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I've conducted technical interviews for approximately 200 students and recent graduates - around 100 each from American and elite Chinese universities. I've se

I've conducted technical interviews for approximately 200 students and recent graduates - around 100 each from American and elite Chinese universities. I've seen absolutely zero evidence for your view that "a generation" of Chinese students has graduated with "weak understanding of the fundamentals" compared to Americans. I'm happy to discuss further (surely my interviews are imperfect tests and the samples are biased in some ways), but let's ground the discussion in evidence. Where did you get this idea?

dvt 7y ago
> ... technical interviews ... Technical interviews are manufactured tests that can be easily gamed. The idea that any valuable insight can be drawn from them is naïve at best. Further, the post was specifically about innovation -- given this constraint, technical interviews are notoriously bad at separating the wheat from the chaff (e.g. product questions are non-existent in technical interviews). "Fundamentals" can mean different things to different people, but let's not pretend technical interviews are a reliable signal.
- yomly 7y ago
  You don't know anything about the parent's process so your assumptions are pretty wild The parent's anecdotal experience is still a valuable datapoint in the face of two baseless stereotypes: 1. Chinese educated people lack fundamentals and are ill equipped for innovation 2. Technical interviews are at best a naive mechanism for evaluating candidates
  - dvt 7y ago
    Which of my points do you think are in contention? That technical interviews can be gamed? That product questions aren't asked? Or that technical interviews produce bad signals? Because I have plenty of evidence for all of the above, and the fact that technical hiring is profoundly broken is discussed ad nauseam on HN.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    You didn't actually offer a refutation of anything the parent comment said.
throwaway1p3a 7y ago
A few questions: do you repeat any interview questions across candidates? Do you work for a company that sponsors H1Bs? Does your company have some "prestige" (either a highly visible startup or one of Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Apple/etc)? If so, then your questions are almost certainly available online and talked about in detail within the Chinese community. I would like to point you to (and encourage a search of your questions or your company): https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/ https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/ . This is probably the largest board out there that shares interview questions (and answers!), techniques, approaches, etc... including leaks of questions, "help" from insiders at large companies, and more. If you seem to suspect that there is some sort of nation-based component to your Chinese interviewees doing quite well, I suspect you may find your study is poisoned and I recommend a redo. As an American, I have not found something similar to 1p3a in terms of the wealth of information available for getting recruited at large companies. 1p3a isn't the only one out there either. There are many more. This is just the one I've been able to hear coworkers and students when I was in undergrad talk about a lot.
- jkaptur 7y ago
  Thanks for the the heads-up :) I hadn't heard about that specific board, but I'm certainly aware that students frequently collaborate in various public and private ways. It's definitely true that my company would be a prominent target, so we take various measures to try to defend against preparation like this. For clarity, I didn't mean to imply that I had done a formal study. I'm just reporting my personal experience. Editing to add: I'm really interested in other people's experience, too! I'm honestly curious how this person got the idea that the college grads do not know the fundamentals well. Maybe they're testing fundamentals in a way I'm not and I can learn.
avocado4 7y ago
Google coding interviews are meant to test if a candidate would be good at coding for Google, not for building innovative companies.
KoftaBob 7y ago
Of course the elite students from Chinese universities are going to be brilliant, as elite students from any country generally will be. It would be ridiculous for me to claim that every single student in China doesn't understand the fundamentals of their field. However, an academic culture that doesn't see anything wrong with cheating will mean their average cohort of students have a much weaker understanding of fundamentals compared to average students from a country that doesn't tolerate that.
kortilla 7y ago
Sampling bias. The small percentage that put in the effort would be the ones applying for jobs at top US companies.

dvt 7y ago

> ... technical interviews ... Technical interviews are manufactured tests that can be easily gamed. The idea that any valuable insight can be drawn from them is naïve at best. Further, the post was specifically about innovation -- given this constraint, technical interviews are notoriously bad at separating the wheat from the chaff (e.g. product questions are non-existent in technical interviews). "Fundamentals" can mean different things to different people, but let's not pretend technical interviews are a reliable signal.

yomly 7y ago
You don't know anything about the parent's process so your assumptions are pretty wild The parent's anecdotal experience is still a valuable datapoint in the face of two baseless stereotypes: 1. Chinese educated people lack fundamentals and are ill equipped for innovation 2. Technical interviews are at best a naive mechanism for evaluating candidates
- dvt 7y ago
  Which of my points do you think are in contention? That technical interviews can be gamed? That product questions aren't asked? Or that technical interviews produce bad signals? Because I have plenty of evidence for all of the above, and the fact that technical hiring is profoundly broken is discussed ad nauseam on HN.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  You didn't actually offer a refutation of anything the parent comment said.

throwaway1p3a 7y ago

A few questions: do you repeat any interview questions across candidates? Do you work for a company that sponsors H1Bs? Does your company have some "prestige" (either a highly visible startup or one of Facebook/Google/Microsoft/Apple/etc)? If so, then your questions are almost certainly available online and talked about in detail within the Chinese community. I would like to point you to (and encourage a search of your questions or your company): https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/ https://www.1point3acres.com/bbs/ . This is probably the largest board out there that shares interview questions (and answers!), techniques, approaches, etc... including leaks of questions, "help" from insiders at large companies, and more. If you seem to suspect that there is some sort of nation-based component to your Chinese interviewees doing quite well, I suspect you may find your study is poisoned and I recommend a redo. As an American, I have not found something similar to 1p3a in terms of the wealth of information available for getting recruited at large companies. 1p3a isn't the only one out there either. There are many more. This is just the one I've been able to hear coworkers and students when I was in undergrad talk about a lot.

jkaptur 7y ago
Thanks for the the heads-up :) I hadn't heard about that specific board, but I'm certainly aware that students frequently collaborate in various public and private ways. It's definitely true that my company would be a prominent target, so we take various measures to try to defend against preparation like this. For clarity, I didn't mean to imply that I had done a formal study. I'm just reporting my personal experience. Editing to add: I'm really interested in other people's experience, too! I'm honestly curious how this person got the idea that the college grads do not know the fundamentals well. Maybe they're testing fundamentals in a way I'm not and I can learn.

avocado4 7y ago

Google coding interviews are meant to test if a candidate would be good at coding for Google, not for building innovative companies.

KoftaBob 7y ago

Of course the elite students from Chinese universities are going to be brilliant, as elite students from any country generally will be. It would be ridiculous for me to claim that every single student in China doesn't understand the fundamentals of their field. However, an academic culture that doesn't see anything wrong with cheating will mean their average cohort of students have a much weaker understanding of fundamentals compared to average students from a country that doesn't tolerate that.

kortilla 7y ago

Sampling bias. The small percentage that put in the effort would be the ones applying for jobs at top US companies.