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I've worked somewhere where we used this approach for one of the 5 interview sections. Even being upfront about our low expectations and providing very friendl

I've worked somewhere where we used this approach for one of the 5 interview sections. Even being upfront about our low expectations and providing very friendly and helpful people to pair and guide, it lead to record numbers flipping the table and stomping off premises before the completion of the interview. I don't use this approach now, as I don't think its a good use of time (and I think an interview should be a positive experience even for those that fail), but it did provide, I believe, a fairly strong signal of the attitude with which a candidate approached learning new things (but not really anything else).

Balgair 9y ago
Wow, alright, this is exactly what I was thinking. The 'novel coding' test was just one test, that it was forewarned to be laughably hard, and that you all were friendly about it. I really do want to know more about how this all went as I thought this would be a really good way to interview coders, but unfortunately I am totally wrong. I want to know why my thoughts are totally off-base. Really, please, tell us more!
- cpeterso 9y ago
  I like to pose technical problems that can scale to the candidate's level of experience. If I sense I'm hitting the candidate's comfort level, I can back off. Otherwise, I can take the problem even deeper with more technical questions. Either way the candidate still has a positive experience.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    This is my approach as well. Ask really easy questions and get more complicated as they do well. I also try to increase difficulty in line with the strengths espoused on their resumes. If they are fantastic with databases, I might make sure the problem can be solved well with a database oriented solution.
- kybernetikos 9y ago
  > I thought this would be a really good way to interview coders, but unfortunately I am totally wrong. It's not that you're wrong, it absolutely is a really good way of finding out how someone reacts to being asked to learn something new in a stressful situation. And that is a valuable thing to know - I love working with people who get excited about an opportunity to learn something. It's just that you have to be prepared to give so much help and the question has to be so easy because it's all completely new that you can't test competence in any meaningful way. Which means that at the end of the 90 minutes or whatever, you know exactly one thing more - their attitude to learning under pressure, but you have relatively little time with them, and you probably need to learn multiple things per session.
  - Balgair 9y ago
    Maybe this cockamamie way of doing interviews is the correct one then? Each company tries their own thing, and if you get flustered and bomb it, we'll both parties know it not a good fit. Some companies value the ability to learn and be cool under fire, some like GPAs, some like HW tests. The sorting occurs and is not 'fun' but works in it's own way.
bsder 9y ago
> Even being upfront about our low expectations and providing very friendly and helpful people to pair and guide, it lead to record numbers flipping the table and stomping off premises before the completion of the interview. You also have to be careful when in the interview you throw this. A bad hit like this can throw a candidate off for the rest of the interview even if they are quite acceptable.

Balgair 9y ago

Wow, alright, this is exactly what I was thinking. The 'novel coding' test was just one test, that it was forewarned to be laughably hard, and that you all were friendly about it. I really do want to know more about how this all went as I thought this would be a really good way to interview coders, but unfortunately I am totally wrong. I want to know why my thoughts are totally off-base. Really, please, tell us more!

cpeterso 9y ago
I like to pose technical problems that can scale to the candidate's level of experience. If I sense I'm hitting the candidate's comfort level, I can back off. Otherwise, I can take the problem even deeper with more technical questions. Either way the candidate still has a positive experience.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  This is my approach as well. Ask really easy questions and get more complicated as they do well. I also try to increase difficulty in line with the strengths espoused on their resumes. If they are fantastic with databases, I might make sure the problem can be solved well with a database oriented solution.
kybernetikos 9y ago
> I thought this would be a really good way to interview coders, but unfortunately I am totally wrong. It's not that you're wrong, it absolutely is a really good way of finding out how someone reacts to being asked to learn something new in a stressful situation. And that is a valuable thing to know - I love working with people who get excited about an opportunity to learn something. It's just that you have to be prepared to give so much help and the question has to be so easy because it's all completely new that you can't test competence in any meaningful way. Which means that at the end of the 90 minutes or whatever, you know exactly one thing more - their attitude to learning under pressure, but you have relatively little time with them, and you probably need to learn multiple things per session.
- Balgair 9y ago
  Maybe this cockamamie way of doing interviews is the correct one then? Each company tries their own thing, and if you get flustered and bomb it, we'll both parties know it not a good fit. Some companies value the ability to learn and be cool under fire, some like GPAs, some like HW tests. The sorting occurs and is not 'fun' but works in it's own way.

bsder 9y ago

> Even being upfront about our low expectations and providing very friendly and helpful people to pair and guide, it lead to record numbers flipping the table and stomping off premises before the completion of the interview. You also have to be careful when in the interview you throw this. A bad hit like this can throw a candidate off for the rest of the interview even if they are quite acceptable.