11 ms·

I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you

by biztos 7y ago

I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." Other than asking about failures (not everyone does) it was just "eh, wing it, tell us what you think." The hiring manager had to then weigh the responses and convince his/her manager if it was a go (we once rejected someone on ethical grounds after they passed all the interviews). And the funny thing is, that got us a pretty good set of people. Even funnier: both the very best of them, and the absolute worst of them, eventually ended up at Google. I guess if you can spend what Google spends; have a ruthless hiring process; can afford to carry dead weight indefinitely; have a standardized engineering culture; and have an endless supply of projects covering every conceivable skill level and impact to the company -- then you can probably hire your way to whatever FAANG-like cohort you think will work. But if you have those things you're probably already a FAANG-like company. For everybody else, I am not convinced there is a better system than "everybody use your best judgement, and have people who give a shit do the hiring."

PragmaticPulp 7y ago
> I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." I'm part of another online community that has a strong emphasize on social justice issues. These "just wing it" hiring practices are one of their biggest complaints about tech companies. There's a perception that the less well-defined and structured your interview process, the more likely it is to produce vaguely biased results. Whether that's true or not, it would be a tough sell to implement a "just use your gut" style hiring process at a major company in 2020. There is a strong push for standardized and repeatable interviewing processes, complete with sufficient documentation to support hiring decisions.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  By standardizing the hiring process aren’t you then just optimizing for a very specific perception and/or perceptional ability? Isn’t that at the core of principles relating to diversity in the first place? I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. It presumes a lot—particularly that one has time and resources to commit to spending time studying enough of the spectrum of CS subjects in order to pass a given question from the rather large field. (By this I’m referring to the classic “white board a <somekindof>sort algorithm purely from memory” process that has become the de-facto standard)
  - PragmaticPulp 7y ago
    > I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. What would you propose as an alternative? I’ve been involved in training new engineering managers how to hire and interview. Everyone starts with the best intentions, but reality quickly forces some compromises. The bottom line is that you only have a number of hours in which to evaluate the candidate. The longer and more comprehensive you make your interview processes, the stronger signal you get. However, the longer your interview process, the more you’ll find people dropping out of the hiring pipeline due to lack of time or willingness. I’ve worked with companies that tried to implement week-long paid interviews where candidates pair with employees to solve real problems. It’s great! But only when it works for the candidate. You can’t realistically expect busy professionals to take an entire week off of their current job to spend time with a company that may or may not hire them. Monetary compensation only goes so far when you’re forcing someone to choose between spending a week of their vacation interviewing with your company or spending a week taking their family on vacation.
    - lubujackson 7y ago
      Honestly, the "coding" is rarely the issue. For most software engineering roles you generally want someone who can: understand problems, figure out possible solutions, decide on which is best, communicate why it is best and (importantly) be flexible when the company wants you to do some other solution. Meet all those requirements and you are a useful member at most companies. I think a general chat about a broad problem and the interviewee's thought process of how they would approach it can tell you much more than whiteboarding some memorized algorithm.
      - milchek 7y ago
        I completely agree. We had this exact discussion at work the other day. I mentioned to a colleague that what I value most is someone who is creative. There are many candidates out there who know all the buzzwords or can discuss features of a programming language purely from memory, etc. This can make for some impressive interviewing, but it tells nothing of their ability to use that knowledge to solve real problems, or their creativity in how they use their skill and expertise when faced with new dilemmas. Sure, you could contest that the creative side isn’t necessary for certain levels of engineering, or that only tech leads require this as a mandatory trait, but I would argue that it is far more important than what most interviews test - rote memorization.
- klipklop 7y ago
  The "standardized" interview at companies like Google has lead to them hiring mostly White/Asian males though... I have had plenty of people tell me that interviewing at Google is essentially a roll of the dice these days. You can answer all the 5x interviews in a satisfactory manner and still get rejected. I feel "just wing it" can lead to somebody talented from a non-traditional background getting a chance at a great career that they would be auto-rejected by google at the resume submit phase.
  - apta 7y ago
    > hiring mostly White/Asian males though Which seems reflective of the underlying pool of applicants.
    - klipklop 7y ago
      Has a company like Google ever released data proving this? Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area (23.5% [1]) yet there are like what 3.6%[2] of those people working at google. Seems like a pretty big gap. It would be interesting to see what their application/success ratio demographics are like. 1. http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm 2. https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbers-havent-really-improved/ https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbe...
      - smegma2 7y ago
        Bay area residents probably make up a small portion of Google's applicants. It would be more interesting to hear what percentage of their applicants are Hispanic. Of course the most important thing is: out of minority applicants who are qualified, what percent are hired? Because we may expect a smaller proportion to be qualified due to systematic barriers that they face. Google is not necessarily in a position to fix those.
