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None of this proves that you're a good fit, either generally at a company or specifically on a team. Empirically, tech companies where executives and managers

None of this proves that you're a good fit, either generally at a company or specifically on a team. Empirically, tech companies where executives and managers were mostly software engineers at one point and are considered best places with best talent almost uniformly have standardized hiring processes with whiteboarding algorithms and what not. Companies run by non-technical MBAs that aren't known for software talent tend to either not give such tests and/or have ad hoc processes where hiring managers hire whoever they want based on what they like. While hard data on hiring processes are difficult to get, I think this puts the burden of proof on those who are adamant that this is not an effective way. More importantly, you need to look beyond yourself. I'm an old developer and I don't like to be grilled on algorithms either. But my understanding is that it works very well and that no one's ever come up with anything that's better in terms of effectiveness at scale. Giving random hiring managers discretion to hire who they want simply doesn't work if you're a desirable place to work and need some minimal level of competence across the board. What do you think would work any better? This focus on how it feels from your perspective is fine if you all you're trying to say is that it sucks for you personally but ultimately if you're trying to prove that this is a bad process for those who employ it, you need to make a case that there are better, more efficient processes. Every process will lose some qualified people - so that you may have been qualified, but were rejected isn't meaningful evidence against the process. Btw, appeal to special credentials as a way to criticize standard procedures is an implicit argument that hiring managers should be given discretion to bypass standard procedures to hire special candidates. I've never really seen this go well, at a level below, say, industry pioneers. I do distinctly remember the one time I did that as a manager to hire someone with a rather long series of accomplishments who refused to take coding tests - I had to fire him rather quickly. The interesting part, other than the complete absence of any sort of actual productivity, is that he couldn't work with anyone, was right about everything and his long list of accomplishments was constantly used as a reason why he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to and any rule he didn't want to follow was stupid. So I don't think standard algorithm tests are that great as a filter, but at the very least, the willingness to go through it communicates some level of willingness to do things you don't like or aren't best at. A huge part of what makes engineers successful isn't the ability to do things they are good at, but the willingness to do things they are not good at.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
How about looking at a portfolio? Suppose that I have a portfolio with...let's just say...100KLoC of extremely current (like fifteen minutes ago) code, a GitHub ID that is solid green, and over 30 public repos in one org, and over 50 in another, and some of those repos and code examples happen to fit your application EXACTLY. Think that might tell you a bit more about me than a schoolboy test? Asking for a friend.. Yeah...it does mean that you'll need to spend some time actually reading up on what I can do, but there would be no question at all about my abilities or relevance to your workflow (BTW: That cuts both ways. You may well decide, from looking at my stuff, that I'm not a fit). I was a hiring manager for over twenty years, at a top-shelf corporation, and managed a really heavy-duty team. I loved long résumés. I would have KILLED for the kind of information you can get in a well-stocked SO Story.
- candybar 7y ago
  The portfolio does not allow you to compare one candidate against another and the same guy I had to fire also had a great portfolio, probably like yours and was a good fit on paper. It doesn't tell you how well the person works nor how quickly the person is able to deliver. And quite frankly, no one has time to read through all your code either. And even if they did, how does reading your code help me compare you against another candidate with a completely different set of credentials in an objective way? Without understanding the context under which the code is written, it's useless - I don't know what problems it solves, if it solves any problems anyone actually had, what constraints you were operating under and what challenges you faced and how you were able to handle them. Say, if I were to give you a thousand github profiles, do you think you can realistically rank them in order of how good the owners are? As I said, this is just not how things are done at modern tech companies and there are good reasons - hiring managers generally don't have the authority to arbitrarily bypass standard processes because hiring managers are inherently biased towards hiring someone good enough for the time being, even if it lowers the bar. So the goal isn't to hire somebody that the hiring manager feels is good enough, but to objectively compare thousands of candidates against one another in a systematic way that keeps the bar sufficiently high enough. You should understand at least what the problem is before you can criticize the solution. Also, generally speaking, if you pay attention to research into hiring, the two things that really stand out are that 1) general abilities are more important than specific skills and 2) standardized processes outperform ad hoc evaluation. If you're asking to be evaluated on ad hoc credentials that cannot be objectively compared to others (most people's best work cannot be shared) - you're asking people to forego processes. And that is simply not known to work very well, mainly because it's not evidence-based. Your unique set of accomplishments that cannot be compared is not known to correlate with any measure of performance because there's no way to say, people who tend to have accomplishments like yours tend to perform at a certain level. I also don't know what you mean by "top-shelf" corporation but I'm not aware of any top software company that doesn't basically do this - your claim to have been a hiring manager at a top-shelf corporation isn't consistent with your lack of understanding of the realities faced by top-shelf corporations where there are far more candidates than qualified due to paying well above market and the need to ensure that the bar is kept consistently high, regardless of the motivations and qualities of individual hiring managers and interviewers (unless your top-shelf company isn't actually a software company, in which case it's likely not top-shelf at software).

