5 ms·

Given the current state of tech interviews, they have more or less become like standardized tests, such as SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE... with guides, cheat sheets and

by yumraj 7y ago

Given the current state of tech interviews, they have more or less become like standardized tests, such as SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE... with guides, cheat sheets and perhaps neighborhood coaching institutes on the horizon with instructors who have cleared tech interviews in FAANGs. Are we going to see tech recruitment become more and more like college admissions where a top score in the interview is just one of the criteria and no longer sufficient to get a job? Perhaps next is asking people to write essays regarding career, goals, why they want to work their, extra curricular etc..

risubramanian 7y ago
You joke, but I've seen several applications where I've been asked questions like "What achievement are you proudest of?" and "How would you contribute to the diversity of our team?". Also cover letters cover some of this. Actually, I wouldn't mind a standardized test like the GRE, where a good score might actually keep your resume from getting thrown out immediately.
- sweetheart 7y ago
  Maybe I stand alone in feeling this, but I don't see those questions are absurd during an interview. Especially at smaller startups, where early hires are going to be interfacing heavily with the majority of other employees. Maybe this should be filed under things that comprise "culture fit", but I also think it's different than that.
  - chucksmash 7y ago
    I think it's a little odd to ask directly. If you are evaluating an interviewee for "culture fit" as in your example, would you directly ask them "how would you fit into our culture?" or try to evaluate their thought processes, demeanor, etc to determine it for yourself? Perhaps it's just the context from which this conversation arises and it wouldn't strike me this way otherwise, but asking these questions directly feels a bit too much like college application boilerplate to me. If a team wants to prioritize a diversity of perspectives, I feel the team should spend the interview trying to understand my perspective, analyze how that compares to their own perspectives, then synthesize the answer to the question themselves rather than just adding a "How will you contribute to a diversity of perspectives?" question.
- raincom 7y ago
  If there were a standardized Programming GRE, it will end up increasing the competition for jobs thanks to the future Kaplan/Princeton/local training centers. What would companies do then? Start another layer of programming interview on top of this programming GRE. Eventually, we will reach a point where companies don't trust such GRE scores.
sthatipamala 7y ago
There's a YC company that's literally making a standardized test for programmers: https://cspa.io/ https://cspa.io/
- numakerg 7y ago
  They trademarked the words "Core Exam"? That seems like a rather generic term.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- yumraj 7y ago
  I really hope this fails, something I have never wished for any other startup. At least personally in my hirings I'll never use or trust anything like this. There are so many things wrong with this approach that I'm kinda speachless as to where to start.
  - solipsism 7y ago
    Please do start? I'm kind of curious what you'll say because it's not at all obvious to me that it would be a bad idea.
    - yumraj 7y ago
      I'll try - a few thoughts: Software engineering is part knowledge and part application of knowledge (problem solving) and part ability to acquire and apply new knowledge. We remain current in our jobs and roles by making sure we're constantly learning. Interviews should be part testing of knowledge, but a lot more discussions to evaluate problem solving and ability to acquire & apply knowledge. Also, knowledge in many cases becomes stale if not used. If I learn a new language/framework but don't use it in a project immediately, I'll forget almost all of it. I may learn react via books/tutorials, get a great score in the test, never use it and/or forget it by the time I get a job based on the score. Am I a good hire? Given that it's not clear as to what problem such a test will solve and moreover it's unclear as to the long term impact of such a test. Is this just for initial filtering, or will become an actual hiring criteria? If graduates from colleges are expected to take such a test to prove something, then what is the value of the work these grads did in their colleges? How is a score in these taking in regards to the work students do in colleges? Some people are better test takers than others. An a good interviewer is able to probe and work with the person. So such tests may end up discriminating, not on purpose of course, against bad test takers if they become the sole filtering mechanism. People may have to take tests again and again till they get a good score. An effort, which in no way helps in their job per se but is simple an additional burden. The only potential place where I can see some value for such a test if to evaluate the coding camp folks, since different coding camps have different quality. However, even there, it's unclear how this will pan out.
leovander 7y ago
I went to a Cal State, and I recall in the last few years Google has taken professors to their campus and pretty much preach Cracking the Code Interview. So it looks like schools are already making that their standard. I have yet to see what classes look like but I could see there being a required technical interview course you have to take in order to increase school’s numbers on where their alumni work.