      - apta 7y ago
        > Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area How many of them hold relevant degrees for job openings at Google?
- benburleson 7y ago
  Where I work now doesn't have any real interview structure or way to measure candidates. It makes interviewing difficult, but honestly in the end the most important part is the answer to "would I like working with this person?" There are many aspects that can lead to your answer, but I really believe that is the most important question to answer. Someone can be extremely productive, but if they're an asshole, nope, I don't want to spend a minute working with them. On the other hand, if someone is slow and error-prone, but otherwise a pleasant coworker, I'm pretty forgiving, and hope they can learn along the way. And for the social justice aspect, we do have a very diverse group of engineers, especially for our size and location.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I have a very simple solution to this problem. It frequently evokes an instinctual negative reaction, for understandable reasons, but I truly believe it would be both equitable and effective. Ready? You want your company to be 50% women? Tell your teams that at least 50% of their hires must be women. That's it. To me, formalizing the quota but keeping the overall hiring process looser makes a lot more sense than the other way around. A quota is dead easy, and a formal process is hard for all of the reasons discussed. A quota is not "hiring people just because they're female/black/gay/etc"—it's a way to make us more effective by preventing us from overlooking good people. If we're naturally inclined to skip people who are black, then we need a process to counterbalance our natural tendencies. And of course, recognizing and taking advantage of an undervalued resource is good for business. If there are legal issues with a quota (I'm legitimately not sure whether there are), then the law ought to be changed. --- 50% women may be the wrong number because of the demographics of computer science majors or what have you. It was just an example. Choose a number in good faith that you believe represents the potential population of good hires. One simple solution might be to have your quota match the demographics of your job applicants. But this decision bares more thought than I'm qualified to provide.
  - drunkpotato 7y ago
    I’ve proposed this as well and it went over like a lead balloon. As did the very idea that more diversity would be good for the team. Ah well.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      > As did the very idea that more diversity would be good for the team. So, while I wholeheartedly agree that diversity inherently benefits teams and businesses (different experiences will lead to new and different approaches), it's just not a very convincing argument, because it feels "mushy". Here's one that I think is better: If it's true that e.g. women have a harder time getting engineering jobs due to unconscious bias (and I'd posit that this is clearly the case), then that means female engineers are, as a group, undervalued. You should be able to hire a better female engineer for the same amount of money. Harsh? Sure. But that's beside the point.
- Skunkleton 7y ago
  > There is a strong push for standardized and repeatable interviewing processes, complete with sufficient documentation to support hiring decisions. Standardized processes don't mean unbiased processes. The SAT for example is pretty racist.
  - MaxBarraclough 7y ago
    > The SAT for example is pretty racist. What do you mean by this?
    - Skunkleton 7y ago
      The SAT has historically been formulated in a way that is culturally biased towards white experiences, probably unintentionally.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "The SAT is..." seems like a questionable statement even before you complete the sentence, given that it has changed over time. Is it equally racist now versus in the 90s?
    - Skunkleton 7y ago
      Probably not, but who cares? The point isn’t that the SAT has been equally racist for some amount of time. The point is that bias exists in standardized processes.
      - perl4ever 7y ago
        If the SAT has undergone changes, obviously someone intended to improve it. What they were trying to improve and what the consequences actually were, if it got better or worse, would be relevant to why it has problems now and what they are.
- jjav 7y ago
  > Whether that's true or not, it would be a tough sell to implement a "just use your gut" style hiring process at a major company in 2020. Depends what you mean by "use your gut" but that's not my experience. Currently at a well known public tech company in silicon valley and there isn't any standardized interview process. Every interviewer is free to approach it as they wish and the hiring manager gets to listen to all input and decide. This is a strength. Perhaps (very likely) as a result, this company is also rated highly in diversity. A standardized interview process will inevitably lead to a standardized employee pool, as only the candidates who fit the very narrow profile (willing to memorize endless algorithms they will never need or use in real life) can get in. I should add that my current employer is not, in my experience, unusual. In my ~25 years in the valley, it's how it's always been. I have not worked (and never want to) for the companies which value conformity in hiring above all else (infamously, google).
- biztos 7y ago
  Is the interview process similarly standardized for managers? If so, how are they "objectively" evaluated? Do chemists recite the periodic table backwards in interviews? I don't pretend there's never any bias, but I'm still not convinced you get any less, or any better bias with the whole hoop-jumping algorithm day-long whiteboard thing. As has been noted elsewhere in the comments here, ours seems to be the only industry that does this to itself.
ScottFree 7y ago
> we once rejected someone on ethical grounds after they passed all the interviews What did they do? Suggest sacrificing a puppy to moloch to make a feature release go smoothly?
- lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  Does that work? It might be worth a try?
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Of course it does. Most companies do this (albeit not with literal puppies), so do governments and people in general. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

