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Good luck to all, except for CSPA. I hope they fail miserably. The idea that they will insert themselves as a bureaucracy/testing service to "gauge" software e

Good luck to all, except for CSPA. I hope they fail miserably. The idea that they will insert themselves as a bureaucracy/testing service to "gauge" software engineers is simply offensive to me. This is typical bureaucrat thinking, and not what Silicon Valley is all about. They want to collect a toll tax on every programmer going forward. So frankly I hope they truly fail quickly and miserably. I hate whiteboard interviews with a passion, but I don't hate them more than "certification processes", like what this group of people is trying to do.

chirau 8y ago
I understand where you are coming from, I shared the same concern in my comment. However, isn't a college degree just another certification as well? And most companies do require it. At the end of the day, both have curriculum and seek to be a validation standard, it's just that you, or at least many employers, prefer one over the other.
- soneca 8y ago
  I see a college credential as a problem to be solved. Replacing it for a centralized certification doesn't solve that problem, just change the entity that is earning money from the existence of the problem. I agree with the GP. But to not sound too negative, I hope they pivot to more legitimate and beneficial business model that does not perpetuate a problem and succeed only with this pivot :)
robhunter 8y ago
Real question - what is the history of the SAT? It has essentially created a toll tax on every student attempting to enter college/university in the US. Is it a private company?
- eganist 8y ago
  It's run by The College Board, which is essentially a not-for-profit testing and (more recently) data analytics service.
  - pietroglyph 8y ago
    Some would argue that College Board is barely a nonprofit. See https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/10/16/is-the-college-board-a-nino-nonprofit-in-name-only/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/10/16/is-the-college-boa...
- UncleEntity 8y ago
  I never sat for the SAT and got myself a BA so it's apparently not a very good gatekeeper.
newman8r 8y ago
Do they even charge for taking the tests? I don't see anything about pricing on their site.
- asadlionpk 8y ago
  They probably will if they succeed. They are solving their chicken and egg problem right now.
- tnorthcutt 8y ago
  From the article: Students pay to take the tests and have their results shared with the over 60 companies that are now accepting the results when considering new candidates.
  - newman8r 8y ago
    Yeah you're right. I just tried to register for an exam and it was $19
gota 8y ago
Although maybe not as strongly, I sympathize with your comment because of the feeling that we are moving away from indirect reputation (like certificates, diplomas, etc) and towards direct reputation. I've posted about it before: "The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. The second point is more relevant to most other careers. A degree is nothing but a more reputable institution 'lending' reputation to its graduates. The reason this is necessary is because nobody's got the time to verify whether every person knows Computer Science - we're better off just knowing that people from University of X know CS if UoX says so. Even if you're going to personally interview every candidate for a job opening, still relying on degrees helps you filter candidates. The thing is our interactions are recorded to the level that we can now reason about individuals in a way that was not possible before. Why do I need to trust UoX if I can mine your entire internet presence with reasonably comparable effort?" I still think we (broadly, the folks who seem to be the core audience of HN) are the ones most likely to make this transition first. CSPA looks like a step in the complete opposite direction. Personally, I too hope it fails as I think that if it ever becomes the norm the best case scenario is no better on my end; and in the worst case scenario, it can be a living nightmare.
