4 ms·

This. Not once has a potential employer ever said to me: "Based on your Github, you can obviously fizzbuzz with the best of them, and know a for-loop from an if

This. Not once has a potential employer ever said to me: "Based on your Github, you can obviously fizzbuzz with the best of them, and know a for-loop from an if-statement. Let's skip the phone screen/homework assignment and get you onsite directly."

foo101 9y ago
Time for anecdotes. Twice in my career, an employer has looked at my GitHub and asked specific questions about certain projects, what motivated me to write the project, why did I not use a popular big data technology to write the project, etc.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  But, did that interest lead directly to a job offer? My guess would be no, knowing the industry and given no other information about your situation.
chrisco255 9y ago
That's only because most recruiters are non-technical. They lack the ability to gauge your ability.
stevekemp 9y ago
There was a time, last year, when I'd regularly receive email-SPAM from recruiters talking about one of my C++ projects. (Console based mail-client with Lua scripting.) Later I moved that project to a github-organization, as it didn't need to be tied solely to me, and I wanted to allow others to commit, etc. I'm not sure if the SPAM-mails went away because recruiters stopped scanning github for profiles, or because there was no obvious link between that particular project and my personal email.
exodust 9y ago
Speaking of FizzBuzz, I had never heard of the fizzbuzz test until recently in interview. In 15 years of frontend work I've never needed to find if a number is divisible by another number, so I forgot about the modulus operator '%', and stumbled on that question. Apparently not knowing about that made me unqualified for the job, above all other evidence of my frontend work and achievements. It takes less than 10 seconds to find the solution, but in interviews we are expected to have the entire JS reference guide in memory.
- rzykov 9y ago
  Maybe it's better to provide access to Google on the interview. What do you think?
  - exodust 9y ago
    Or at least the JS reference. Or design the questions to fit the role. If it's a frontend role, then ask frontend questions, not some bullshit high school arithmetic. I wrote most of the 'fizzbuzz' function but couldn't remember the "%" operator. Tests are annoying because it's not how developers work, at least I don't work that way, without any way to verify syntax or look anything up. I recall an interview from years ago where I was asked to show the code behind my websites and step through it explaining what it did and why I did it. This is better than a test, because you're explaining how the code works and also showing off your work.
- Thiez 9y ago
  There are plenty of ways to write fizzbuzz without the modulus operator, although it is the most obvious way. But you can also combine infinite streams, or keep track of the index of the next "fizz" and "buzz" with simple addition...
  - exodust 9y ago
    Perhaps there are plenty of ways, but finding the remainder of the division is what's needed and in my case the test was pen and paper, with just a small space for the answer and no way to test my code. It's all good, it wasn't the role for me, I'm more creative dev than programmer and I didn't get a good impression of the company anyway. I've moved on.
kafkaesq 9y ago
It doesn't happen too often - but I've had that happen several times, actually. Just like people might pretty much hire you (or invite you to substantially greenlighted interview process - sans whiteboarding or over-the-phone grilling) solely on the basis of a talk you gave, or an impromptu discussion about some topic you're insanely interested in, after meeting you at some event. Granted, this has been for gigs (or temp-to-perm) situations, not official, up-front fulltime roles. And some of these people ended up being flakey or sketchy (as spontaneous / whimsical people sometimes are). But nonetheless, hired (or substantially fast-tracked into their process, bypassing most of the usual interview crap) - pretty much on the basis of single demo or code sample (or in one case, literally on the basis of a single stats plot). Because by this point, pretty much everyone knows how silly those live fizzbuzz sesions are anyway - including those administering them.

foo101 9y ago

Time for anecdotes. Twice in my career, an employer has looked at my GitHub and asked specific questions about certain projects, what motivated me to write the project, why did I not use a popular big data technology to write the project, etc.

ryandrake 9y ago
But, did that interest lead directly to a job offer? My guess would be no, knowing the industry and given no other information about your situation.

chrisco255 9y ago

That's only because most recruiters are non-technical. They lack the ability to gauge your ability.

stevekemp 9y ago

There was a time, last year, when I'd regularly receive email-SPAM from recruiters talking about one of my C++ projects. (Console based mail-client with Lua scripting.) Later I moved that project to a github-organization, as it didn't need to be tied solely to me, and I wanted to allow others to commit, etc. I'm not sure if the SPAM-mails went away because recruiters stopped scanning github for profiles, or because there was no obvious link between that particular project and my personal email.

exodust 9y ago

Speaking of FizzBuzz, I had never heard of the fizzbuzz test until recently in interview. In 15 years of frontend work I've never needed to find if a number is divisible by another number, so I forgot about the modulus operator '%', and stumbled on that question. Apparently not knowing about that made me unqualified for the job, above all other evidence of my frontend work and achievements. It takes less than 10 seconds to find the solution, but in interviews we are expected to have the entire JS reference guide in memory.

rzykov 9y ago
Maybe it's better to provide access to Google on the interview. What do you think?
- exodust 9y ago
  Or at least the JS reference. Or design the questions to fit the role. If it's a frontend role, then ask frontend questions, not some bullshit high school arithmetic. I wrote most of the 'fizzbuzz' function but couldn't remember the "%" operator. Tests are annoying because it's not how developers work, at least I don't work that way, without any way to verify syntax or look anything up. I recall an interview from years ago where I was asked to show the code behind my websites and step through it explaining what it did and why I did it. This is better than a test, because you're explaining how the code works and also showing off your work.
Thiez 9y ago
There are plenty of ways to write fizzbuzz without the modulus operator, although it is the most obvious way. But you can also combine infinite streams, or keep track of the index of the next "fizz" and "buzz" with simple addition...
- exodust 9y ago
  Perhaps there are plenty of ways, but finding the remainder of the division is what's needed and in my case the test was pen and paper, with just a small space for the answer and no way to test my code. It's all good, it wasn't the role for me, I'm more creative dev than programmer and I didn't get a good impression of the company anyway. I've moved on.

kafkaesq 9y ago

It doesn't happen too often - but I've had that happen several times, actually. Just like people might pretty much hire you (or invite you to substantially greenlighted interview process - sans whiteboarding or over-the-phone grilling) solely on the basis of a talk you gave, or an impromptu discussion about some topic you're insanely interested in, after meeting you at some event. Granted, this has been for gigs (or temp-to-perm) situations, not official, up-front fulltime roles. And some of these people ended up being flakey or sketchy (as spontaneous / whimsical people sometimes are). But nonetheless, hired (or substantially fast-tracked into their process, bypassing most of the usual interview crap) - pretty much on the basis of single demo or code sample (or in one case, literally on the basis of a single stats plot). Because by this point, pretty much everyone knows how silly those live fizzbuzz sesions are anyway - including those administering them.