7 ms·

Why is that funny? Most interviewers are just doing what their company asked them, to give a whiteboarding problem to a potential candidate and figure out if th

Why is that funny? Most interviewers are just doing what their company asked them, to give a whiteboarding problem to a potential candidate and figure out if they're worth hiring based on that. I agree the process sucks and it's a hoop to jump through, but why take it out on the interviewer?

dkarapetyan 9y ago
Because they are complicit. Saying they're just doing their job is not an excuse for propagating exclusionary and low signal interview practices.
- izacus 9y ago
  "Exclusionary?" Seriously? I didn't know you're entitled to a job.
  - Will_Parker 9y ago
    Notice how it's a whiteboard and not a board of colour.
    - dkarapetyan 9y ago
      There are blackboards as well. Color or ethnicity of the board is not the problem.
      - GhostVII 9y ago
        But whiteboards are far overrepresented. Definitely an issue.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  What part of the interview process doesn't have a purposeful exclusionary element? You're trying to weed out unsuitable candidates.
  - dkarapetyan 9y ago
    Better ways to do that than spend 5 hours in front of a whiteboard. Never gone through a whiteboard interview and then thought to myself that was time well spent, neither on the interviewer nor interviewee side. I've written integer programs, ray tracing simulation software for fields of heliostats, custom orchestration tools and deployment pipelines, etc. and not once has anything said or done during a whiteboard interview been relevant to any of it. The actual job is pretty much orthogonal to whatever the interviewer thinks they are figuring out during a whiteboard interview and as above the stuff I've worked on goes over the heads of 90% of the programmer population so 9/10 they can't and are not qualified to judge things properly but somehow they still think through the magic of the whiteboard they'll divine the candidate's true capabilities. When working on hard problems I go to the library and don't stand in front of a whiteboard to see if I'm smart enough to reinvent some wheel. Chances are someone else has already figured it out and I just need to read some paper and then implement it. If they haven't figured it out then that means the problem is harder than I thought and will either need to rethink my approach entirely or spend my time on something else. Unless of course the job is to stand in front of a whiteboard and wave furiously, in which case you should be using a whiteboard to interview.
- GhostVII 9y ago
  Doing their job is a perfect excuse for doing a whiteboard problem during an interview. If the company has standards for interviews, you should follow them, it would be pretty arrogant to just do it a different way because you think you know better than the standards.
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    Thats a missunderstanding on what standards are. Standards are minimal levels to fullfill- everyone is free to surpass them. And the first sentence of any well written standard is- "This rules may not apply universally, use your brain in case of emergencys". I get that its a horrible thing for some to consider that there is creative freedom involved in work and not everything in life follows exact and well defined rules. Anything else, is just holding humanity back. I ve seen standards written by assembly programmers, still alive and walking the earth, torturing hundreds and undead for ever, because what is once set in motion. Really good standards, standardize intentions. "Every Programm shall consists of layers and components. Every component shall be sperated by a interface." A bad standard tells you how the interface has to look like- every time.
tutufan 9y ago
There is kind of a symmetry to it. Get a question that the asker has studied and watch the answerer squirm. Seems like it'd be more fun, and probably more insightful, to take turns... :-)
- izacus 9y ago
  Also great way to get marked as "that asshole on the interview". People know each other in the industry.
  - Pica_soO 9y ago
    Yes, one only has to proof competency on those topics once- after that to ask - is intentionally embarrassing.
  - dkarapetyan 9y ago
    So then you're advocating for an appeasement ritual? Most interviewers would rather feel smart than talk to another person as an equal. More than a few times I've seen candidates disqualified because they made the interviewer feel inadequate. Who exactly is the asshole in that case?
    - izacus 9y ago
      No, I'm not advocating for anything like that. But if you want to deliberately make fun or piss off your interviewer, remember that that may have later consequences on your career. Nothing you do is in vacuum and there's no such thing as "just business" when insulting behaviour is involved. (Obviously, this goes both ways, shitty companies tend to have trouble getting good people to interview.)

dkarapetyan 9y ago

Because they are complicit. Saying they're just doing their job is not an excuse for propagating exclusionary and low signal interview practices.

izacus 9y ago
"Exclusionary?" Seriously? I didn't know you're entitled to a job.
- Will_Parker 9y ago
  Notice how it's a whiteboard and not a board of colour.
  - dkarapetyan 9y ago
    There are blackboards as well. Color or ethnicity of the board is not the problem.
    - GhostVII 9y ago
      But whiteboards are far overrepresented. Definitely an issue.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
lr4444lr 9y ago
What part of the interview process doesn't have a purposeful exclusionary element? You're trying to weed out unsuitable candidates.
- dkarapetyan 9y ago
  Better ways to do that than spend 5 hours in front of a whiteboard. Never gone through a whiteboard interview and then thought to myself that was time well spent, neither on the interviewer nor interviewee side. I've written integer programs, ray tracing simulation software for fields of heliostats, custom orchestration tools and deployment pipelines, etc. and not once has anything said or done during a whiteboard interview been relevant to any of it. The actual job is pretty much orthogonal to whatever the interviewer thinks they are figuring out during a whiteboard interview and as above the stuff I've worked on goes over the heads of 90% of the programmer population so 9/10 they can't and are not qualified to judge things properly but somehow they still think through the magic of the whiteboard they'll divine the candidate's true capabilities. When working on hard problems I go to the library and don't stand in front of a whiteboard to see if I'm smart enough to reinvent some wheel. Chances are someone else has already figured it out and I just need to read some paper and then implement it. If they haven't figured it out then that means the problem is harder than I thought and will either need to rethink my approach entirely or spend my time on something else. Unless of course the job is to stand in front of a whiteboard and wave furiously, in which case you should be using a whiteboard to interview.
GhostVII 9y ago
Doing their job is a perfect excuse for doing a whiteboard problem during an interview. If the company has standards for interviews, you should follow them, it would be pretty arrogant to just do it a different way because you think you know better than the standards.
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  Thats a missunderstanding on what standards are. Standards are minimal levels to fullfill- everyone is free to surpass them. And the first sentence of any well written standard is- "This rules may not apply universally, use your brain in case of emergencys". I get that its a horrible thing for some to consider that there is creative freedom involved in work and not everything in life follows exact and well defined rules. Anything else, is just holding humanity back. I ve seen standards written by assembly programmers, still alive and walking the earth, torturing hundreds and undead for ever, because what is once set in motion. Really good standards, standardize intentions. "Every Programm shall consists of layers and components. Every component shall be sperated by a interface." A bad standard tells you how the interface has to look like- every time.

tutufan 9y ago

There is kind of a symmetry to it. Get a question that the asker has studied and watch the answerer squirm. Seems like it'd be more fun, and probably more insightful, to take turns... :-)

izacus 9y ago
Also great way to get marked as "that asshole on the interview". People know each other in the industry.
- Pica_soO 9y ago
  Yes, one only has to proof competency on those topics once- after that to ask - is intentionally embarrassing.
- dkarapetyan 9y ago
  So then you're advocating for an appeasement ritual? Most interviewers would rather feel smart than talk to another person as an equal. More than a few times I've seen candidates disqualified because they made the interviewer feel inadequate. Who exactly is the asshole in that case?
  - izacus 9y ago
    No, I'm not advocating for anything like that. But if you want to deliberately make fun or piss off your interviewer, remember that that may have later consequences on your career. Nothing you do is in vacuum and there's no such thing as "just business" when insulting behaviour is involved. (Obviously, this goes both ways, shitty companies tend to have trouble getting good people to interview.)