6 ms·

Why doesn't the interviewee ever ask the interviewer a whiteboard or puzzle question, "to see how you think?"

by a3n 7y ago

ThePadawan 7y ago
I do, and I have excluded companies for the wrong answers. Why would you not? You're taking the risk of wasting a few months until you find out that the fit is poor.
- snow_mac 7y ago
  How has that gone over? Did you get interviewers to refuse the question?
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    Answering puzzle questions when I’m the interviewer seems like slightly embarrasing, but also great fun since you’re not so worried about failure.
    - ianai 7y ago
      Also gives both parties a chance to work together potentially, but with less pressure.
- greymalik 7y ago
  Can you give an example?
  - ThePadawan 7y ago
    To be fair, I never ask "puzzles" as such. But I do ask things that show if the technical recruiter actually knows what they are talking about. "What strategy do you use to complete Pull Requests?" There are many ways to answer that question that will show you don't know. In general, I ask things that make me see if the other person is reasonable, and I can talk to one-to-one, but also that they make conscious decisions and don't just carry around cruft. This might involve asking "What ORM do you use?", then responding to their answer with "Oh, why didn't you use <other ORM>?".
dominotw 7y ago
Because unless you are some sort of celebrity engineer, "interview is a conversation between both parties" is nonsense. Company is interviewing the candidate not the other way around, no matter what we like to think. Edit: Sorry I should've clarified. I am specially referring to companies that don't really have to care about your feelings towards their interviews. FAANGs for example. They simply don't care and there are million others who are willing and happy to go though whiteboarding. They just don't have to put up with your stuff. Ofcourse you have leverage when you are interviewing at your local java enterprise shop. But who cares about those jobs, pointless to interview them with your smartass questions, we all know they are pretty much all the same more or less.
- iamthepieman 7y ago
  This was true in my first job out of college. After that I definitely was interviewing the company. I've had the fortune to always be interviewing while having a stable job so I never needed the job I was interviewing for and it's wise to be picky if you can afford to be. There's a lot of risk associated with changing jobs and I do what I can to either minimize that or at least know what it is. I've said no to two companies. One because I got a better offer and another because I didn't want to do the kind of work they were doing which was really only evident after going through their sample project.
- chrisweekly 7y ago
  Strong disagree; it is not always this way. I'm no celebrity, and I flail at adversarial technical whiteboard exercises, but I've been paid well to do software-related things for over 20 years. Maybe in part because I insist on treating every interview as bi-directional. It is not necessary to accept a "please may I have this job" attitude towards a potential employer. Software developers are radically more empowered than many of them (us) realize, and IMHO part of the reason so many corporate hiring processes for technical roles are so brutal is that it reinforces the mindset of subservience and is an effective way to assert and maintain dominance. [In the US some of this is a structural problem tied to larger concerns like health insurance being tied to employment, which tips the scales of power, putting employees in a position where they may actually need the employer more than the other way around...] TLDR if you don't think you're interviewing the company too, you're doing yourself a big disservice and selling yourself short.
sidlls 7y ago
I don't because I think those kinds of questions are just not good signals.
alistairSH 7y ago
Ask their own whiteboard question? That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. But, if I ask a whiteboard question (or any tech question), asking me related questions as a means to further the discussion would be a good signal.
- fatnoah 7y ago
  > That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. I'm a manager that rarely codes as well, but was still asked coding questions in an interview. It's a bit annoying, but having had managers that have never written a line of code ever, I understand wanting to verify that the manager could theoretically do the work themselves.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    I can theoretically do the work and I certainly understand the technical problems my teams are solving. I'd happily write some pseudocode to prove I know general things, but asking me to write the fastest version of X isn't going to prove I can manage people. Heck, that's not even a good question for most developer positions.
    - fatnoah 7y ago
