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When a guy tells you his experience, and you call bullshit, it's hard to tell whether you doubt his sincerity about having the experience at all or whether the
by mchannon 8y ago
When a guy tells you his experience, and you call bullshit, it's hard to tell whether you doubt his sincerity about having the experience at all or whether the experience itself was not representative of your reality. Either way, you're telling us not how it is, but how you are, and that's simply not useful.
In "The Last Starfighter", the recruiter/hiring manager Centauri is constantly accused of using "the Excalibur test" with derision, and which he denies. While I've never seen it explicitly defined, I'd imagine an on-the-spot work sample test to be what it means. "Pull this sword out of this stone and you get the job."
What proponents of the Excalibur test fail to realize is that their methods often spoil the data. Treat me with enough derision and pressure off the bat and I guarantee I'll fail your test even though I do fine at other companies.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dleslie 8y agoI won't apply at, or respond to recruiters representing, those companies that have a reputation for a long and/or torturous hiring process. While I have no interest in being interrogated with high-stress puzzle solving, it is not the interview process itself that causes my disinterest; it is the understanding, from experience, that how a company treats its potential candidates is often reflective of its general culture.
- sys_64738 8y agoThis also applies to when you're actually interviewing. I once went through three rounds and they wanted a fourth. No is such a powerful and unexpected word. That they're still talking to you means they're interested but that they haven't offered you the job means they're not 100% sure. This one scenario I said No they came back with an offer. But it was rejected.
- koolba 8y agoDid you counter or flatly reject and it ended there?
- delinka 8y agoI read that as "rejected by the candidate." Hey said "no," they offered, he said "no" a second time.
- blattimwind 8y agoSame for assessment centers. Huge red flag.
- hellllllllooo 8y agoThe top companies with these leetcode tests probably don't care that good people being rejected or avoiding them because of the amount of preparation required. Middle sized companies and startups doing leetcode tests are missing good people and probably can't afford the same number of false negatives as someone like Google with an endless supply of candidates. It seems like smaller companies often lazily copy these processes despite it likely costing them good engineers. Having gone through the process recently I avoided companies with puzzle solving hiring procedures because I was confident that I could find well paid, interesting, work without jumping though those hoops. As you get more senior there are more people you have met and worked with with employment opportunities. It gets easier to find work by asking around and finding someone who will hire you based on recommendations or having worked together before.
- ilikehurdles 8y agoI was referred to a company that eventually handed me “6 hour” (likely much more to complete sufficiently enough to advance) take home project a few weeks ago and I still can’t bring myself to start it. I read their Glassdoor reviews and the number of folks are reporting either being ghosted or getting a negative response minutes after submitting, after putting days of effort into this exercise, is disturbing. It seems like you lose by not playing the stupid game of asking questions while working on this inane project, so correctness and effort isn’t even enough — you must also pretend to be a moron who can’t figure things out on their own. I also submitted one of those exercises for a different employer — that one took me about 6 hours but of course they estimate it at “about two”. I submitted it a week ago. They acknowledged receiving it immediately. And that was the last time I heard from this employer. I’ll follow up tomorrow, but I’m kind of ticked as I was pretty happy with my code, and it’s not even something I can open source if they don’t like it. I also just got an offer elsewhere and I bet mentioning that fact will expedite their process more than me putting in effort into dancing around like a monkey. Anyway, I’m done ranting, and I’m done doing take homes. I used to be a fan, but only because I preferred them to whiteboard algorithm puzzle questions.
- codezero 8y agoHeads up, tomorrow is a holiday many places in the US, just do you expect at least a day of delay.
- ui-explorer12 8y agoWould you do a 4-hr take-home assignment? What if I gave you a $100 amazon gift card? There's a big difference between making someone jump through countless, one-sided hoops and asking for a little effort. The challenge IME is finding the balance.
- pmiller2 8y agoPersonally, if I can get to an onsite with another company after a recruiter chat and phone screen, I’m not even going to do a “2 hour” project. In my experience, actually spending the recommended amount of time on one of these take home projects is a losing proposition when there are people who will spend more time on it.
- dleslie 8y agoI'd rather spend those 4h with my kids, and the gift card would be somewhat insulting.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago> "Treat me with enough derision and pressure off the bat and I guarantee I'll fail your test even though I do fine at other companies." If only more companies realized who they are able to hire is a function of how they hire. And it starts with the job / opportunity / role description. As a side note, it seems to me, all this friction in hiring (senior level talent) makes a good case for developing and promoting from within. I realize it's not that simple. None the less, taking a known and grooming that person isn't rocket science either.
- HelloNurse 8y agoIf management is rude and naive enough to be bad at hiring, they can be expected to be equally bad at promoting and retaining internal talent. For example, there's the simple pattern of ignoring employee careers and expectations until, after the least patient ones have left, suddenly there's a lack of personnel, and the best remaining people are needed in their current dead-end role.
- chiefalchemist 8y agoThe mistake I see __consistently__ is that when I'm discussing an opportunity / relationship with someone who is "hiring" is that they don't realize I'm interviewing them as well. Fairly often, those who don't realize this are the same ones who will hint / complain about retention and such. They want better people but that have no idea how better people think / feel and how their approach will never get them the type of people they need.
- HelloNurse 8y agoOnce I interviewed at a large fashion company for a Python programmer position. I asked to see IT offices (no way, even if I had required a second interview expressly to see them; the building layout suggested some sort of overcrowded basement), I asked about salary (matching my current one would have been a stretch), about benefits like a car (oh no, only for top management!), about training (studying their software after hours, on my own time), about lunch (internal mess hall only, and nobody can leave), about their software engineering approach (overtime, and proud of it). They unconsciously went out of their way to demonstrate a corporate culture of paranoid secrecy and to show that IT had very little consideration within the company. I tried hard to find a reason to like them, and when I found none and refused their offer I got an angry call from the manager: I wasn't "motivated". He thought I had wasted their time.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nothrabannosir 8y agoHe’s implying the author fell victim to a cognitive bias.* he’s not doubting their honesty , he’s just being harsh on the lack of discipline when it comes to battling your own brain’s tendency to lie to you. Avoiding biases is hard and painful work, which goes well with being resolute and non compromising. When this accidentally bleeds through to others, because you’re human and you forgot to throttle back, it can seem blunt and disrespectful. But it’s often not meant that way, at all. I think it’s fair to give him benefit of the doubt, here. From what little I know, Thomas is a man with great respect for data. :) * Selection bias? Whatever, it’s a bias. Apply the “pick one to sound smart” rule. :)
- Agathos 8y ago> Apply the “pick one to sound smart” rule. :) Confirmation bias! :p
- x0x0 8y agoThis is a sendup, right? Down to quoting the last starfighter?
- masonic 8y agoWasn't that "test" the video game itself, at least for humanoids like Alex?