- ankit219 8y ago
  Agree with the degree part. Having hired a few software engineers, a question I am asked a lot (not by the engineers themselves, but a lot of other, some even non-tech friends) is that why do I use college and degree as a filtering criteria. My explanation is that, one we do not have the resources of Google to access the candidate in that depth. Two, even if we were to do that, it would mean a candidate going through 7-8-10 rounds, given the kind of things that need to be tested. If you could end up in a good program/college, it tells me that you have some ability and saves me on a few tests. Then, I can take 2-3 tests/interviews and make the decision quickly. This is not to say that other person without the degree is less talented, but that the talent isnt demonstrated yet and it would take more tests to maybe see that. Moreover, its not an exact process, we are as likely to fail with a good degree hire as we are with not so good degree. So, does not seem fair to take a candidate through 8-10 tests. (it also has a cost for us, given we are a small team and everyone's time is important)
chris11 8y ago
The issue I see is that there is a huge gap between something a company might find useful and something that could replace part of a hiring process. I'm not really excited about studying and taking a test if I still have a full interview process. It's just making the process more annoying.
blairanderson 8y ago
I used to agree, but thinking broadly this seems to be a reactionary thinking. You want food products tested and certified? You want bridge engineering to be verified safe? You want medicine to be tested thoroughly before injecting? Why not try to create a brand of tested software engineering practices? Clearly it would create a public distinction with online gigs, people expecting xYears of experience with crap pay. I think there can be positives found.
curun1r 8y ago
I wouldn't mind seeing Grabb-It fail either. I'd find it sad if the fix for underpaying unofficial taxi drivers is more targeted advertising. I seems like we're getting closer and closer to those dystopian futures where every square inch of a city is filled with ads.
- bigbluedots 8y ago
  Agreed, we already have far too much advertising around us.
jbenn 8y ago
As someone who's been self-learning computer science on the side (I've been working as an engineer for 5 years, but have a bootcamp background, plus I'm just interested in all that stuff), I can't wait to take it. I plan to take it every 6 months to quantify my progress.
austenallred 8y ago
Think of it this way - perhaps with CSPA one day you’ll take the test once and we’ll be able to kill individualized whiteboardong sessions once and for all. There will always be verification of skill from employers no matter what you’d prefer.
- doodhwala 8y ago
  What if you have a bad day and end up performing miserably in this test? Even if you're really good, this one hour can hijack 60 separate chances that you have to prove yourself. This will definitely increase the pressure on the people getting evaluated. What about the fairness of this evaluation? Over a period of time, questions may be published in the public domain and then the scores of candidates are rendered meaningless. How do you assess whether the person truly solved a problem or merely recalled a solution they had read before? Over a period of time, the score will be given too much weightage and we will not be able to get a wholistic picture of the candidate. Ultimately, this is going to end up to be as damaging as automatic resume scanners. Used as a tool to filter good candidates but mainly to reduce the workload of hiring candidates. People find a way to work around these scanners by dumping keywords even if they are not very familiar with certain skills. Similarly, people will find a way to game the new system as well. Whiteboarding sessions, despite being more time consuming, seems to be more effective at what it has been designed to gauge.

