4 ms·
Honestly, just try it. Have a significant preface about how it’s simple by design, and you are not trying to trick them, if you are hiring, say, a VP or a CTO;
by bertil 8y ago
Honestly, just try it. Have a significant preface about how it’s simple by design, and you are not trying to trick them, if you are hiring, say, a VP or a CTO; call it a warm-up if you want. But absolutely try.
I’ve had a majority of candidates with five-year experience as a data scientist not be able to load a csv file using np.read_csv() The problem wasn’t that it didn’t work (the csv intentionally had a minor quirk that demanded that one uses a non-default option) but the reaction to it not working, or, in a majority of cases, the inability to search (on Google) for “what function allow me to import a csv file into a table” was incredibly telling. From there, you can have a conversation about what they did and it often leads to a more honest portrait of their previous functions. Sometimes, that led to offering them a more suitable position.
- unclebucknasty 8y ago>if you are hiring, say, a VP or a CTO If I were hiring a VP of engineering or CTO, my only goal in administering such a basic test would be to see whether they are offended and prepare to politely leave the interview. Not kidding here. Sure, CTO duties can run a broad spectrum, depending on company size, etc. It could essentially mean "dev lead with a small team", all the way up to public company CTO with a good command of financials, managing budgets, large multi-level teams, etc. But, at either end and anywhere along that continuum, I would want to skip to probing higher-order thinking around architecture, strategy, people-management, etc. So, if I've brought in people who I believe are adept at skills like these, I'd expect them to be confused and perhaps even insulted when I pull out a fizzbuzy integer summation problem.