by biztos 7y ago

PragmaticPulp 7y ago

> I worked at a company where the interview process was basically "ask them about their experience, successes, and failures, and do whatever technical screen you feel works." I'm part of another online community that has a strong emphasize on social justice issues. These "just wing it" hiring practices are one of their biggest complaints about tech companies. There's a perception that the less well-defined and structured your interview process, the more likely it is to produce vaguely biased results. Whether that's true or not, it would be a tough sell to implement a "just use your gut" style hiring process at a major company in 2020. There is a strong push for standardized and repeatable interviewing processes, complete with sufficient documentation to support hiring decisions.

52-6F-62 7y ago
By standardizing the hiring process aren’t you then just optimizing for a very specific perception and/or perceptional ability? Isn’t that at the core of principles relating to diversity in the first place? I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. It presumes a lot—particularly that one has time and resources to commit to spending time studying enough of the spectrum of CS subjects in order to pass a given question from the rather large field. (By this I’m referring to the classic “white board a <somekindof>sort algorithm purely from memory” process that has become the de-facto standard)
- PragmaticPulp 7y ago
  > I personally find some of the current (if I can call them) standards of tech hiring to be very narrow in which skills and capabilities they test. What would you propose as an alternative? I’ve been involved in training new engineering managers how to hire and interview. Everyone starts with the best intentions, but reality quickly forces some compromises. The bottom line is that you only have a number of hours in which to evaluate the candidate. The longer and more comprehensive you make your interview processes, the stronger signal you get. However, the longer your interview process, the more you’ll find people dropping out of the hiring pipeline due to lack of time or willingness. I’ve worked with companies that tried to implement week-long paid interviews where candidates pair with employees to solve real problems. It’s great! But only when it works for the candidate. You can’t realistically expect busy professionals to take an entire week off of their current job to spend time with a company that may or may not hire them. Monetary compensation only goes so far when you’re forcing someone to choose between spending a week of their vacation interviewing with your company or spending a week taking their family on vacation.
  - lubujackson 7y ago
    Honestly, the "coding" is rarely the issue. For most software engineering roles you generally want someone who can: understand problems, figure out possible solutions, decide on which is best, communicate why it is best and (importantly) be flexible when the company wants you to do some other solution. Meet all those requirements and you are a useful member at most companies. I think a general chat about a broad problem and the interviewee's thought process of how they would approach it can tell you much more than whiteboarding some memorized algorithm.
    - milchek 7y ago
      I completely agree. We had this exact discussion at work the other day. I mentioned to a colleague that what I value most is someone who is creative. There are many candidates out there who know all the buzzwords or can discuss features of a programming language purely from memory, etc. This can make for some impressive interviewing, but it tells nothing of their ability to use that knowledge to solve real problems, or their creativity in how they use their skill and expertise when faced with new dilemmas. Sure, you could contest that the creative side isn’t necessary for certain levels of engineering, or that only tech leads require this as a mandatory trait, but I would argue that it is far more important than what most interviews test - rote memorization.
klipklop 7y ago
The "standardized" interview at companies like Google has lead to them hiring mostly White/Asian males though... I have had plenty of people tell me that interviewing at Google is essentially a roll of the dice these days. You can answer all the 5x interviews in a satisfactory manner and still get rejected. I feel "just wing it" can lead to somebody talented from a non-traditional background getting a chance at a great career that they would be auto-rejected by google at the resume submit phase.
- apta 7y ago
  > hiring mostly White/Asian males though Which seems reflective of the underlying pool of applicants.
  - klipklop 7y ago
    Has a company like Google ever released data proving this? Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area (23.5% [1]) yet there are like what 3.6%[2] of those people working at google. Seems like a pretty big gap. It would be interesting to see what their application/success ratio demographics are like. 1. http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/bayarea.htm 2. https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbers-havent-really-improved/ https://www.wired.com/story/googles-employee-diversity-numbe...
    - smegma2 7y ago
      Bay area residents probably make up a small portion of Google's applicants. It would be more interesting to hear what percentage of their applicants are Hispanic. Of course the most important thing is: out of minority applicants who are qualified, what percent are hired? Because we may expect a smaller proportion to be qualified due to systematic barriers that they face. Google is not necessarily in a position to fix those.
    - apta 7y ago
      > Latino's make up a fairly large number of the people that live in the bay area How many of them hold relevant degrees for job openings at Google?
benburleson 7y ago