- shagie 7y ago
  That would be Stanford CS9 : https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs9/ https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs9/ > This course will prepare students to interview for software engineering and related internships and full-time positions in industry. Drawing on multiple sources of actual interview questions, students will learn key problem-solving strategies specific to the technical/coding interview. Students will be encouraged to synthesize information they have learned across different courses in the major. Emphasis will be on the oral and combination written-oral modes of communication common in coding interviews, but which are an unfamiliar settings for problem solving for many students.
_hardwaregeek 7y ago
Y'know, as someone who went to a very competitive public school, there were a particular brand of driven, studious kids who knew exactly how to paint along the lines, play the game, and get into the college of their choice. They understood the precise combo of grades, extracurriculars and essays to get into a "good" school. I definitely see some of those kids doing the same tactics to get into a "good" company. The steps are slightly different but the philosophy is the same: grind Leetcode, participate in tech clubs and take bullshit jobs juuust long enough to get an internship, get said internship and parlay it into a return offer. Put your head down, play the game and reap the rewards.
- firstplacelast 7y ago
  I mean it's all a game as much as it sucks. One of my best friends in high school was a salutatorian because the school didn't wait grade. She took zero AP classes and very few honors classes. She knew what she was doing. Friends in college took less challenging majors to boost GPA for med school (business admin, environmental policy, etc) to boost grades and there core classes were easy so it gave them more time to focus on med school pre-reqs. It has been and always will be a game. Few things in this world come down to meritocracy because the way we socialize and the way we interview does not beget that in absolute terms. Tech did a better-than-most job as a meritocracy for while, but I believe those days are done. Most areas f tech are too mainstream with too much obvious money at stake.
  - driven20 7y ago
    I don't understand why you are discrediting people who are taking the better path to med school. Work smarter, not harder. There is also short game vs long game. For example, if you cheat on a test without learning the material. You might win the short game, but if that material was important and you need it later you're losing the long game. That said, if the material was just fluff and no one really cares. It's actually smart just to cheat and get by.
    - username90 7y ago
closeparen 7y ago
Bright high school students are vastly oversupplied compared to seats in elite colleges. Graduation rates are in the high 90s. There are many more than 5,000 kids who can handle the workload; which 5,000 you pick is arbitrary. Engineering competence is not even slightly oversupplied compared to useful engineering work. Project failures, incompetent people, and systematically incompetent orgs are still very much alive at the most selective tech employers. There are real business needs to hire better engineers.
- yumraj 7y ago
  Replace high school students with engineering graduates and elite colleges with elite employers in your first para.... And see..
  - closeparen 7y ago
    Elite employers are nowhere close to getting all their projects done successfully or with reasonable quality. The subset of engineering graduates who can do that is small.
- seventhtiger 7y ago
  Admission at Georgia Tech has spoken on this online. Per their analysis, they can definitely differentiate the top 30% of applicants from the rest and it makes a difference in performance. Within the 30% they have found no differentiator that significantly impacts their academic performance. So they have a full 30% of their applicants qualified to be there but they have to narrow it to 1%. Whatever method they choose must have the appearance of meritocracy, abide by laws and regulations, be resistant to corruption, achieve goals other than academic performance such as culture, volunteering, and sports, and so on. I think the same must be true for companies. At some point in the elimination process everyone is technically qualified, so they might as well hire someone "because we like his face". But that's demoralizing and corrupt so they invent some criteria that on its face seems useful, even though it's truly not.
  - closeparen 7y ago
jackmodern 7y ago
The next step is back channel reference checks
namelosw 7y ago
I was against the algorithm tests or something more like exams before. Until I interviewed a lot of people with my colleagues during these years. Interview processes are highly biased based on the knowledge of the interviewer's background and value, or even mood. Some interviewers are too sloppy on interviewing, asking ill-defined questions, demanding answers they want, or just in a hurry and wanting to go back to work. I often feel bad and angry for interviewees - they spent time and patience preparing themselves carefully, then was treated very casually. It isn't fair at all. I hate to say that, although standardized tests are bad, they are better than the most nowaday interviews.
mylons 7y ago
except there is no standardization at all.
Aperocky 7y ago
Judging from the people I work with (FAANG). I would say that this screening is successful, if someone truly awful got in, then there's still PIP. But those are relatively uncommon.

