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> I am super bad at interviewing Then read some (maybe this, I didn't look at it in detail, but at first glance looks reasonable) and practice. > I just want

> I am super bad at interviewing Then read some (maybe this, I didn't look at it in detail, but at first glance looks reasonable) and practice. > I just want to see how well the candidate can code :-( All this tells you is if the candidate can code. If you want that, give them a test, look at their Github history (if they have it). Ask for code samples from any project they can share that they're proud of. I personally find it much more valuable when interviewing someone to talk about what they've done. How they've solved problems. What their interests are both in and outside software. Setting up a non-stressful experience and using behavioral interview type of questions and form is my personal favorite. Something I think is really important, that many people forget, is that the interviewee is also interviewing you. If you come across disorganized, unprepared (didn't even read their resume), etc., then you may fail the interview and even if you want to hire them, they'll say no.

azangru 8y ago
> All this tells you is if the candidate can code. If you want that, give them a test, look at their Github history (if they have it). I try to get all information I can about the candidate, including reading through their Github or Linkedin profile, or looking them up on StackOverflow or on social media just to get a deeper understanding of what kind of person (and coder) they are. But I was consistently surprised by how difficult it may be to find relevant information about a candidate before an interview. Many do not include links to their code (Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, whatever, just show me how you think) in their resumes (admittedly, we did not have it as a hard requirement, but one would assume that a programmer would include them). Resumes often contain spelling or grammar mistakes that bias me against the applicants (and I need to tell myself that these mistakes don't necessarily matter). Our process is a screening interview over Skype with a simple coding challenge. Followed by an hour-long in-person interview, also coding-heavy, but relevant to the work that the candidate will be doing (no brain teasers, no CS algorithms). I feel that at least this gives me some objective datapoints to assess and rank the candidates. Asking about previous work or interests in and out of software feels too subjective to be useful for subsequent comparison, and is prone to false-positives (we once talked to a candidate with an interesting background and all the right buzzwords in their social network who did not even pass the screening challenge). Although we certainly do ask.
- watwut 8y ago
  Most developers I know don't have github account or use it as place to dump half baked unfinished projects and ideas (as a free backup essentially). That is why it is so hard to find it. If you job is really coding most of the time and challenging/interesting enough on itself, you have less reason to do projects on the side (and it might not be effective use of time). Same for those working in competitive positions where either maximum time or output is expected.
  - azangru 8y ago
    Sure, I get that. It's just a great way to learn more about a candidate's strengths, interests, obsessions, etc. before an interview.
  - crdoconnor 8y ago
    On the flip side, I have a solid GitHub and as far as I can tell, nobody on the hiring side has looked at it except for one guy who just saw that there was a lot of green. He didn't look beyond that though. I've been given tests galore though. Last week I was given one and told while I was halfway through it that somebody had accepted an outstanding offer. Hiring is so broken.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Why would you assume a developer has a Github projects? I work 50 hours a week including time I’m researching new to me technology. When I come home, I’m home and living the rest of my life.
  - azangru 8y ago
    I don't. It's just helpful if they do, because through it I can learn more about them as a programmer.
- bluejekyll 8y ago
  > Asking about previous work or interests in and out of software feels too subjective to compare candidates to one another Yes, this is a problem in subjectivity, but I don’t think there’s any better way to judge a cadidate than their past experience. Experience is an important factor in determining leveling, etc. > we once talked to a candidate with an interesting background and all the right buzzwords in their social network who did not even pass the screening challenge Yes, and I did recommend giving a programming test. It sounds like your process worked if you were able to disqualify them early. Behavioral interviews, when done properly, are not something they can easily BS through. In fact, I find I get far more details about how they work through this process than white boarding sessions. Programming is not the only aspect of a job, understanding how they resolve conflict, disagreements about API design, how to design higher order interfaces, who they talk to and how they determine what to include in designs, how they deliver software into production, what they consider MVP; these are all things that can be discovered through behavioral interviews, and many people don’t represent these well on resumes.
autotune 8y ago
As something of an anecdotal rant, I did a take home a couple weeks ago, have a few code contributions on my github to a well known open source project, and was asked to go on site. They proceeded to ask trivia question after trivia question and whiteboard scripting questions without ever revisiting the homework assignment or asking anything specific about the details of my code contributions, and now I’m glad I was rejected for not “being good enough at scripting (on a whiteboard)” because of how poorly they did that interview and likely would’ve said no if given an offer. This is similar to how I’ve been interviewed at other companies and it’s rare where the interview actually represents how well you’d do the job. The current company is one of the very few where they actually asked me to go over the code contributions I’ve made and do an applied task in person without whiteboarding a scripting task or too much trivia nonsense and has been fantastic gig overall. It really is a two way street.
- pmiller2 8y ago
  I am curious what your current company is. My email is in my profile if you don’t care to share publicly.
brandall10 8y ago
For many years I only did this, but in most cases I was just one of several other interviewers. Then I was the lead at a small startup where I was the only technical interviewer, led to a nightmare situation. The person could talk the talk but had dismal output in practice and was super defensive when things were on the line. Took a lot of work to convince others in the org he had to go as he was charismatic with excuses, personal issues, etc. Never again. Now I grill people and only consider offers where I was sufficiently grilled, in real time, to ensure I'm around people who can do the job.
- bluejekyll 8y ago
  If they were able to BS through the behavioral interview, then most likely, you didn't go deep enough. I haven't been burned by this process once. I have gotten to the end of an interview and decided a candidate was not being forth coming on details, and turned them down, but I've never ended up with someone getting through where it was a complete disaster. That's not to say that there haven't been people that weren't perfect and ended up letting go, or they decided to leave themselves. Behavioral interviews when done properly get very detailed. I often am able to discover exactly how much of the HTTP stack someone has worked on, for example, down to choices on parameters at the TCP layer, or asyncio libraries.

