4 ms·

There's a critical kernel of truth here that I want to point out: work-sample tests. The longer I spend building teams, the more I am convinced: there are peopl

by lvh 8y ago

There's a critical kernel of truth here that I want to point out: work-sample tests. The longer I spend building teams, the more I am convinced: there are people who do WSTs as a way to qualify applicants, and there are people who just aren't serious about hiring. It's easy to write a WST for simple things, like "can you literally write a computer program that does this trivial straightforward thing". It's hard to write WSTs for things that feel fluffy, like "can you manage a team". But here's the thing: as long as that fluffy thing feels fluffy, what that really means is you haven't bothered to figure out what success looks like for that role, and you couldn't even evaluate that person let alone hire for them. There's a company in Indy called Woven (http://www.woventeams.com/ http://www.woventeams.com/) that'll do it for you, too. I have no relationship with them other than that they're nice people who are trying to unfuck hiring.

weswinham 8y ago
One sec. Just need to login to our CMS to update our tag line to "Woven: We're trying to unfuck developer hiring"
throwawaymath 8y ago
It would be great if you could convince large tech companies to use work sample tests, but I just don't see that happening. So in that sense maybe work sample tests can be a differentiator attracting candidates that don't want to spend a few weeks doing Leetcode prep every time they look for a new job. On the other hand work sample tests also have drawbacks. I don't know if they're actually that much better than regular interviewing methods; I think they just contribute an orthogonal signal instead of a stronger one. I don't feel I can cheerlead them as much as you do in your first paragraph. I think in an ideal world companies would allow candidates the option of choosing either their work sample or their resume-blind, standardized interview gauntlet. People with a lot of interviewing anxiety could self-elect a work sample option. But if you impose a work sample on every candidate I think you'll reduce your pool of available hires. I was offered a work sample test recently and was told to spend about a week on it. I started working on it a little bit the first day and really enjoyed the exercise. But I was also interviewing with at least five other companies at the same time; I simply didn't have the time between work and traveling for onsites to really commit to the work sample.

by lvh 8y ago

weswinham 8y ago

One sec. Just need to login to our CMS to update our tag line to "Woven: We're trying to unfuck developer hiring"

throwawaymath 8y ago

It would be great if you could convince large tech companies to use work sample tests, but I just don't see that happening. So in that sense maybe work sample tests can be a differentiator attracting candidates that don't want to spend a few weeks doing Leetcode prep every time they look for a new job. On the other hand work sample tests also have drawbacks. I don't know if they're actually that much better than regular interviewing methods; I think they just contribute an orthogonal signal instead of a stronger one. I don't feel I can cheerlead them as much as you do in your first paragraph. I think in an ideal world companies would allow candidates the option of choosing either their work sample or their resume-blind, standardized interview gauntlet. People with a lot of interviewing anxiety could self-elect a work sample option. But if you impose a work sample on every candidate I think you'll reduce your pool of available hires. I was offered a work sample test recently and was told to spend about a week on it. I started working on it a little bit the first day and really enjoyed the exercise. But I was also interviewing with at least five other companies at the same time; I simply didn't have the time between work and traveling for onsites to really commit to the work sample.