5 ms·

When people are turning their interview questions into successful companies, maybe it is time to start asking some easier interview questions. This is a viscera

When people are turning their interview questions into successful companies, maybe it is time to start asking some easier interview questions. This is a visceral demonstration of how absolutely ridiculous interviews have gotten.

JacKTrocinskI 7y ago
I call them low self esteem corporations, the interview process requires you to constantly flatter them and tell them how much you'd like to work for them. I have too much respect for my own time, what's important is on my resume and the rest they can find out in a short interview, homework assignments and cover letters are plain silly.
bufferoverflow 7y ago
Google can afford to do that. They have so many applicants willing to jump through the hoops, they can pick the top 1-2%.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  The top 1%-2% who are willibg to actually complete the challenge. Probably not even then, as some of the top candidates who do complete the challenge may hold themselves to the explicit time limit.
- onlydeadheroes 7y ago
  I hope they find the 1% top developers that can fix gmail interface.
  - y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
    Or increase the performance of Gmail (or Google Maps!!) back to what it was. Funny how the two apps ran perfectly smooth on devices 10 years ago, but they struggle with the horsepower on devices today.
- dentemple 7y ago
  The top 1-2% can turn shitty interview exams into successful startup products. So clearly the process isn't working here.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  They can pick the top 1 or 2% based on interview performance, which is completely crammable.
RickS 7y ago
I think that is crazy. You can turn laundry folding into a successful company. It's not that the interview question bar is high, it's that the "what can you make a company" bar is effectively on the floor. This is good. Also, OP launched on product hunt today. Calling them a "successful company" is generous if not outright false, though I wish them every success. Stated less dramatically, what happened here is "I turned my design interview prompt into a real piece of software". That doesn't imply that google's interview questions are too hard. A software company asking for a deliverable that approximates software is sane. I think the time that google demands for their take-homes is a bit much (explicitly, this is 4-6 hours. in practice, it's 20 to 30 if you want to deliver at high caliber). But the questions/prompts themselves are intentionally quite boring, and exist to see how far you can take it. I found them to be pretty good. These kinds of questions depend somewhat on chemistry between candidate and prompt, so they ask more than one of them, which is great. The takehome I picked was the only one of the 3 offered I could even pretend to care about. Of the two asked onsite, one I felt I delivered on at only the most basic level, and one I think I could have credibly patented / raised a series A for were it a thing I cared to spend 2 years on.
- ghaff 7y ago
  >explicitly, this is 4-6 hours. in practice, it's 20 to 30 if you want to deliver at high caliber This is a problem with a lot of take home assignments of many types (not just programming). If someone has landed an interview at a company they really want to work for, it's almost not rational for them to just bang out something that's "good enough for government work" some evening rather than taking the time and care to really do it properly. But this doesn't scale if they're interviewing at a number of companies and/or otherwise just don't have much free time.
AznHisoka 7y ago
Personally, I love interview questions with some real life practicality to it. Tell me a problem your company is facing now and I will be energized to give you a solution. Typical abstract questions like design a binary tree or solve an arbitrary puzzle don’t interest me. And sometimes its easy to memorize such solutions. Translating a real life problem into a computer science one requires some skill.
macspoofing 7y ago
>maybe it is time to start asking some easier interview questions Why? The big tech companies offer high salaries and get lots of applicants. They can afford to be picky. And by the way, OP went above and beyond what they asked of him. In fact, there's a chance that this hurt his chances. >This is a visceral demonstration of how absolutely ridiculous interviews have gotten. This kind of format isn't standard across the industry.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I'm not a big fan of extended take home assignments but I can definitely see the logic of wanting to have some evidence that a candidate can do what the job requires. I do a lot more writing than programming and, for someone for which that's one of their primary jobs, I would absolutely want to see writing samples--and, if they didn't have one they could share, they're going to need to write something custom. I honestly don't get the max 1 hour interview process. You're probably not that special. I guess I did just have an interview over lunch once but I had known (and worked with in various capacities) the person making the hiring decision for years. Other than that, I've always had multiple interviews, if only so that multiple people could talk to me. As an interviewer, I really like having the perspective of multiple people precisely because it is a very imperfect process and people miss things.
  - totony 7y ago
    I don't understand why interview tests are so prominent, why not just hire the person as a test for a bit and fire him if he's not up to par? Doesn't cost much and is a much better predictor of success in the company
    - ghaff 7y ago
      It costs a lot to hire someone and onboard them. And, if you make a practice of firing people after 60 days because they aren't a good fit for whatever reason, you're probably going to find that you have a hard time hiring anyone. As I said in another comment, (paid) interning and hiring someone as a contractor/consultant for a fixed period are great for situations where it works for everyone. But, if I'm looking for a new full-time position, I'm almost certainly going to pass on a position that doesn't carry with it the presumption of ongoing employment. [ADDED: And, yes, some companies have an official probationary period but AFAIK that's mostly reserved for when a hire really isn't working out for some reason.]
megaremote 7y ago
This startup is the equivalent of a task management app. I guess you can call that a startup, and app to help you manager your exercises. There are only a 1,000 others out there.

