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The article makes the following statement: Whiteboard interviews have a very high false negative rate (rejecting people who are good), but they also have a low

The article makes the following statement: Whiteboard interviews have a very high false negative rate (rejecting people who are good), but they also have a low false positive rate (hiring people who are not good). On what basis is this statement made? No study or source appears to be cited. The specific false negative and false positive rates are not given. Also, what exactly is the definition of "good" used?

nissimk 9y ago
It's not possible to compute the false negative rate because once you turn down a candidate you get no more information. I suppose if people apply multiple times and are accepted later and then go on to do well on the job, you can count them as false negative in the first interview. The sample size for that would be small though. And I'm sure the true believers would say that these candidates improved their programming skills between the two interviews, not their interviewing skills. I am quite interested in the false positive rate which can be computed by correlating performance reviews with interview performance.
- rlanday 9y ago
  > I suppose if people apply multiple times and are accepted later and then go on to do well on the job, you can count them as false negative in the first interview. Isn't it more likely that they were correctly rejected multiple times and just got lucky enough to squeak through one time?
- zzzcpan 9y ago
  > I am quite interested in the false positive rate which can be computed by correlating performance reviews with interview performance. You would still be excluding all the false negatives making it kind of relative performance of interview survivors. Meaning that you won't have anything to compare your false positive rate to proclaim it as low or as high.
  - nissimk 9y ago
    You could compare it to other interview techniques if you were willing to test them.

nissimk 9y ago

It's not possible to compute the false negative rate because once you turn down a candidate you get no more information. I suppose if people apply multiple times and are accepted later and then go on to do well on the job, you can count them as false negative in the first interview. The sample size for that would be small though. And I'm sure the true believers would say that these candidates improved their programming skills between the two interviews, not their interviewing skills. I am quite interested in the false positive rate which can be computed by correlating performance reviews with interview performance.

rlanday 9y ago
> I suppose if people apply multiple times and are accepted later and then go on to do well on the job, you can count them as false negative in the first interview. Isn't it more likely that they were correctly rejected multiple times and just got lucky enough to squeak through one time?
zzzcpan 9y ago
> I am quite interested in the false positive rate which can be computed by correlating performance reviews with interview performance. You would still be excluding all the false negatives making it kind of relative performance of interview survivors. Meaning that you won't have anything to compare your false positive rate to proclaim it as low or as high.
- nissimk 9y ago
  You could compare it to other interview techniques if you were willing to test them.