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Let’s compare this to a recent experience I had with a recruiter from Square. Among other things, I was told that in a 1 hour phone screen, I was to write code
by pmiller2 8y ago
Let’s compare this to a recent experience I had with a recruiter from Square. Among other things, I was told that in a 1 hour phone screen, I was to write code as if it were production code, and not “just interview hacking.” She also suggested I read Cracking the Coding Interview ! For a phone screen!
I think this is frankly ridiculous. What do you think the rest of the interview process is like? At best, it’s cargo culting. At worst, it’s abuse.
Edit: I should add that no guidance was given as to what the standards for “production code” in this phone screen were.
- rabidrat 8y agoThe Facebook recruiter told me that "successful candidates spend an average of 10-15 hours preparing"...for a 45 minute phone screen. For the onsite you're expected to spend a few weeks reading CtCI and working through the practice problems.
- Shish2k 8y agoI wonder where they're getting those numbers from, as I didn't spend anywhere near that long preparing o_O If it was rephrased as "successful candidates will have spent an average of 10-15 hours writing code over the past week" (ie, just working your regular day job counts as "preparation", since you're flexing your coding muscles), that sounds more believable...
- pmiller2 8y agoIf what they meant, then they’re not saying anything meaningful. Anyone working full time as a software engineer who isn’t slacking off to an unimaginable extent is spending 10-15 hours writing code in the course of a week.
- Shish2k 8y agoFor software engineering positions I'd expect you're right - for my own role (production engineering) it's a meaningful metric as we're often hiring sysadmins who have used their coding skills to automate themselves out of a job, while filtering out the sysadmins who have only ever used off-the-shelf tools without looking under the hood :)
- bradlys 8y agoNope. It's definitely interview specific prep. Read /r/cscareerquestions/ to get an idea of the levels of prep that many candidates go through. Not everyone needs that level of prep - especially if they're interviewing candidates at their current job. (No better way to see how not to fail by seeing endless failures) People prepping 100+ hours for interviews at these big tech companies is completely common. After all, spending 100 hours to get 100k+ more comp is a pretty good tradeoff. It's just sad when you do all that prep but fail anyway.
- pmiller2 8y agoIt might be a good tradeoff for the individual candidate, but it’s a terrible practice for the hiring company. It’s like hiring a physicist by giving them a pop quiz on quantum electrodynamics.