5 ms·

Let's assume everyone gets a job in industry. Those people who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag in the first interview probably went on to solve w

Let's assume everyone gets a job in industry. Those people who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag in the first interview probably went on to solve whatever issue it is they were having that day (nerves, not ever having heard of modulo etc) and subsequently get more practiced by at least the 3rd interview. All of a sudden they can magically program. I just don't buy the premise that these people can't program, get rejected from every interview, give up and drop out of industry. I'd say the vast majority of them get jobs. And you're hiring filter can't calibrate for how the previous interviews have set the current candidate up for your interview. If you could be a fly on the wall for every interview the candidate you just hired had done, there would likely be some in which you would have assessed "this person isn't capable of doing the job". The signal/noise ratio in hiring is abysmal.

jcadam 7y ago
I can usually tell when I lose an interviewer. They stop paying attention and start fiddling with their smartphone. Every time I start a new job hunt, I have to fail a few interviews before I get practiced up again.
- james_s_tayler 7y ago
  Exactly. Since interviewing is a skill and interview skill is used as a proxy for job skill and interview skill is a function of recent interview experience, job experience, and your mix of personality traits, and only two of those are roughly stable. Job experience is a slowly changing dimension, but recent interview experience changes very rapidly and it has a huge effect on interview skill, and the interviewer has no way to calibrate for it. Instead they always try to calibrate for job experience. Interviewers also don't have any hope of calibrating for your mix of personality traits. The whole thing is basically a crapshoot. But I take comfort in that. I don't ever feel bad if I get rejected. I just see the process as essentially random.
booleandilemma 7y ago
This is why I don’t bother with fizzbuzz. The people who can’t solve fizzbuzz are the same people who learned about fizzbuzz and took their time to memorize a solution. I ask questions that are original (not hard, they don’t need to be hard, just something that they won’t find when they google “how to pass a programming interview”)

jcadam 7y ago

I can usually tell when I lose an interviewer. They stop paying attention and start fiddling with their smartphone. Every time I start a new job hunt, I have to fail a few interviews before I get practiced up again.

james_s_tayler 7y ago
Exactly. Since interviewing is a skill and interview skill is used as a proxy for job skill and interview skill is a function of recent interview experience, job experience, and your mix of personality traits, and only two of those are roughly stable. Job experience is a slowly changing dimension, but recent interview experience changes very rapidly and it has a huge effect on interview skill, and the interviewer has no way to calibrate for it. Instead they always try to calibrate for job experience. Interviewers also don't have any hope of calibrating for your mix of personality traits. The whole thing is basically a crapshoot. But I take comfort in that. I don't ever feel bad if I get rejected. I just see the process as essentially random.

booleandilemma 7y ago

This is why I don’t bother with fizzbuzz. The people who can’t solve fizzbuzz are the same people who learned about fizzbuzz and took their time to memorize a solution. I ask questions that are original (not hard, they don’t need to be hard, just something that they won’t find when they google “how to pass a programming interview”)