by yumraj 7y ago

risubramanian 7y ago

You joke, but I've seen several applications where I've been asked questions like "What achievement are you proudest of?" and "How would you contribute to the diversity of our team?". Also cover letters cover some of this. Actually, I wouldn't mind a standardized test like the GRE, where a good score might actually keep your resume from getting thrown out immediately.

sweetheart 7y ago
Maybe I stand alone in feeling this, but I don't see those questions are absurd during an interview. Especially at smaller startups, where early hires are going to be interfacing heavily with the majority of other employees. Maybe this should be filed under things that comprise "culture fit", but I also think it's different than that.
- chucksmash 7y ago
  I think it's a little odd to ask directly. If you are evaluating an interviewee for "culture fit" as in your example, would you directly ask them "how would you fit into our culture?" or try to evaluate their thought processes, demeanor, etc to determine it for yourself? Perhaps it's just the context from which this conversation arises and it wouldn't strike me this way otherwise, but asking these questions directly feels a bit too much like college application boilerplate to me. If a team wants to prioritize a diversity of perspectives, I feel the team should spend the interview trying to understand my perspective, analyze how that compares to their own perspectives, then synthesize the answer to the question themselves rather than just adding a "How will you contribute to a diversity of perspectives?" question.
raincom 7y ago
If there were a standardized Programming GRE, it will end up increasing the competition for jobs thanks to the future Kaplan/Princeton/local training centers. What would companies do then? Start another layer of programming interview on top of this programming GRE. Eventually, we will reach a point where companies don't trust such GRE scores.

sthatipamala 7y ago

There's a YC company that's literally making a standardized test for programmers: https://cspa.io/ https://cspa.io/

numakerg 7y ago
They trademarked the words "Core Exam"? That seems like a rather generic term.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
yumraj 7y ago
I really hope this fails, something I have never wished for any other startup. At least personally in my hirings I'll never use or trust anything like this. There are so many things wrong with this approach that I'm kinda speachless as to where to start.
- solipsism 7y ago
  Please do start? I'm kind of curious what you'll say because it's not at all obvious to me that it would be a bad idea.
  - yumraj 7y ago
    I'll try - a few thoughts: Software engineering is part knowledge and part application of knowledge (problem solving) and part ability to acquire and apply new knowledge. We remain current in our jobs and roles by making sure we're constantly learning. Interviews should be part testing of knowledge, but a lot more discussions to evaluate problem solving and ability to acquire & apply knowledge. Also, knowledge in many cases becomes stale if not used. If I learn a new language/framework but don't use it in a project immediately, I'll forget almost all of it. I may learn react via books/tutorials, get a great score in the test, never use it and/or forget it by the time I get a job based on the score. Am I a good hire? Given that it's not clear as to what problem such a test will solve and moreover it's unclear as to the long term impact of such a test. Is this just for initial filtering, or will become an actual hiring criteria? If graduates from colleges are expected to take such a test to prove something, then what is the value of the work these grads did in their colleges? How is a score in these taking in regards to the work students do in colleges? Some people are better test takers than others. An a good interviewer is able to probe and work with the person. So such tests may end up discriminating, not on purpose of course, against bad test takers if they become the sole filtering mechanism. People may have to take tests again and again till they get a good score. An effort, which in no way helps in their job per se but is simple an additional burden. The only potential place where I can see some value for such a test if to evaluate the coding camp folks, since different coding camps have different quality. However, even there, it's unclear how this will pan out.

leovander 7y ago

I went to a Cal State, and I recall in the last few years Google has taken professors to their campus and pretty much preach Cracking the Code Interview. So it looks like schools are already making that their standard. I have yet to see what classes look like but I could see there being a required technical interview course you have to take in order to increase school’s numbers on where their alumni work.

shagie 7y ago
That would be Stanford CS9 : https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs9/ https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs9/ > This course will prepare students to interview for software engineering and related internships and full-time positions in industry. Drawing on multiple sources of actual interview questions, students will learn key problem-solving strategies specific to the technical/coding interview. Students will be encouraged to synthesize information they have learned across different courses in the major. Emphasis will be on the oral and combination written-oral modes of communication common in coding interviews, but which are an unfamiliar settings for problem solving for many students.