chirau 8y ago

I understand where you are coming from, I shared the same concern in my comment. However, isn't a college degree just another certification as well? And most companies do require it. At the end of the day, both have curriculum and seek to be a validation standard, it's just that you, or at least many employers, prefer one over the other.

soneca 8y ago
I see a college credential as a problem to be solved. Replacing it for a centralized certification doesn't solve that problem, just change the entity that is earning money from the existence of the problem. I agree with the GP. But to not sound too negative, I hope they pivot to more legitimate and beneficial business model that does not perpetuate a problem and succeed only with this pivot :)

robhunter 8y ago

Real question - what is the history of the SAT? It has essentially created a toll tax on every student attempting to enter college/university in the US. Is it a private company?

eganist 8y ago
It's run by The College Board, which is essentially a not-for-profit testing and (more recently) data analytics service.
- pietroglyph 8y ago
  Some would argue that College Board is barely a nonprofit. See https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/10/16/is-the-college-board-a-nino-nonprofit-in-name-only/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2012/10/16/is-the-college-boa...
UncleEntity 8y ago
I never sat for the SAT and got myself a BA so it's apparently not a very good gatekeeper.

newman8r 8y ago

Do they even charge for taking the tests? I don't see anything about pricing on their site.

asadlionpk 8y ago
They probably will if they succeed. They are solving their chicken and egg problem right now.
tnorthcutt 8y ago
From the article: Students pay to take the tests and have their results shared with the over 60 companies that are now accepting the results when considering new candidates.
- newman8r 8y ago
  Yeah you're right. I just tried to register for an exam and it was $19

gota 8y ago

Although maybe not as strongly, I sympathize with your comment because of the feeling that we are moving away from indirect reputation (like certificates, diplomas, etc) and towards direct reputation. I've posted about it before: "The reasoning goes: the reasons why we need degrees are certification and reputation. By certification I mean that we only let people who we all trust practice medicine, as that kills people directly otherwise. So we restrict the people who can to those with the appropriate degrees. The second point is more relevant to most other careers. A degree is nothing but a more reputable institution 'lending' reputation to its graduates. The reason this is necessary is because nobody's got the time to verify whether every person knows Computer Science - we're better off just knowing that people from University of X know CS if UoX says so. Even if you're going to personally interview every candidate for a job opening, still relying on degrees helps you filter candidates. The thing is our interactions are recorded to the level that we can now reason about individuals in a way that was not possible before. Why do I need to trust UoX if I can mine your entire internet presence with reasonably comparable effort?" I still think we (broadly, the folks who seem to be the core audience of HN) are the ones most likely to make this transition first. CSPA looks like a step in the complete opposite direction. Personally, I too hope it fails as I think that if it ever becomes the norm the best case scenario is no better on my end; and in the worst case scenario, it can be a living nightmare.

ankit219 8y ago
Agree with the degree part. Having hired a few software engineers, a question I am asked a lot (not by the engineers themselves, but a lot of other, some even non-tech friends) is that why do I use college and degree as a filtering criteria. My explanation is that, one we do not have the resources of Google to access the candidate in that depth. Two, even if we were to do that, it would mean a candidate going through 7-8-10 rounds, given the kind of things that need to be tested. If you could end up in a good program/college, it tells me that you have some ability and saves me on a few tests. Then, I can take 2-3 tests/interviews and make the decision quickly. This is not to say that other person without the degree is less talented, but that the talent isnt demonstrated yet and it would take more tests to maybe see that. Moreover, its not an exact process, we are as likely to fail with a good degree hire as we are with not so good degree. So, does not seem fair to take a candidate through 8-10 tests. (it also has a cost for us, given we are a small team and everyone's time is important)

chris11 8y ago

The issue I see is that there is a huge gap between something a company might find useful and something that could replace part of a hiring process. I'm not really excited about studying and taking a test if I still have a full interview process. It's just making the process more annoying.

blairanderson 8y ago

I used to agree, but thinking broadly this seems to be a reactionary thinking. You want food products tested and certified? You want bridge engineering to be verified safe? You want medicine to be tested thoroughly before injecting? Why not try to create a brand of tested software engineering practices? Clearly it would create a public distinction with online gigs, people expecting xYears of experience with crap pay. I think there can be positives found.

curun1r 8y ago

I wouldn't mind seeing Grabb-It fail either. I'd find it sad if the fix for underpaying unofficial taxi drivers is more targeted advertising. I seems like we're getting closer and closer to those dystopian futures where every square inch of a city is filled with ads.

bigbluedots 8y ago
Agreed, we already have far too much advertising around us.

jbenn 8y ago

As someone who's been self-learning computer science on the side (I've been working as an engineer for 5 years, but have a bootcamp background, plus I'm just interested in all that stuff), I can't wait to take it. I plan to take it every 6 months to quantify my progress.

austenallred 8y ago

Think of it this way - perhaps with CSPA one day you’ll take the test once and we’ll be able to kill individualized whiteboardong sessions once and for all. There will always be verification of skill from employers no matter what you’d prefer.

doodhwala 8y ago
What if you have a bad day and end up performing miserably in this test? Even if you're really good, this one hour can hijack 60 separate chances that you have to prove yourself. This will definitely increase the pressure on the people getting evaluated. What about the fairness of this evaluation? Over a period of time, questions may be published in the public domain and then the scores of candidates are rendered meaningless. How do you assess whether the person truly solved a problem or merely recalled a solution they had read before? Over a period of time, the score will be given too much weightage and we will not be able to get a wholistic picture of the candidate. Ultimately, this is going to end up to be as damaging as automatic resume scanners. Used as a tool to filter good candidates but mainly to reduce the workload of hiring candidates. People find a way to work around these scanners by dumping keywords even if they are not very familiar with certain skills. Similarly, people will find a way to game the new system as well. Whiteboarding sessions, despite being more time consuming, seems to be more effective at what it has been designed to gauge.