azangru 8y ago

> All this tells you is if the candidate can code. If you want that, give them a test, look at their Github history (if they have it). I try to get all information I can about the candidate, including reading through their Github or Linkedin profile, or looking them up on StackOverflow or on social media just to get a deeper understanding of what kind of person (and coder) they are. But I was consistently surprised by how difficult it may be to find relevant information about a candidate before an interview. Many do not include links to their code (Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, whatever, just show me how you think) in their resumes (admittedly, we did not have it as a hard requirement, but one would assume that a programmer would include them). Resumes often contain spelling or grammar mistakes that bias me against the applicants (and I need to tell myself that these mistakes don't necessarily matter). Our process is a screening interview over Skype with a simple coding challenge. Followed by an hour-long in-person interview, also coding-heavy, but relevant to the work that the candidate will be doing (no brain teasers, no CS algorithms). I feel that at least this gives me some objective datapoints to assess and rank the candidates. Asking about previous work or interests in and out of software feels too subjective to be useful for subsequent comparison, and is prone to false-positives (we once talked to a candidate with an interesting background and all the right buzzwords in their social network who did not even pass the screening challenge). Although we certainly do ask.

watwut 8y ago
Most developers I know don't have github account or use it as place to dump half baked unfinished projects and ideas (as a free backup essentially). That is why it is so hard to find it. If you job is really coding most of the time and challenging/interesting enough on itself, you have less reason to do projects on the side (and it might not be effective use of time). Same for those working in competitive positions where either maximum time or output is expected.
- azangru 8y ago
  Sure, I get that. It's just a great way to learn more about a candidate's strengths, interests, obsessions, etc. before an interview.
- crdoconnor 8y ago
  On the flip side, I have a solid GitHub and as far as I can tell, nobody on the hiring side has looked at it except for one guy who just saw that there was a lot of green. He didn't look beyond that though. I've been given tests galore though. Last week I was given one and told while I was halfway through it that somebody had accepted an outstanding offer. Hiring is so broken.
scarface74 8y ago
Why would you assume a developer has a Github projects? I work 50 hours a week including time I’m researching new to me technology. When I come home, I’m home and living the rest of my life.
- azangru 8y ago
  I don't. It's just helpful if they do, because through it I can learn more about them as a programmer.
bluejekyll 8y ago
> Asking about previous work or interests in and out of software feels too subjective to compare candidates to one another Yes, this is a problem in subjectivity, but I don’t think there’s any better way to judge a cadidate than their past experience. Experience is an important factor in determining leveling, etc. > we once talked to a candidate with an interesting background and all the right buzzwords in their social network who did not even pass the screening challenge Yes, and I did recommend giving a programming test. It sounds like your process worked if you were able to disqualify them early. Behavioral interviews, when done properly, are not something they can easily BS through. In fact, I find I get far more details about how they work through this process than white boarding sessions. Programming is not the only aspect of a job, understanding how they resolve conflict, disagreements about API design, how to design higher order interfaces, who they talk to and how they determine what to include in designs, how they deliver software into production, what they consider MVP; these are all things that can be discovered through behavioral interviews, and many people don’t represent these well on resumes.

autotune 8y ago

As something of an anecdotal rant, I did a take home a couple weeks ago, have a few code contributions on my github to a well known open source project, and was asked to go on site. They proceeded to ask trivia question after trivia question and whiteboard scripting questions without ever revisiting the homework assignment or asking anything specific about the details of my code contributions, and now I’m glad I was rejected for not “being good enough at scripting (on a whiteboard)” because of how poorly they did that interview and likely would’ve said no if given an offer. This is similar to how I’ve been interviewed at other companies and it’s rare where the interview actually represents how well you’d do the job. The current company is one of the very few where they actually asked me to go over the code contributions I’ve made and do an applied task in person without whiteboarding a scripting task or too much trivia nonsense and has been fantastic gig overall. It really is a two way street.

pmiller2 8y ago
I am curious what your current company is. My email is in my profile if you don’t care to share publicly.

brandall10 8y ago

For many years I only did this, but in most cases I was just one of several other interviewers. Then I was the lead at a small startup where I was the only technical interviewer, led to a nightmare situation. The person could talk the talk but had dismal output in practice and was super defensive when things were on the line. Took a lot of work to convince others in the org he had to go as he was charismatic with excuses, personal issues, etc. Never again. Now I grill people and only consider offers where I was sufficiently grilled, in real time, to ensure I'm around people who can do the job.

bluejekyll 8y ago
If they were able to BS through the behavioral interview, then most likely, you didn't go deep enough. I haven't been burned by this process once. I have gotten to the end of an interview and decided a candidate was not being forth coming on details, and turned them down, but I've never ended up with someone getting through where it was a complete disaster. That's not to say that there haven't been people that weren't perfect and ended up letting go, or they decided to leave themselves. Behavioral interviews when done properly get very detailed. I often am able to discover exactly how much of the HTTP stack someone has worked on, for example, down to choices on parameters at the TCP layer, or asyncio libraries.