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Nonsense. First step is to acknowledge that interviewing doesn't work very well. You can't keep deluding yourself because you haven't found a better way. Accept

Nonsense. First step is to acknowledge that interviewing doesn't work very well. You can't keep deluding yourself because you haven't found a better way. Accept reality. This is one of the biggest problems I see with business guys today. They want absolute certainty in a world which can't offer it. Start accepting that there is a lot of stuff we don't know and can't know at the moment and we simply have to work towards getting better. You can't get better if you don't acknowledge that there is a problem in the first place. These silly, must have +5 years of experience, and check all these boxes with technologies to get the job clearly shows the industry is completely lost at the moment and isn't willing to acknowledge it.

mahyarm 10y ago
Of course people know interviews aren't the greatest, but it's the best tool they have right now. What people are pushing back against is criticism without solutions. There are a bunch of other testing methods that are illegal in the USA too, such as IQ tests.
- LnxPrgr3 10y ago
  When users of code I've written complain that something sucks to use, I don't demand they come up with a better solution. Probably I don't even want to know what they think the answer is—unless they design user interfaces for a living, odds are their answer will be terrible and they won't even be happy with it if I build it. This is as it should be—I'm paid to solve problems. Why is this different? The more I read about interviewing, the more I realize too many people think they have this problem solved—their amateur psychology is impeccable and their technical screens test for exactly the right things, no more and no less. Did they do a bunch of controlled studies to convince themselves of this, or are they taking sounding good, or intuition about the statistical outcomes of different techniques, to be equivalent to truth? Maybe the first step is to collectively realize we have close to no clue what we're doing, and are being asked to solve a hard problem: individually, to talk to someone for an hour and make a hiring recommendation. In aggregate, to make the decision based on a handful of these one-hour conversations. Maybe the first step is to realize this is a problem worth trying to solve. Maybe the first step is vocal non-acceptance.
- duncan_bayne 10y ago
  > What people are pushing back against is criticism without solutions. Which is bullshit. It's perfectly reasonable to criticise something without proposing an alternative. It's especially ridiculous to reject criticism provided without alternatives, when it's literally your job to do the work being criticised. "Hey the way you're doing this part of your job produces results no better than random selection." "Bring me solutions, not problems!"
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Solution: toss a coin or take n first applicants for the trial period. Same effectiveness, much cheaper. No need for the interviewer.
cubano 10y ago
I still don't understand why employers can't simply set up a two week "trial contract" where as promising candidates simply work for two weeks so everyone can actually see and judge, with real world empirical data, how well the person does in the environment at the actual job. Yes yes..of course I know this could be gamed as well, but no matter...you can't really argue that this wouldn't be magnitudes better then the typical current/broken interview process.
- AndyNemmity 10y ago
  The concept of a two week trial contract is interesting, but also as flawed as anything else. I switched roles to a new team, and the first 2 weeks were a trainwreck. It was almost of no predictive quality on how I would do. Now, there are many reasons why that was the case, and perhaps those underlying issues should be addressed, but from all the role changes I've had, the first two weeks shows how well the group you're going into can onboard, more than it shows how productive the individual will be in the long term.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    You would need a longer trial period, a few months is fine with a clause that allows earlier termination.
- wolco 10y ago
  If someone is currently employed it makes that arrangement difficult.
  - AstralStorm 10y ago
    Indeed, though any kind of arrangement is difficult. You might end up in a dead end job, not matching your skills or otherwise soul crushing regardless of the method.
- throwaway4job 10y ago
  Most good candidates are already employed, and don't want to take two weeks off to take a chance on a single interview. As such, this sort of arrangement happens to some degree with students (it's why internships exist), and with some contractors, but it's not a generalizable solution.
Spooky23 10y ago
Yet, literally every professionally employed person is in their current gig via that process. It works good enough.
- tacomonstrous 10y ago
  That's a syllogism and I'm not sure it tells us anything. If you replaced interviewing with a footrace across hot coals the same assertion would be (just as vacuously) true.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    It's deeper than that. Everyone hates the process, and companies have investing major dollars and hours trying to improve. End of the day, little has changed since 1917. You either acquire-hire, get a strong referral or interview a pool of unknown applicants. The tests and quizzes are little different to how a city hired an accountant in 1917. The old boys network evolved. Then you're left with the rest.
- LnxPrgr3 10y ago
  Counterexample: I did not apply to, nor interview for, my current gig, and I'm not cheating by working for myself. And I bet almost everyone reading this has worked with at least one person they think shouldn't have survived the interview, and that person was making a boatload because they convinced the boss they're brilliant. Meanwhile 90% of their day was spent talking about how great they are, and 10% creating new bugs, and no one dared say anything because the thought of them being more "productive" was horrifying. 'It' mostly successfully matches employees to employers, but the quality of those matches may vary wildly. Interview processes also vary wildly—you can't really say that it works without defining 'it.' Are we talking multiple technical screens that require writing code or a single fluffy buzzword-laden conversation with a C-level? Both have failure modes, but those failure modes sure are different.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    > Interview processes also vary wildly—you can't really say that it works without defining 'it.' Are we talking multiple technical screens that require writing code or a single fluffy buzzword-laden conversation with a C-level? Both have failure modes, but those failure modes sure are different. End of the day, everything evens out. People add the structure they need when they hire people. If your engineering interview process for some detail oriented gig is buzzword trivia with the CIO, the company will probably tank anyway. Conversely, if you do some nerd-fest whiteboard interview for a CTO in a bigger organization, you're probably not getting the right outcome either.

mahyarm 10y ago

Of course people know interviews aren't the greatest, but it's the best tool they have right now. What people are pushing back against is criticism without solutions. There are a bunch of other testing methods that are illegal in the USA too, such as IQ tests.