      FWIW, I recently interviewed for a manager role and there was a coding element. It required a small amount of cleverness and some knowledge of basic data structures. It felt appropriate to me, at least to establish that I would have some clue about how things work. That said, it was the only one of my four interviews that actually included any coding.
- noarchy 7y ago
  >Ask their own whiteboard question? That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. I don't write much code on a whiteboard, so that makes two of us. But I agree that having a discussion about such problems can be productive. It may help separate legitimate problem-solving from mere hazing.
rocqua 7y ago
Because the coding ability of one employee is not a good reason for a candidate to refuse or accept an offer.
- arethuza 7y ago
  If that employee is doing the interviewing of someone who is being expected to write code then I would say it does indicate something about a company.
theamk 7y ago
During the last interview, I've had similar thing happen to me -- after we discussed whiteboard design question, the candidate asked, "how would you solve this?". This resulted in a pretty nice exchange of opinions. In a somewhat related point, last time I was designing the coding question, I tested it on my teammmates. They all solved it, and their response was very helpful, and it allowed me to clarify some points in the problem.
- dominotw 7y ago
  > They all solved it But did they all solve in under the interview conditions? ( time pressure, coding infront of strangers, possiblity of not getting the job that you need etc). I can pretty much solve all leetcodes on my own computer with noone staring at me like hungry wolf eyeing its next meal.
  - theamk 7y ago
    I usually allocate up to 20 minutes for that problem during the interview, maybe extending this to 30 minutes if they are not doing too well. My goal was that the co-workers solve it under 10 minutes -- that 3x length factor is trying to compensate for harsher interview conditions. As for leetcodes -- I just looked at the site, and my interview question would be rated 'easy'. In fact, I'd say that most of the 'easy' questions there are too hard for the programming interview.
    - dominotw 7y ago
      > My goal was that the co-workers solve it under 10 minutes do you have an example of this? I have hard time imagining solving algortihm qs under 10 mins.
neilv 7y ago
Because it's a poor source of information about experienced candidates, and more about cargo culting and/or hazing. I suppose that briefly turning it around on the immediate interviewer could be constructive, with some people, but I doubt I could pull that off even half the time. My impression, from HN comments and firsthand, is that people still doing it seem to be thinking one-sided about it (i.e., they want to assess and/or manipulate "the candidate", and they seem to assume it's implied that everyone at the company is good). They probably also think this is convention, and perhaps resent or are suspicious of anyone not complying. Personally, rather than turning the tables with the hazing, which can come across as hostile or combative, my natural inclination is to have a candid and thoughtful discussion about it. (Warning: I've had poor success with trying to discuss with people who want to do the leetcode/puzzle-style whiteboard coding hazing. Maybe partly because the conversation only has occasion to happen with people who are still doing it, so it's not a representative sample of the field. I also suspect that, when it's with the more HR/recruiter-type people (not engineers or managers), they tend to not be participating in the discussion in the same way I am, but instead are performing the right head nods, while focusing on their normal modes, such as looking for red flags in what "the candidate" says, formulating how they'll report this, and being careful what they say.)
koffiezet 7y ago
That's not very useful tbh. If you want to question their technical knowledge, ask for their road-map, what technologies they're looking into to adopt, what their tech-stack is, if and how they plan to migrate their legacy stuff, and their idea of an ideal dream setup. I also ask 'company culture' related questions, my go-to question is ask what the team I would end up in did as a teambuilding event last year, and follow up with who decided the type of event. It tells you a lot on the freedom you'll get, the company's attitude towards people working there, and how healthy the company is.
PeterisP 7y ago
Because in a two-sided interview the interviewer is trying to evaluate you, but you're trying to evaluate the company and its processes, not the interviewer as an individual. Usually it literally does not matter how the interviewer thinks and what they believe is right, you want to know the actual company policy, which often will not be the same as the interviewer might want to. However, if you're being interviewed by your future direct manager, then you do want to get a perspective on how they think, as their individual attitude towards various aspects of work life will be relevant to you - but usually most interviewers aren't that relevant.