JacKTrocinskI 7y ago

I call them low self esteem corporations, the interview process requires you to constantly flatter them and tell them how much you'd like to work for them. I have too much respect for my own time, what's important is on my resume and the rest they can find out in a short interview, homework assignments and cover letters are plain silly.

bufferoverflow 7y ago

Google can afford to do that. They have so many applicants willing to jump through the hoops, they can pick the top 1-2%.

vonmoltke 7y ago
The top 1%-2% who are willibg to actually complete the challenge. Probably not even then, as some of the top candidates who do complete the challenge may hold themselves to the explicit time limit.
onlydeadheroes 7y ago
I hope they find the 1% top developers that can fix gmail interface.
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  Or increase the performance of Gmail (or Google Maps!!) back to what it was. Funny how the two apps ran perfectly smooth on devices 10 years ago, but they struggle with the horsepower on devices today.
dentemple 7y ago
The top 1-2% can turn shitty interview exams into successful startup products. So clearly the process isn't working here.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
They can pick the top 1 or 2% based on interview performance, which is completely crammable.

RickS 7y ago

I think that is crazy. You can turn laundry folding into a successful company. It's not that the interview question bar is high, it's that the "what can you make a company" bar is effectively on the floor. This is good. Also, OP launched on product hunt today. Calling them a "successful company" is generous if not outright false, though I wish them every success. Stated less dramatically, what happened here is "I turned my design interview prompt into a real piece of software". That doesn't imply that google's interview questions are too hard. A software company asking for a deliverable that approximates software is sane. I think the time that google demands for their take-homes is a bit much (explicitly, this is 4-6 hours. in practice, it's 20 to 30 if you want to deliver at high caliber). But the questions/prompts themselves are intentionally quite boring, and exist to see how far you can take it. I found them to be pretty good. These kinds of questions depend somewhat on chemistry between candidate and prompt, so they ask more than one of them, which is great. The takehome I picked was the only one of the 3 offered I could even pretend to care about. Of the two asked onsite, one I felt I delivered on at only the most basic level, and one I think I could have credibly patented / raised a series A for were it a thing I cared to spend 2 years on.

ghaff 7y ago
>explicitly, this is 4-6 hours. in practice, it's 20 to 30 if you want to deliver at high caliber This is a problem with a lot of take home assignments of many types (not just programming). If someone has landed an interview at a company they really want to work for, it's almost not rational for them to just bang out something that's "good enough for government work" some evening rather than taking the time and care to really do it properly. But this doesn't scale if they're interviewing at a number of companies and/or otherwise just don't have much free time.

AznHisoka 7y ago

Personally, I love interview questions with some real life practicality to it. Tell me a problem your company is facing now and I will be energized to give you a solution. Typical abstract questions like design a binary tree or solve an arbitrary puzzle don’t interest me. And sometimes its easy to memorize such solutions. Translating a real life problem into a computer science one requires some skill.

macspoofing 7y ago

>maybe it is time to start asking some easier interview questions Why? The big tech companies offer high salaries and get lots of applicants. They can afford to be picky. And by the way, OP went above and beyond what they asked of him. In fact, there's a chance that this hurt his chances. >This is a visceral demonstration of how absolutely ridiculous interviews have gotten. This kind of format isn't standard across the industry.

ghaff 7y ago
I'm not a big fan of extended take home assignments but I can definitely see the logic of wanting to have some evidence that a candidate can do what the job requires. I do a lot more writing than programming and, for someone for which that's one of their primary jobs, I would absolutely want to see writing samples--and, if they didn't have one they could share, they're going to need to write something custom. I honestly don't get the max 1 hour interview process. You're probably not that special. I guess I did just have an interview over lunch once but I had known (and worked with in various capacities) the person making the hiring decision for years. Other than that, I've always had multiple interviews, if only so that multiple people could talk to me. As an interviewer, I really like having the perspective of multiple people precisely because it is a very imperfect process and people miss things.
- totony 7y ago
  I don't understand why interview tests are so prominent, why not just hire the person as a test for a bit and fire him if he's not up to par? Doesn't cost much and is a much better predictor of success in the company
  - ghaff 7y ago
    It costs a lot to hire someone and onboard them. And, if you make a practice of firing people after 60 days because they aren't a good fit for whatever reason, you're probably going to find that you have a hard time hiring anyone. As I said in another comment, (paid) interning and hiring someone as a contractor/consultant for a fixed period are great for situations where it works for everyone. But, if I'm looking for a new full-time position, I'm almost certainly going to pass on a position that doesn't carry with it the presumption of ongoing employment. [ADDED: And, yes, some companies have an official probationary period but AFAIK that's mostly reserved for when a hire really isn't working out for some reason.]

megaremote 7y ago

This startup is the equivalent of a task management app. I guess you can call that a startup, and app to help you manager your exercises. There are only a 1,000 others out there.