LnxPrgr3 10y ago
When users of code I've written complain that something sucks to use, I don't demand they come up with a better solution. Probably I don't even want to know what they think the answer is—unless they design user interfaces for a living, odds are their answer will be terrible and they won't even be happy with it if I build it. This is as it should be—I'm paid to solve problems. Why is this different? The more I read about interviewing, the more I realize too many people think they have this problem solved—their amateur psychology is impeccable and their technical screens test for exactly the right things, no more and no less. Did they do a bunch of controlled studies to convince themselves of this, or are they taking sounding good, or intuition about the statistical outcomes of different techniques, to be equivalent to truth? Maybe the first step is to collectively realize we have close to no clue what we're doing, and are being asked to solve a hard problem: individually, to talk to someone for an hour and make a hiring recommendation. In aggregate, to make the decision based on a handful of these one-hour conversations. Maybe the first step is to realize this is a problem worth trying to solve. Maybe the first step is vocal non-acceptance.
duncan_bayne 10y ago
> What people are pushing back against is criticism without solutions. Which is bullshit. It's perfectly reasonable to criticise something without proposing an alternative. It's especially ridiculous to reject criticism provided without alternatives, when it's literally your job to do the work being criticised. "Hey the way you're doing this part of your job produces results no better than random selection." "Bring me solutions, not problems!"
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Solution: toss a coin or take n first applicants for the trial period. Same effectiveness, much cheaper. No need for the interviewer.

cubano 10y ago

I still don't understand why employers can't simply set up a two week "trial contract" where as promising candidates simply work for two weeks so everyone can actually see and judge, with real world empirical data, how well the person does in the environment at the actual job. Yes yes..of course I know this could be gamed as well, but no matter...you can't really argue that this wouldn't be magnitudes better then the typical current/broken interview process.

AndyNemmity 10y ago
The concept of a two week trial contract is interesting, but also as flawed as anything else. I switched roles to a new team, and the first 2 weeks were a trainwreck. It was almost of no predictive quality on how I would do. Now, there are many reasons why that was the case, and perhaps those underlying issues should be addressed, but from all the role changes I've had, the first two weeks shows how well the group you're going into can onboard, more than it shows how productive the individual will be in the long term.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  You would need a longer trial period, a few months is fine with a clause that allows earlier termination.
wolco 10y ago
If someone is currently employed it makes that arrangement difficult.
- AstralStorm 10y ago
  Indeed, though any kind of arrangement is difficult. You might end up in a dead end job, not matching your skills or otherwise soul crushing regardless of the method.
throwaway4job 10y ago
Most good candidates are already employed, and don't want to take two weeks off to take a chance on a single interview. As such, this sort of arrangement happens to some degree with students (it's why internships exist), and with some contractors, but it's not a generalizable solution.

Spooky23 10y ago

Yet, literally every professionally employed person is in their current gig via that process. It works good enough.

tacomonstrous 10y ago
That's a syllogism and I'm not sure it tells us anything. If you replaced interviewing with a footrace across hot coals the same assertion would be (just as vacuously) true.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  It's deeper than that. Everyone hates the process, and companies have investing major dollars and hours trying to improve. End of the day, little has changed since 1917. You either acquire-hire, get a strong referral or interview a pool of unknown applicants. The tests and quizzes are little different to how a city hired an accountant in 1917. The old boys network evolved. Then you're left with the rest.
LnxPrgr3 10y ago
Counterexample: I did not apply to, nor interview for, my current gig, and I'm not cheating by working for myself. And I bet almost everyone reading this has worked with at least one person they think shouldn't have survived the interview, and that person was making a boatload because they convinced the boss they're brilliant. Meanwhile 90% of their day was spent talking about how great they are, and 10% creating new bugs, and no one dared say anything because the thought of them being more "productive" was horrifying. 'It' mostly successfully matches employees to employers, but the quality of those matches may vary wildly. Interview processes also vary wildly—you can't really say that it works without defining 'it.' Are we talking multiple technical screens that require writing code or a single fluffy buzzword-laden conversation with a C-level? Both have failure modes, but those failure modes sure are different.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  > Interview processes also vary wildly—you can't really say that it works without defining 'it.' Are we talking multiple technical screens that require writing code or a single fluffy buzzword-laden conversation with a C-level? Both have failure modes, but those failure modes sure are different. End of the day, everything evens out. People add the structure they need when they hire people. If your engineering interview process for some detail oriented gig is buzzword trivia with the CIO, the company will probably tank anyway. Conversely, if you do some nerd-fest whiteboard interview for a CTO in a bigger organization, you're probably not getting the right outcome either.