interview (which frankly doesn't happen much at all, since I tend to stay in the same job for long periods if possible and try to make things better there). >- Not thinking about the end user; "I used this technology because it sounded cool" instead of "I wanted this result for my customers." Tell us about the situation and why you made the right or wrong choices. This sounds like bullshit too, to be honest. Most people don't get to decide the general point of what they do unless they are the CTO. However I do realise that this is absolutely the kind of stuff interviewers look at and you need to prepare for it. >- Interrupting the interviewer and not asking questions. This is a weird one. We want you to do well, so sometimes if you're going down the wrong path we'll try to help. I've had candidates talk over me and just barge ahead down a totally incorrect path. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Fair. >Obviously most weaknesses can be overlooked if there are serious strengths. Which you really won't know until months later. >I've done a lot of interviewing, happy to answer questions. I know people who'd do badly on several of these accounts and are completely brilliant at getting the job done. The problem is that you cannot possibly know how well would the ones you rejected would have done. If you can have a probation period of 3 months or so, that should be the main yardstick. Of course someone's attitude can become shittier over time but no interviewing process can reliably catch that.
mercutio2 10y ago
I say the same thing on many of these threads. Most people rejected a at BigCos aren't rejected for failing to pass the technical bar(s); those people get filtered out in the phone screens. The by far most common reasons interviewers offer for low scores are: didn't listen/didn't acknowledge when they reached the end of their knowledge/didn't test when they got off the rails/just didn't seem like a cooperative coworker. These are all filters that may not matter at ye olde startup; but in a stable long lived team, these are red flags that seem corellated in my experience with lowering the morale of a dozen other people. So, even if you're a rock star, you might get rejected.
- hobls 10y ago
  This is a great comment. Totally agree. > didn't acknowledge when they reached the end of their knowledge Oh man, this one. How hard is "I don't know?" You're not supposed to have the entirety of computer science and software engineering knowledge jammed into your head. Let's talk about what you know and what you don't and figure out whether you're a good fit. We hire lots of people without direct experience in what we do because they seem great to work with and we think they'll learn quickly. Just please don't try to bullshit; it doesn't usually work.

by hobls 10y ago

dikdik 10y ago

Which of the companies paid the best/has the best benefits? If it's the tech giant, it's very possible they attract better candidates because they offer more.

NikolaeVarius 10y ago
In my experience, the big Corps don't tend to offer anywhere near as much compensation but better days off etc etc. The best sofware guys I've ever seen work at those big corps. The big corps are the ones that have the resources to work on the REALLY hard problems and not writing the same CRUD app over and over again. Those same companies also provide tons of educational benefits so that you become an expert in your field. Things like fighter jet software are fantastically complex. You hear about the dumb mistakes that are made (International Date Line Issues), but you never hear about the thousands of hours of testing every change to code goes through and the insane calculations that are made every second in even standard level flight. I have no idea why there is such a backlash against interviews. What's so hard about studying for a job you want? Even if you don't USE knowledge, you should at least be able to rederive things using your base knowledge. Thoe interviews I've seen at aero companies are damn hard. Tons of grilling on if you actually understand mechanics and fliud dynamics.
- Clubber 10y ago
  >I have no idea why there is such a backlash against interviews. What's so hard about studying for a job you want? That's a really good question and I had to think about why I don't like interviews. 1. It's an interrogation and the stakes are extremely high. There are so many aspects of it you don't control. Some guy had a shitty morning, or just doesn't like you, dropped your resume on the way back to his office, etc. 2. It's completely phony and it starts with the first question, "So why do you want to work at generic company X?" "I need money," is not an acceptable answer. Now I have to be phony and tell them why their company is awesome (it's not) which makes be feel like a kiss ass. I have to pretend to be excited about working at a boring ass company. Just shoot me. 3. We have to do it, unless we have rich parents that died young like Batman. 4. The person or people that are interviewing you have no notion of what you've accomplished aside from skimming your resume. All the hard work I've done to produce miracles in the last 20 or so years means, really nothing. 5. Companies only reward tenure at that company. It signals the start of something new but that's typically a bad thing when it comes to work. Less vacation, less credibility, less influence, etc. 6. You really don't know if the person or people you are interviewing are bozos or not. It doesn't matter, they cut the checks, they have the power. 7. As the article insinuates, they're fairly pointless.
mgkimsal 10y ago
they may also be able to hire more, and let people leave on their own (or let them go later), keeping the 'better' ones on board. Smaller companies can't make the same number of hires in the first place.
hobls 10y ago
The tech giant, for sure.

