4 ms·

But communication on-the-fly, on-your-feet, in a high pressure environment, which is what a whiteboard test is, is not most communication. Most communication g

But communication on-the-fly, on-your-feet, in a high pressure environment, which is what a whiteboard test is, is not most communication. Most communication gets thought about, drafted, revised, critiqued, socialized, ahead of distribution. If your whiteboarding comes after hours or days of consideration and review, that sounds like a great way to vet good communicators. Otherwise, aren't you optimizing only for speed? If someone cracks a joke in the moment, they're a wit; but we only pay money to and call comedians those who worked on it for a while.

nxc18 8y ago
Ever been in a tense meeting? Most (almost all) verbal communication comes with time pressure. Speak too long (ramble) and your message is lost and your coworkers are annoyed. Don't speak fast enough and now someone else is using all the air in the room.
- hopler 8y ago
  We shouldn't setting up interviews that are biased toward to hiring people who will make the company even more toxic and counterproductive.
  - simplesleeper 8y ago
    What makes you think they'll be toxic and counterproductive? If, as you seem to think, whiteboarding is a test for this, then everyone should have whiteboarding tests where the good whiteboarders don't get a job.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  > Ever been in a tense meeting? This should not be what interviews are like.
  - deathanatos 8y ago
    If anything, my interviews are less tense and stressful than my meetings. On both sides of the table. (If anything, this is probably not what meetings should be like. I wish to god my coworkers would have real agendas for meetings — and a one-sentence subject does not count as an "agenda", and ideally, written material detailing any proposal that will be proposed, s.t. I can arrive at the meeting already understanding what it is that someone wants to do.)
- 01100011 8y ago
  Yes. They're still nothing like an interview. It's a different kind of pressure.
simplesleeper 8y ago
Of course the candidate is under more pressure than they would be at work - that's why we don't expect them to create a Leonardo masterpiece in front of us and we give the candidate the benefit of the doubt. You would be surprised at how poor some of the candidates are at this. Candidates who are unable to draw a few squares on a board to describe the last thing they worked on, and candidates who have never questioned any of the work they were assigned or don't understand that there are often multiple options for a solution, each with pros and cons. If someone can't even draw a simple diagram on a board, I don't want to have to plan and come up with highly complex solutions over whole months with them.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  I think an important point is that you are assuming someone’s design communication moves along a spectrum from good to bad as you increase time pressure or stress, and so you can accordingly adjust your expectations along a spectrum and still be well-calibrated to evaluate the meaning of the candidate’s performance. I propose it doesn’t work like that at all. Rather, if someone’s brain is loaded with time pressure or interview jitters, and they are not the type of person who thrives on stress, then it will be more like you have totally switched off the part of their brain that is good at communicating design thinking, and their performance in the interview will be entirely unrepresentative of what their performance would be in a regular day-to-day team meeting on the job. I think the same effect is even more severe with any type of coding / mathematics / puzzle solving questions done inside a short timed session or using things like Coderpad or HackerRank.
  - simplesleeper 8y ago
    And how do you propose a removal of all stress? Shall we hire everyone and fire them if they turn out to be dreadful after a week? That would ensure EVERYONE is under pressure all the time...
    - malvosenior 8y ago
      This is what take home projects or allowing someone to present their own code help fix.

nxc18 8y ago

Ever been in a tense meeting? Most (almost all) verbal communication comes with time pressure. Speak too long (ramble) and your message is lost and your coworkers are annoyed. Don't speak fast enough and now someone else is using all the air in the room.

hopler 8y ago
We shouldn't setting up interviews that are biased toward to hiring people who will make the company even more toxic and counterproductive.
- simplesleeper 8y ago
  What makes you think they'll be toxic and counterproductive? If, as you seem to think, whiteboarding is a test for this, then everyone should have whiteboarding tests where the good whiteboarders don't get a job.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
> Ever been in a tense meeting? This should not be what interviews are like.
- deathanatos 8y ago
  If anything, my interviews are less tense and stressful than my meetings. On both sides of the table. (If anything, this is probably not what meetings should be like. I wish to god my coworkers would have real agendas for meetings — and a one-sentence subject does not count as an "agenda", and ideally, written material detailing any proposal that will be proposed, s.t. I can arrive at the meeting already understanding what it is that someone wants to do.)
01100011 8y ago
Yes. They're still nothing like an interview. It's a different kind of pressure.

simplesleeper 8y ago

Of course the candidate is under more pressure than they would be at work - that's why we don't expect them to create a Leonardo masterpiece in front of us and we give the candidate the benefit of the doubt. You would be surprised at how poor some of the candidates are at this. Candidates who are unable to draw a few squares on a board to describe the last thing they worked on, and candidates who have never questioned any of the work they were assigned or don't understand that there are often multiple options for a solution, each with pros and cons. If someone can't even draw a simple diagram on a board, I don't want to have to plan and come up with highly complex solutions over whole months with them.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
I think an important point is that you are assuming someone’s design communication moves along a spectrum from good to bad as you increase time pressure or stress, and so you can accordingly adjust your expectations along a spectrum and still be well-calibrated to evaluate the meaning of the candidate’s performance. I propose it doesn’t work like that at all. Rather, if someone’s brain is loaded with time pressure or interview jitters, and they are not the type of person who thrives on stress, then it will be more like you have totally switched off the part of their brain that is good at communicating design thinking, and their performance in the interview will be entirely unrepresentative of what their performance would be in a regular day-to-day team meeting on the job. I think the same effect is even more severe with any type of coding / mathematics / puzzle solving questions done inside a short timed session or using things like Coderpad or HackerRank.
- simplesleeper 8y ago
  And how do you propose a removal of all stress? Shall we hire everyone and fire them if they turn out to be dreadful after a week? That would ensure EVERYONE is under pressure all the time...
  - malvosenior 8y ago
    This is what take home projects or allowing someone to present their own code help fix.