_hardwaregeek 7y ago

Y'know, as someone who went to a very competitive public school, there were a particular brand of driven, studious kids who knew exactly how to paint along the lines, play the game, and get into the college of their choice. They understood the precise combo of grades, extracurriculars and essays to get into a "good" school. I definitely see some of those kids doing the same tactics to get into a "good" company. The steps are slightly different but the philosophy is the same: grind Leetcode, participate in tech clubs and take bullshit jobs juuust long enough to get an internship, get said internship and parlay it into a return offer. Put your head down, play the game and reap the rewards.

firstplacelast 7y ago
I mean it's all a game as much as it sucks. One of my best friends in high school was a salutatorian because the school didn't wait grade. She took zero AP classes and very few honors classes. She knew what she was doing. Friends in college took less challenging majors to boost GPA for med school (business admin, environmental policy, etc) to boost grades and there core classes were easy so it gave them more time to focus on med school pre-reqs. It has been and always will be a game. Few things in this world come down to meritocracy because the way we socialize and the way we interview does not beget that in absolute terms. Tech did a better-than-most job as a meritocracy for while, but I believe those days are done. Most areas f tech are too mainstream with too much obvious money at stake.
- driven20 7y ago
  I don't understand why you are discrediting people who are taking the better path to med school. Work smarter, not harder. There is also short game vs long game. For example, if you cheat on a test without learning the material. You might win the short game, but if that material was important and you need it later you're losing the long game. That said, if the material was just fluff and no one really cares. It's actually smart just to cheat and get by.
  - username90 7y ago

closeparen 7y ago

Bright high school students are vastly oversupplied compared to seats in elite colleges. Graduation rates are in the high 90s. There are many more than 5,000 kids who can handle the workload; which 5,000 you pick is arbitrary. Engineering competence is not even slightly oversupplied compared to useful engineering work. Project failures, incompetent people, and systematically incompetent orgs are still very much alive at the most selective tech employers. There are real business needs to hire better engineers.

yumraj 7y ago
Replace high school students with engineering graduates and elite colleges with elite employers in your first para.... And see..
- closeparen 7y ago
  Elite employers are nowhere close to getting all their projects done successfully or with reasonable quality. The subset of engineering graduates who can do that is small.
seventhtiger 7y ago
Admission at Georgia Tech has spoken on this online. Per their analysis, they can definitely differentiate the top 30% of applicants from the rest and it makes a difference in performance. Within the 30% they have found no differentiator that significantly impacts their academic performance. So they have a full 30% of their applicants qualified to be there but they have to narrow it to 1%. Whatever method they choose must have the appearance of meritocracy, abide by laws and regulations, be resistant to corruption, achieve goals other than academic performance such as culture, volunteering, and sports, and so on. I think the same must be true for companies. At some point in the elimination process everyone is technically qualified, so they might as well hire someone "because we like his face". But that's demoralizing and corrupt so they invent some criteria that on its face seems useful, even though it's truly not.
- closeparen 7y ago

jackmodern 7y ago

The next step is back channel reference checks

namelosw 7y ago

I was against the algorithm tests or something more like exams before. Until I interviewed a lot of people with my colleagues during these years. Interview processes are highly biased based on the knowledge of the interviewer's background and value, or even mood. Some interviewers are too sloppy on interviewing, asking ill-defined questions, demanding answers they want, or just in a hurry and wanting to go back to work. I often feel bad and angry for interviewees - they spent time and patience preparing themselves carefully, then was treated very casually. It isn't fair at all. I hate to say that, although standardized tests are bad, they are better than the most nowaday interviews.

mylons 7y ago

except there is no standardization at all.

Aperocky 7y ago

Judging from the people I work with (FAANG). I would say that this screening is successful, if someone truly awful got in, then there's still PIP. But those are relatively uncommon.