davidf18 10y ago

Thanks...could you please cite specific examples?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
hobls 10y ago
Added some above.

dlandis 10y ago

> I actually don't think that's the most common thing we give a "no hire" for. Can you cite any of the more common things you give no hires for?

hobls 10y ago
Some common ones: - Lack of self awareness and introspection. Not being able to give specific examples of times you've made a mistake and how you learned from it. - Shit talking old coworkers, general attitude that you're great and nothing is your fault. - Being unable to talk about YOUR specific contributions; "we did this, we did that, the project made money..." Okay, what did YOU do? Surprising amount of people fail on that one. - Not being able to give context about the "why" of what you worked on, what other options you considered, etc. - Not thinking about the end user; "I used this technology because it sounded cool" instead of "I wanted this result for my customers." Tell us about the situation and why you made the right or wrong choices. - Interrupting the interviewer and not asking questions. This is a weird one. We want you to do well, so sometimes if you're going down the wrong path we'll try to help. I've had candidates talk over me and just barge ahead down a totally incorrect path. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Obviously most weaknesses can be overlooked if there are serious strengths. I've done a lot of interviewing, happy to answer questions.
- muyuu 10y ago
  >- Lack of self awareness and introspection. Not being able to give specific examples of times you've made a mistake and how you learned from it. >- Shit talking old coworkers, general attitude that you're great and nothing is your fault. These are fair enough, although you did say above that the other coworkers in your old scrappy startups were much worse. > - Being unable to talk about YOUR specific contributions; "we did this, we did that, the project made money..." Okay, what did YOU do? Surprising amount of people fail on that one. Some people will struggle to take credit because of politeness. Isn't taking credit trivial to do? Especially when the interviewer cannot possibly check up on that. I'm absolutely not convinced about this one, although I do make a point to talk about my contributions when I interview (which frankly doesn't happen much at all, since I tend to stay in the same job for long periods if possible and try to make things better there). >- Not thinking about the end user; "I used this technology because it sounded cool" instead of "I wanted this result for my customers." Tell us about the situation and why you made the right or wrong choices. This sounds like bullshit too, to be honest. Most people don't get to decide the general point of what they do unless they are the CTO. However I do realise that this is absolutely the kind of stuff interviewers look at and you need to prepare for it. >- Interrupting the interviewer and not asking questions. This is a weird one. We want you to do well, so sometimes if you're going down the wrong path we'll try to help. I've had candidates talk over me and just barge ahead down a totally incorrect path. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Fair. >Obviously most weaknesses can be overlooked if there are serious strengths. Which you really won't know until months later. >I've done a lot of interviewing, happy to answer questions. I know people who'd do badly on several of these accounts and are completely brilliant at getting the job done. The problem is that you cannot possibly know how well would the ones you rejected would have done. If you can have a probation period of 3 months or so, that should be the main yardstick. Of course someone's attitude can become shittier over time but no interviewing process can reliably catch that.

mercutio2 10y ago

I say the same thing on many of these threads. Most people rejected a at BigCos aren't rejected for failing to pass the technical bar(s); those people get filtered out in the phone screens. The by far most common reasons interviewers offer for low scores are: didn't listen/didn't acknowledge when they reached the end of their knowledge/didn't test when they got off the rails/just didn't seem like a cooperative coworker. These are all filters that may not matter at ye olde startup; but in a stable long lived team, these are red flags that seem corellated in my experience with lowering the morale of a dozen other people. So, even if you're a rock star, you might get rejected.

hobls 10y ago
This is a great comment. Totally agree. > didn't acknowledge when they reached the end of their knowledge Oh man, this one. How hard is "I don't know?" You're not supposed to have the entirety of computer science and software engineering knowledge jammed into your head. Let's talk about what you know and what you don't and figure out whether you're a good fit. We hire lots of people without direct experience in what we do because they seem great to work with and we think they'll learn quickly. Just please don't try to bullshit; it doesn't usually work.