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It's almost not worth complaining about because of the ubiquitous of it, but I absolutely hate and make a point of never doing this if I'm interviewing someone:
by overgard 8y ago
It's almost not worth complaining about because of the ubiquitous of it, but I absolutely hate and make a point of never doing this if I'm interviewing someone:
1) Puzzle questions not related to the work they'd be doing. It's ok to have a somewhat puzzling geometry puzzle if they're doing, say, 3d work, but for a web dev? Etc. etc.
2) Coding on a white board. Can't you just setup a laptop in a conference room? Or have them bring in a laptop and show some of their work? Nobody ever codes on a white board!! Plus seeing them use a computer tells me way more. Can they type? That's important. I know some really good coders that can't type well, but it's more the exception than the rule. Do they know their tools well? Those things are all actually relevant to the work.
Also here's the other thing: there's essentially no cost or barrier to writing code (IE, you're not using up precious materials or something), so I don't understand why employers want to PROJECT how someone MIGHT write code via puzzles and white board writing when they can literally just pair up and watch the person solve an actual real world problem on an actual computer, with google and stack overflow like they'd actually have access to, and then they don't need to project anything, because they know what it looks like when the person actually writes real world code! Spending a grand on a cheap laptop for this with a few software/IDE licenses is a lot cheaper than making a bad hire.
- IshKebab 8y agoI write code on a whiteboard, when discussing how to solve a problem with colleagues. Almost exactly like in an interview. Do people really not do this?
- overgard 8y agoI have literally never done this in a job outside of interviews, and I haven't had anyone else do it either. They might draw class diagrams or concepts, but writing code by hand is error prone and pretty pointless. Regardless, most modern offices have a projector or a TV in conference rooms. I just don't understand why you'd use a white board when you can easily project a text editor. The problem with writing code in handwriting is you can't move it, so you have to do it all linearly. If you need to introduce a variable or a new scope it gets messy incredibly quickly. When I code I almost am never thinking linearly, and I'm constantly adding things above and below, and doing that on a white board is a NIGHTMARE.
- ravenstine 8y agoI don't ever do this, and none of the teams I've worked on have ever used whiteboarding. Even pair programming is more common. Morevover, testing a candidate on whiteboard is like expecting all your candidates to be good with Emacs, even though that says zilch about their coding skills. Whiteboarding is just a tool like any other, and you(the interviewer) are limiting your talent pool by expecting everyone to not only be comfortable whiteboarding but to approach whiteboarding just like you do.
- samatman 8y agoI have frequently done whiteboarding, which is different from coding on a whiteboard. Working through approaches to solving a problem at a high level, or workshopping a schedule for a feature. That sort of thing. It’s also a decent skill to test someone on if your team uses it and the role requires it. But coding on a whiteboard is pointless, don’t do this to people please.
- itronitron 8y agoI've written code on whiteboards before, especially if I'm discussing an invasive code change with a coworker. It helps as a reminder of conclusions that were reached as the work progresses. One nice thing, maybe the killer feature, of whiteboarding for this use is that there are no distractions.