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

How about looking at a portfolio? Suppose that I have a portfolio with...let's just say...100KLoC of extremely current (like fifteen minutes ago) code, a GitHub ID that is solid green, and over 30 public repos in one org, and over 50 in another, and some of those repos and code examples happen to fit your application EXACTLY. Think that might tell you a bit more about me than a schoolboy test? Asking for a friend.. Yeah...it does mean that you'll need to spend some time actually reading up on what I can do, but there would be no question at all about my abilities or relevance to your workflow (BTW: That cuts both ways. You may well decide, from looking at my stuff, that I'm not a fit). I was a hiring manager for over twenty years, at a top-shelf corporation, and managed a really heavy-duty team. I loved long résumés. I would have KILLED for the kind of information you can get in a well-stocked SO Story.

candybar 7y ago
The portfolio does not allow you to compare one candidate against another and the same guy I had to fire also had a great portfolio, probably like yours and was a good fit on paper. It doesn't tell you how well the person works nor how quickly the person is able to deliver. And quite frankly, no one has time to read through all your code either. And even if they did, how does reading your code help me compare you against another candidate with a completely different set of credentials in an objective way? Without understanding the context under which the code is written, it's useless - I don't know what problems it solves, if it solves any problems anyone actually had, what constraints you were operating under and what challenges you faced and how you were able to handle them. Say, if I were to give you a thousand github profiles, do you think you can realistically rank them in order of how good the owners are? As I said, this is just not how things are done at modern tech companies and there are good reasons - hiring managers generally don't have the authority to arbitrarily bypass standard processes because hiring managers are inherently biased towards hiring someone good enough for the time being, even if it lowers the bar. So the goal isn't to hire somebody that the hiring manager feels is good enough, but to objectively compare thousands of candidates against one another in a systematic way that keeps the bar sufficiently high enough. You should understand at least what the problem is before you can criticize the solution. Also, generally speaking, if you pay attention to research into hiring, the two things that really stand out are that 1) general abilities are more important than specific skills and 2) standardized processes outperform ad hoc evaluation. If you're asking to be evaluated on ad hoc credentials that cannot be objectively compared to others (most people's best work cannot be shared) - you're asking people to forego processes. And that is simply not known to work very well, mainly because it's not evidence-based. Your unique set of accomplishments that cannot be compared is not known to correlate with any measure of performance because there's no way to say, people who tend to have accomplishments like yours tend to perform at a certain level. I also don't know what you mean by "top-shelf" corporation but I'm not aware of any top software company that doesn't basically do this - your claim to have been a hiring manager at a top-shelf corporation isn't consistent with your lack of understanding of the realities faced by top-shelf corporations where there are far more candidates than qualified due to paying well above market and the need to ensure that the bar is kept consistently high, regardless of the motivations and qualities of individual hiring managers and interviewers (unless your top-shelf company isn't actually a software company, in which case it's likely not top-shelf at software).