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> It's usually easy to tell if the applicant is a quack or if they are skilled by how they talk about different technology: commiserating about familiar pain po

> It's usually easy to tell if the applicant is a quack or if they are skilled by how they talk about different technology: commiserating about familiar pain points, how they solved common problems. I almost feel at this point that it's unprofessional to hand out tests to people. The problem with what you're describing is that it's using a proxy (discussion) to vet a particular skill (ability to program). It's very easy to vet someone's programming skill by having them program, and it doesn't take much longer than a wide ranging discussion, so why not skip the proxy and test what we're actually hiring for? Should a programming test be several hours (or several days) long? No. But an hour or two, I can't see how that's a terrible imposition.

ghaff 7y ago
When I was an industry analyst, I did a lot of writing (and still do). We absolutely needed to see writing samples from job candidates. If they had articles and so forth that had been published, great. But there's no way we would have hired someone without evidence that they could write.
simongr3dal 7y ago
Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I’m sure you can somehow include technologies relevant to the position and keep the problems to the same scope. Or these companies could begin creating actual value instead of just draining it from the world. Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? And make it a big enough so they don’t need to hire as many ready-made 10x engineers from outside.
- thomascgalvin 7y ago
  > Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I 1,000% do not care about someone's ability to solve a random programming puzzle without the internet. Again, this is a (bad) proxy for the skill I'm actually trying to hire for. If I'm hiring a backend engineer, why would I ask someone to implement QuickSort? Wouldn't it be better to give them a realish application and have them add a feature or fix a bug? > Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? My company has a very healthy pipeline of interns and junior developers. In a year or two, they'll be very good. In five to ten years, they'll be amazing. But I also have shit that I need to get done by the end of the month, and I need people with years of experience to complete them. And regardless of which level I'm hiring at, I want to see them code, and I want it to be in an environment as close to how they will be working as possible. Google, Stack Overflow, an IDE, a build system, unit tests ... I want to see how they will perform as Software Engineers, not Euler-grinders.
zymhan 7y ago
> Should a programming test be several hours (or several days) long? No. But an hour or two, I can't see how that's a terrible imposition. Agreed. However there are multiple comments discussing "5 hour assignments" and "take home quizzes", which I find to be insane, frankly. But if it's worth it to you, go for it I guess?

ghaff 7y ago

When I was an industry analyst, I did a lot of writing (and still do). We absolutely needed to see writing samples from job candidates. If they had articles and so forth that had been published, great. But there's no way we would have hired someone without evidence that they could write.

simongr3dal 7y ago

Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I’m sure you can somehow include technologies relevant to the position and keep the problems to the same scope. Or these companies could begin creating actual value instead of just draining it from the world. Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? And make it a big enough so they don’t need to hire as many ready-made 10x engineers from outside.

thomascgalvin 7y ago
> Maybe just ask applicants to spend an hour or two onsite without internet making them to solve project euler-type problems and discuss their solutions afterwards. I 1,000% do not care about someone's ability to solve a random programming puzzle without the internet. Again, this is a (bad) proxy for the skill I'm actually trying to hire for. If I'm hiring a backend engineer, why would I ask someone to implement QuickSort? Wouldn't it be better to give them a realish application and have them add a feature or fix a bug? > Why don’t they expand their pipeline that converts intern/junior positions into more senior positions? My company has a very healthy pipeline of interns and junior developers. In a year or two, they'll be very good. In five to ten years, they'll be amazing. But I also have shit that I need to get done by the end of the month, and I need people with years of experience to complete them. And regardless of which level I'm hiring at, I want to see them code, and I want it to be in an environment as close to how they will be working as possible. Google, Stack Overflow, an IDE, a build system, unit tests ... I want to see how they will perform as Software Engineers, not Euler-grinders.

zymhan 7y ago

> Should a programming test be several hours (or several days) long? No. But an hour or two, I can't see how that's a terrible imposition. Agreed. However there are multiple comments discussing "5 hour assignments" and "take home quizzes", which I find to be insane, frankly. But if it's worth it to you, go for it I guess?