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What i've noticed recently with interviewing candidates is some lack the ability to work outside the way they work normally, especially in practical tests. Thi

What i've noticed recently with interviewing candidates is some lack the ability to work outside the way they work normally, especially in practical tests. Things like, "I usually work from home, so its too difficult to concentrate in this meeting room", "I use Windows, so writing code on a Mac is really hard" and the most common for some reason for why the technical exercise isn't working "Intellij usually saves the file for me" Practical interviews are difficult to get right on both sides, but from the side of the candidate, I feel there has to be some ability to handle those situations, under pressure, with confidence.

falsedan 8y ago
Unless the IDE you use everyday is the whiteboard, these are all fine and valid criticisms of your hiring tests. If you want to see real-world results, give candidates real-world conditions (including their preferred OS/IDE/workspace environment). > under pressure is this a common occurrence in your company? people expected to code well under direct supervision and a strict short time limit?
- ozzyman700 8y ago
  Hackerrank interviews done with video chat literally have a person's face watching their screen which updates as you type. I had an hour to write a few functions and the person interviewing had the ability to run the tests
  - vips7L 8y ago
    I hate hackerrank. The experience writing the code is terrible. You have to scroll up and down the page to remember what they want you to do. It's barely a text editor and slows down how fast you can actually write the code they want under the timelimit.
Insanity 8y ago
Well to be honest, I once had an interview (and got the job) where I had to use a Mac for the programming test. It was a rather annoying experience when you are not used to it and some of your time does get lost fighting with the system. In this case, I do think it was a good thing because everyone in the company had to work on a mac. I do believe it's not a reason to complain, just work with the tools you get, but it might impact their performance a bit
purple_ducks 8y ago
If you're a complete novice with Windows, using a Mac for the first time will be similar. If you have years of muscle memory and shortcuts and knowledge about Windows OS, switching to Mac OS will be painful. Not least the different Cmd/Ctrl keyboard placements and shortcuts. Also, those universal text editing/navigation shortcuts on MacOS?: they're emacs shortcuts which don't exist on Windows OS.

falsedan 8y ago

Unless the IDE you use everyday is the whiteboard, these are all fine and valid criticisms of your hiring tests. If you want to see real-world results, give candidates real-world conditions (including their preferred OS/IDE/workspace environment). > under pressure is this a common occurrence in your company? people expected to code well under direct supervision and a strict short time limit?

ozzyman700 8y ago
Hackerrank interviews done with video chat literally have a person's face watching their screen which updates as you type. I had an hour to write a few functions and the person interviewing had the ability to run the tests
- vips7L 8y ago
  I hate hackerrank. The experience writing the code is terrible. You have to scroll up and down the page to remember what they want you to do. It's barely a text editor and slows down how fast you can actually write the code they want under the timelimit.

Insanity 8y ago

Well to be honest, I once had an interview (and got the job) where I had to use a Mac for the programming test. It was a rather annoying experience when you are not used to it and some of your time does get lost fighting with the system. In this case, I do think it was a good thing because everyone in the company had to work on a mac. I do believe it's not a reason to complain, just work with the tools you get, but it might impact their performance a bit

purple_ducks 8y ago

If you're a complete novice with Windows, using a Mac for the first time will be similar. If you have years of muscle memory and shortcuts and knowledge about Windows OS, switching to Mac OS will be painful. Not least the different Cmd/Ctrl keyboard placements and shortcuts. Also, those universal text editing/navigation shortcuts on MacOS?: they're emacs shortcuts which don't exist on Windows OS.