4 ms·

Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name,

Sometimes I wonder if the tech industry should adopt the orchestral model of auditions: prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice. Judge them entirely on their code and text responses. Sure something like this would probably result in complaints about "hiring for culture fit," but isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place?

dominotw 9y ago
i did one of these interviews at a bank. I was asked to sit behind curtain and answer questions . It felt totally weird. you are right they should have masked out my voice too.
tlb 9y ago
There exist people who are good at providing correct answers and code, but are incredibly toxic to a human organization. They're fairly rare, and if you work in a healthy well-run company, you may never have met one. But if you interview a lot, you surely have (they get a lot of interviews, because they look good on paper.) The risk is that you'd end up with a lot of these types. I'm not saying a pure audition model can't work, just that you should know what the pitfalls are.
Jach 9y ago
> isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place? No, they're merely a technical fit, maybe, depending on what you ask. (Your blinding process would also mean preventing interviewers from seeing any open source contributions which may be far more indicative of technical fit than anything you'd ask in an interview.) Technical fit might be enough for most roles, more blinding at least at the initial filtering stages might be a good idea, but culture fit is important for a lot of firms. At the very least people will want person-to-person interviews to maximize their odds at detecting a permanent asshole (and other toxic types), since typically no one wants to work with one even if they're skilled.
emodendroket 9y ago
It seems like a good idea, but how do you make sure you don't hire someone with a complete lack of social skills?
- rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  Maybe a blind interview should satisfy technical requirements, and then the candidate meets the team in person.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    But then you're back into the old cultural fit/bias questions, right?
    - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
      Perhaps, but at least by that point one can't weasel out by saying that the candidate wasn't technically qualified.
alexasmyths 9y ago
"prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice" And what happens representation becomes even more skewed? The fact is the Valley employs gender/ethnicity almost perfectly commensurate with those graduating with CS degrees. It's borderline bigoted to imply that 'it's all due to racism'. Yes, surely there are gender/ethnic issues, but the funnel is 90% of the problem. There's no fair way to hire 50% females if only 15% of applicants are female. I get there's 'dynamic feedback' (i.e. more women in tech encourages more younger women in tech) but again, it's the responsibility of people to make choices in life. I have enough East/South Asian friends to roughly grasp the soft-racism they faced growing up, and they've done very well both as individuals and as a group. This issue needs nuance and few people are willing to speak in those terms.

dominotw 9y ago

i did one of these interviews at a bank. I was asked to sit behind curtain and answer questions . It felt totally weird. you are right they should have masked out my voice too.

tlb 9y ago

There exist people who are good at providing correct answers and code, but are incredibly toxic to a human organization. They're fairly rare, and if you work in a healthy well-run company, you may never have met one. But if you interview a lot, you surely have (they get a lot of interviews, because they look good on paper.) The risk is that you'd end up with a lot of these types. I'm not saying a pure audition model can't work, just that you should know what the pitfalls are.

Jach 9y ago

> isn't someone who provides the correct answers and code a culture fit in the first place? No, they're merely a technical fit, maybe, depending on what you ask. (Your blinding process would also mean preventing interviewers from seeing any open source contributions which may be far more indicative of technical fit than anything you'd ask in an interview.) Technical fit might be enough for most roles, more blinding at least at the initial filtering stages might be a good idea, but culture fit is important for a lot of firms. At the very least people will want person-to-person interviews to maximize their odds at detecting a permanent asshole (and other toxic types), since typically no one wants to work with one even if they're skilled.

emodendroket 9y ago

It seems like a good idea, but how do you make sure you don't hire someone with a complete lack of social skills?

rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
Maybe a blind interview should satisfy technical requirements, and then the candidate meets the team in person.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  But then you're back into the old cultural fit/bias questions, right?
  - rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
    Perhaps, but at least by that point one can't weasel out by saying that the candidate wasn't technically qualified.

alexasmyths 9y ago

"prevent the interviewers from seeing the candidate, knowing their name, or hearing their voice" And what happens representation becomes even more skewed? The fact is the Valley employs gender/ethnicity almost perfectly commensurate with those graduating with CS degrees. It's borderline bigoted to imply that 'it's all due to racism'. Yes, surely there are gender/ethnic issues, but the funnel is 90% of the problem. There's no fair way to hire 50% females if only 15% of applicants are female. I get there's 'dynamic feedback' (i.e. more women in tech encourages more younger women in tech) but again, it's the responsibility of people to make choices in life. I have enough East/South Asian friends to roughly grasp the soft-racism they faced growing up, and they've done very well both as individuals and as a group. This issue needs nuance and few people are willing to speak in those terms.