4 ms·

These positions are entirely consistent, it's just a "pick your poison" situation. Whiteboard interviews are a skill unto themselves, with only a glancing rela

These positions are entirely consistent, it's just a "pick your poison" situation. Whiteboard interviews are a skill unto themselves, with only a glancing relationship to day-to-day job content, artificially high-pressure, overly performative, etc. You measure hours invested in Leetcode, not suitability for the work. Take home projects probably collect good signals, but present a high and (crucially) asymmetric burden on the candidate. No one wants to burn a weekend or vacation days pouring effort into something that the employer can just glance at for 5 seconds and throw in the trash. Also, many candidates would prefer to reuse their time investment over arbitrarily many interviews instead of starting from scratch on each company's assessment. Interviews focused on personality, culture fit, communication skills, and "gut feel" overemphasize the interviewer's personal beliefs. Likable candidates aren't especially likely to be good, and good candidates aren't especially likely to be the kind of people the interviewer wants to have a beer with.

patrick5415 7y ago
Pretty good description of all the gripes people have. Hiring software devs is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t proposition—somebody is always gonna bitch.
- closeparen 7y ago
  The only unambiguously wrong position is that the system works well and isn't worth improving.
protonimitate 7y ago
>Likable candidates aren't especially likely to be good, and good candidates aren't especially likely to be the kind of people the interviewer wants to have a beer with. See I would much rather invest time and money into somebody that I like being around and who I think is capable, rather than have some jackass who is really really good off the bat. Of course there are biases, but that's true weather you hire for skills, personality, or both. I think a lot of programmers think that your skill level is the only thing you should be judged on, but I think thats mostly because there are a lot of very unlikable people in this field and they'd rather hide behind their perceived skill level than attempt to be a semi likable person. There is a sweet spot, somebody who has skill but is also not terrible to be around, and can learn quickly. The problem is that most interviews swing too far one way or the other to properly asses for both.
- mrfredward 7y ago
  Yes, but likeability in an interview measures something only loosely related to likeability in the long run. Someone who is a little shy can make a great coworker/employee/friend/whatever, but you won't find that out watching them squirm in front of a whiteboard. An interview only directly measures the ability to win over strangers, and that might right for a sales position, but for most engineering positions it's a big extrapolation to guess how the candidate will perform in a team when comfortable.

patrick5415 7y ago

Pretty good description of all the gripes people have. Hiring software devs is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t proposition—somebody is always gonna bitch.

closeparen 7y ago
The only unambiguously wrong position is that the system works well and isn't worth improving.

protonimitate 7y ago

>Likable candidates aren't especially likely to be good, and good candidates aren't especially likely to be the kind of people the interviewer wants to have a beer with. See I would much rather invest time and money into somebody that I like being around and who I think is capable, rather than have some jackass who is really really good off the bat. Of course there are biases, but that's true weather you hire for skills, personality, or both. I think a lot of programmers think that your skill level is the only thing you should be judged on, but I think thats mostly because there are a lot of very unlikable people in this field and they'd rather hide behind their perceived skill level than attempt to be a semi likable person. There is a sweet spot, somebody who has skill but is also not terrible to be around, and can learn quickly. The problem is that most interviews swing too far one way or the other to properly asses for both.

mrfredward 7y ago
Yes, but likeability in an interview measures something only loosely related to likeability in the long run. Someone who is a little shy can make a great coworker/employee/friend/whatever, but you won't find that out watching them squirm in front of a whiteboard. An interview only directly measures the ability to win over strangers, and that might right for a sales position, but for most engineering positions it's a big extrapolation to guess how the candidate will perform in a team when comfortable.