Where I work now doesn't have any real interview structure or way to measure candidates. It makes interviewing difficult, but honestly in the end the most important part is the answer to "would I like working with this person?" There are many aspects that can lead to your answer, but I really believe that is the most important question to answer. Someone can be extremely productive, but if they're an asshole, nope, I don't want to spend a minute working with them. On the other hand, if someone is slow and error-prone, but otherwise a pleasant coworker, I'm pretty forgiving, and hope they can learn along the way. And for the social justice aspect, we do have a very diverse group of engineers, especially for our size and location.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I have a very simple solution to this problem. It frequently evokes an instinctual negative reaction, for understandable reasons, but I truly believe it would be both equitable and effective. Ready? You want your company to be 50% women? Tell your teams that at least 50% of their hires must be women. That's it. To me, formalizing the quota but keeping the overall hiring process looser makes a lot more sense than the other way around. A quota is dead easy, and a formal process is hard for all of the reasons discussed. A quota is not "hiring people just because they're female/black/gay/etc"—it's a way to make us more effective by preventing us from overlooking good people. If we're naturally inclined to skip people who are black, then we need a process to counterbalance our natural tendencies. And of course, recognizing and taking advantage of an undervalued resource is good for business. If there are legal issues with a quota (I'm legitimately not sure whether there are), then the law ought to be changed. --- 50% women may be the wrong number because of the demographics of computer science majors or what have you. It was just an example. Choose a number in good faith that you believe represents the potential population of good hires. One simple solution might be to have your quota match the demographics of your job applicants. But this decision bares more thought than I'm qualified to provide.
- drunkpotato 7y ago
  I’ve proposed this as well and it went over like a lead balloon. As did the very idea that more diversity would be good for the team. Ah well.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    > As did the very idea that more diversity would be good for the team. So, while I wholeheartedly agree that diversity inherently benefits teams and businesses (different experiences will lead to new and different approaches), it's just not a very convincing argument, because it feels "mushy". Here's one that I think is better: If it's true that e.g. women have a harder time getting engineering jobs due to unconscious bias (and I'd posit that this is clearly the case), then that means female engineers are, as a group, undervalued. You should be able to hire a better female engineer for the same amount of money. Harsh? Sure. But that's beside the point.
Skunkleton 7y ago
> There is a strong push for standardized and repeatable interviewing processes, complete with sufficient documentation to support hiring decisions. Standardized processes don't mean unbiased processes. The SAT for example is pretty racist.
- MaxBarraclough 7y ago
  > The SAT for example is pretty racist. What do you mean by this?
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    The SAT has historically been formulated in a way that is culturally biased towards white experiences, probably unintentionally.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "The SAT is..." seems like a questionable statement even before you complete the sentence, given that it has changed over time. Is it equally racist now versus in the 90s?
  - Skunkleton 7y ago
    Probably not, but who cares? The point isn’t that the SAT has been equally racist for some amount of time. The point is that bias exists in standardized processes.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      If the SAT has undergone changes, obviously someone intended to improve it. What they were trying to improve and what the consequences actually were, if it got better or worse, would be relevant to why it has problems now and what they are.
jjav 7y ago
> Whether that's true or not, it would be a tough sell to implement a "just use your gut" style hiring process at a major company in 2020. Depends what you mean by "use your gut" but that's not my experience. Currently at a well known public tech company in silicon valley and there isn't any standardized interview process. Every interviewer is free to approach it as they wish and the hiring manager gets to listen to all input and decide. This is a strength. Perhaps (very likely) as a result, this company is also rated highly in diversity. A standardized interview process will inevitably lead to a standardized employee pool, as only the candidates who fit the very narrow profile (willing to memorize endless algorithms they will never need or use in real life) can get in. I should add that my current employer is not, in my experience, unusual. In my ~25 years in the valley, it's how it's always been. I have not worked (and never want to) for the companies which value conformity in hiring above all else (infamously, google).
biztos 7y ago
Is the interview process similarly standardized for managers? If so, how are they "objectively" evaluated? Do chemists recite the periodic table backwards in interviews? I don't pretend there's never any bias, but I'm still not convinced you get any less, or any better bias with the whole hoop-jumping algorithm day-long whiteboard thing. As has been noted elsewhere in the comments here, ours seems to be the only industry that does this to itself.

ScottFree 7y ago

> we once rejected someone on ethical grounds after they passed all the interviews What did they do? Suggest sacrificing a puppy to moloch to make a feature release go smoothly?

lifeisstillgood 7y ago
Does that work? It might be worth a try?
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Of course it does. Most companies do this (albeit not with literal puppies), so do governments and people in general. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/