Why doesn't the interviewee ever ask the interviewer a whiteboard or puzzle question, "to see how you think?"

by a3n 7y ago

Why doesn't the interviewee ever ask the interviewer a whiteboard or puzzle question, "to see how you think?"

I do, and I have excluded companies for the wrong answers. Why would you not? You're taking the risk of wasting a few months until you find out that the fit is poor.

snow_mac 7y ago
How has that gone over? Did you get interviewers to refuse the question?
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Answering puzzle questions when I’m the interviewer seems like slightly embarrasing, but also great fun since you’re not so worried about failure.
  - ianai 7y ago
    Also gives both parties a chance to work together potentially, but with less pressure.
greymalik 7y ago
Can you give an example?
- ThePadawan 7y ago
  To be fair, I never ask "puzzles" as such. But I do ask things that show if the technical recruiter actually knows what they are talking about. "What strategy do you use to complete Pull Requests?" There are many ways to answer that question that will show you don't know. In general, I ask things that make me see if the other person is reasonable, and I can talk to one-to-one, but also that they make conscious decisions and don't just carry around cruft. This might involve asking "What ORM do you use?", then responding to their answer with "Oh, why didn't you use <other ORM>?".

dominotw 7y ago

Because unless you are some sort of celebrity engineer, "interview is a conversation between both parties" is nonsense. Company is interviewing the candidate not the other way around, no matter what we like to think. Edit: Sorry I should've clarified. I am specially referring to companies that don't really have to care about your feelings towards their interviews. FAANGs for example. They simply don't care and there are million others who are willing and happy to go though whiteboarding. They just don't have to put up with your stuff. Ofcourse you have leverage when you are interviewing at your local java enterprise shop. But who cares about those jobs, pointless to interview them with your smartass questions, we all know they are pretty much all the same more or less.

iamthepieman 7y ago
This was true in my first job out of college. After that I definitely was interviewing the company. I've had the fortune to always be interviewing while having a stable job so I never needed the job I was interviewing for and it's wise to be picky if you can afford to be. There's a lot of risk associated with changing jobs and I do what I can to either minimize that or at least know what it is. I've said no to two companies. One because I got a better offer and another because I didn't want to do the kind of work they were doing which was really only evident after going through their sample project.
chrisweekly 7y ago
Strong disagree; it is not always this way. I'm no celebrity, and I flail at adversarial technical whiteboard exercises, but I've been paid well to do software-related things for over 20 years. Maybe in part because I insist on treating every interview as bi-directional. It is not necessary to accept a "please may I have this job" attitude towards a potential employer. Software developers are radically more empowered than many of them (us) realize, and IMHO part of the reason so many corporate hiring processes for technical roles are so brutal is that it reinforces the mindset of subservience and is an effective way to assert and maintain dominance. [In the US some of this is a structural problem tied to larger concerns like health insurance being tied to employment, which tips the scales of power, putting employees in a position where they may actually need the employer more than the other way around...] TLDR if you don't think you're interviewing the company too, you're doing yourself a big disservice and selling yourself short.

sidlls 7y ago

I don't because I think those kinds of questions are just not good signals.

alistairSH 7y ago

Ask their own whiteboard question? That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. But, if I ask a whiteboard question (or any tech question), asking me related questions as a means to further the discussion would be a good signal.

fatnoah 7y ago
> That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. I'm a manager that rarely codes as well, but was still asked coding questions in an interview. It's a bit annoying, but having had managers that have never written a line of code ever, I understand wanting to verify that the manager could theoretically do the work themselves.
- alistairSH 7y ago
  I can theoretically do the work and I certainly understand the technical problems my teams are solving. I'd happily write some pseudocode to prove I know general things, but asking me to write the fastest version of X isn't going to prove I can manage people. Heck, that's not even a good question for most developer positions.
  - fatnoah 7y ago
    FWIW, I recently interviewed for a manager role and there was a coding element. It required a small amount of cleverness and some knowledge of basic data structures. It felt appropriate to me, at least to establish that I would have some clue about how things work. That said, it was the only one of my four interviews that actually included any coding.
noarchy 7y ago
>Ask their own whiteboard question? That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. I don't write much code on a whiteboard, so that makes two of us. But I agree that having a discussion about such problems can be productive. It may help separate legitimate problem-solving from mere hazing.

rocqua 7y ago

Because the coding ability of one employee is not a good reason for a candidate to refuse or accept an offer.

arethuza 7y ago
If that employee is doing the interviewing of someone who is being expected to write code then I would say it does indicate something about a company.

theamk 7y ago

During the last interview, I've had similar thing happen to me -- after we discussed whiteboard design question, the candidate asked, "how would you solve this?". This resulted in a pretty nice exchange of opinions. In a somewhat related point, last time I was designing the coding question, I tested it on my teammmates. They all solved it, and their response was very helpful, and it allowed me to clarify some points in the problem.

dominotw 7y ago
> They all solved it But did they all solve in under the interview conditions? ( time pressure, coding infront of strangers, possiblity of not getting the job that you need etc). I can pretty much solve all leetcodes on my own computer with noone staring at me like hungry wolf eyeing its next meal.
- theamk 7y ago
  I usually allocate up to 20 minutes for that problem during the interview, maybe extending this to 30 minutes if they are not doing too well. My goal was that the co-workers solve it under 10 minutes -- that 3x length factor is trying to compensate for harsher interview conditions. As for leetcodes -- I just looked at the site, and my interview question would be rated 'easy'. In fact, I'd say that most of the 'easy' questions there are too hard for the programming interview.
  - dominotw 7y ago
    > My goal was that the co-workers solve it under 10 minutes do you have an example of this? I have hard time imagining solving algortihm qs under 10 mins.

neilv 7y ago

Because it's a poor source of information about experienced candidates, and more about cargo culting and/or hazing. I suppose that briefly turning it around on the immediate interviewer could be constructive, with some people, but I doubt I could pull that off even half the time. My impression, from HN comments and firsthand, is that people still doing it seem to be thinking one-sided about it (i.e., they want to assess and/or manipulate "the candidate", and they seem to assume it's implied that everyone at the company is good). They probably also think this is convention, and perhaps resent or are suspicious of anyone not complying. Personally, rather than turning the tables with the hazing, which can come across as hostile or combative, my natural inclination is to have a candid and thoughtful discussion about it. (Warning: I've had poor success with trying to discuss with people who want to do the leetcode/puzzle-style whiteboard coding hazing. Maybe partly because the conversation only has occasion to happen with people who are still doing it, so it's not a representative sample of the field. I also suspect that, when it's with the more HR/recruiter-type people (not engineers or managers), they tend to not be participating in the discussion in the same way I am, but instead are performing the right head nods, while focusing on their normal modes, such as looking for red flags in what "the candidate" says, formulating how they'll report this, and being careful what they say.)

koffiezet 7y ago

That's not very useful tbh. If you want to question their technical knowledge, ask for their road-map, what technologies they're looking into to adopt, what their tech-stack is, if and how they plan to migrate their legacy stuff, and their idea of an ideal dream setup. I also ask 'company culture' related questions, my go-to question is ask what the team I would end up in did as a teambuilding event last year, and follow up with who decided the type of event. It tells you a lot on the freedom you'll get, the company's attitude towards people working there, and how healthy the company is.

PeterisP 7y ago

Because in a two-sided interview the interviewer is trying to evaluate you, but you're trying to evaluate the company and its processes, not the interviewer as an individual. Usually it literally does not matter how the interviewer thinks and what they believe is right, you want to know the actual company policy, which often will not be the same as the interviewer might want to. However, if you're being interviewed by your future direct manager, then you do want to get a perspective on how they think, as their individual attitude towards various aspects of work life will be relevant to you - but usually most interviewers aren't that relevant.