5 ms·

This guy obviously loves interviews. I hate them. I am not going to practice interviews with my friends and have a real interview once a month like he advised.

This guy obviously loves interviews. I hate them. I am not going to practice interviews with my friends and have a real interview once a month like he advised. Also, you can find jobs without these stupid coding challenges and time consuming processes. I never worked in a company that asked me to write code before being hired.

boltzmann_brain 6y ago
After going through a few of these, I'm coming to the same conclusions. Even though I enjoyed some of these, I hate the entire process, mostly for the time consuming aspect of it. You're going through a series of stages, each taking time and causing you to be on edge, and then waiting a couple of weeks for an answer that end it suddenly, just like that. I'm too old for this shit. I want to have an two way street conversation and technical discussion to determine if I can be a good fit for a position and maybe if interest is on both sides, continue on technical discussion on the merits of the job, rather than writing code in an online document. Sadly, most big well know valley companies are doing the leetcode obstacle course, because there are many many applying for the highest salaries in the industry. I can't see it changing anytime soon.
LoSboccacc 6y ago
serial interviewing is pointless, unless one is a generalist and has to overcome massive competition, but going in a portant interview with that first time anxiety or not having practiced one's answer well to bullshit questions is not optimal either a couple interview lined up before an important one is less commitment and still effective. not really happy about having to waste some HR guy time for a job I'd likely not take, but hr types have had no qualms about wasting my time either in the past so I see it as a return in kind
irjustin 6y ago
I can't say he "loves interviews". My interpretation was he was willing to throw himself all in. The author was willing to play the game of interviews regardless of how good or bad it was. Coding challenge, social exchanges, etc etc. I get it, there are a lot of bad interviews out there that we hate doing. But if you want the most options you have to fire as many bullets as you can while trying to maintain the quality jumping through all the hoops. All I'm saying is, it is a choice. We're all trading one thing for another and that's perfectly okay - it's what's important to each own person.
jmchuster 6y ago
A little bit surprising there are so many such companies after codinghorror made fizzbuzz a household name 13 years ago. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Reputation, recommendations, and references work well. You can contact the previous company or previous co-workers if you don't know much about a candidate. I know some companies are very secrets but in practice it's often possible to get a "yes you can hire this person because..." or a "you don't want to hire this person because..." where I live.
- kentrado 6y ago
  I have genuinely started hating Jeff Atwood for this and the lemmings that followed blindly. Now I have to resign myself to being questioned if I can program not matter how many years of experience I accumulated.
  - __s 6y ago
    It stuck because there's plenty of people who can't program no matter how many years of experience they claim to've accumulated
    - learc83 6y ago
      And yet I’ve never ran into one. Sure there are some people that ho are just bad for employees or with bad software engineering practices. But I couldn’t say that they didn’t know how to program. I’m talking about people with actual verified experience here. I can’t help but feel like we spend way too much time trying to avoid these master charlatans who manage to have years of experience doing a job they can’t actually perform when America mostly has at will employment.
      - twic 6y ago
majikandy 6y ago
I can’t say I never have taken a role with a stupid coding challenge (because I have) but often you’ll go for 4 or 5 interviews maybe 4 having coding challenges. At least one role will end up having 5 stages! At least one will end up being just a 15-30 mins chat with no challenge, with either an instant offer at the end or a phone call from the recruiter 20 mins after you leave the interview. Inevitably I end up taking the one that was just a short chat.
- smnscu 6y ago
  Wow you just made me realise that most of my jobs are the same, I've passed plenty of coding challenges with flying colours but almost always went for the jobs where we just chatted and got along immediately.
  - wojciii 6y ago
    I had one whiteboard interview (which I blew) in the past. I decided not to do whiteboard or challenges that take time unless I get paid. Most work I got was because I could show previous experience which matches the job I was trying to get.
- dleslie 6y ago
  Indeed, when I interview I view whiteboard coding, take-home tests and so forth as red flags. The happiest jobs I've had were those where the interview was naught more than a friendly conversation regarding my CV.
BossingAround 6y ago
> This guy obviously loves interviews. I hate them. I am not going to practice interviews with my friends and have a real interview once a month like he advised. You can love or hate interviews, but they are the way to get into a company. If you dream of getting into $BigCo, you better nail your interview. If you don't care what company you work for as long as you get enough money at the end of the month, that's perfectly fine. No need to practice interviews then. Personally, while I don't dream of getting into Google, Facebook, or another company with comically high hiring bar, I like self-improvement and if I know I'm bad at interviews, I want to improve just for the sake of it. I'm sure interviewing skills translate well into other areas, such as public speaking, presentations, demos, sales, pre-sales, ...
- cloverich 6y ago
  I think that's the actual complaint though -- interview skills get people good at things they don't want to get good at, at the expense of things they do want to get good at. And the things they want to get good at may be, ironically, the actual skills they need for the job they are applying for!

boltzmann_brain 6y ago

After going through a few of these, I'm coming to the same conclusions. Even though I enjoyed some of these, I hate the entire process, mostly for the time consuming aspect of it. You're going through a series of stages, each taking time and causing you to be on edge, and then waiting a couple of weeks for an answer that end it suddenly, just like that. I'm too old for this shit. I want to have an two way street conversation and technical discussion to determine if I can be a good fit for a position and maybe if interest is on both sides, continue on technical discussion on the merits of the job, rather than writing code in an online document. Sadly, most big well know valley companies are doing the leetcode obstacle course, because there are many many applying for the highest salaries in the industry. I can't see it changing anytime soon.

LoSboccacc 6y ago

serial interviewing is pointless, unless one is a generalist and has to overcome massive competition, but going in a portant interview with that first time anxiety or not having practiced one's answer well to bullshit questions is not optimal either a couple interview lined up before an important one is less commitment and still effective. not really happy about having to waste some HR guy time for a job I'd likely not take, but hr types have had no qualms about wasting my time either in the past so I see it as a return in kind

irjustin 6y ago

I can't say he "loves interviews". My interpretation was he was willing to throw himself all in. The author was willing to play the game of interviews regardless of how good or bad it was. Coding challenge, social exchanges, etc etc. I get it, there are a lot of bad interviews out there that we hate doing. But if you want the most options you have to fire as many bullets as you can while trying to maintain the quality jumping through all the hoops. All I'm saying is, it is a choice. We're all trading one thing for another and that's perfectly okay - it's what's important to each own person.

jmchuster 6y ago

A little bit surprising there are so many such companies after codinghorror made fizzbuzz a household name 13 years ago. [1] https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

speedgoose 6y ago
Reputation, recommendations, and references work well. You can contact the previous company or previous co-workers if you don't know much about a candidate. I know some companies are very secrets but in practice it's often possible to get a "yes you can hire this person because..." or a "you don't want to hire this person because..." where I live.
kentrado 6y ago
I have genuinely started hating Jeff Atwood for this and the lemmings that followed blindly. Now I have to resign myself to being questioned if I can program not matter how many years of experience I accumulated.
- __s 6y ago
  It stuck because there's plenty of people who can't program no matter how many years of experience they claim to've accumulated
  - learc83 6y ago
    And yet I’ve never ran into one. Sure there are some people that ho are just bad for employees or with bad software engineering practices. But I couldn’t say that they didn’t know how to program. I’m talking about people with actual verified experience here. I can’t help but feel like we spend way too much time trying to avoid these master charlatans who manage to have years of experience doing a job they can’t actually perform when America mostly has at will employment.
    - twic 6y ago

majikandy 6y ago

I can’t say I never have taken a role with a stupid coding challenge (because I have) but often you’ll go for 4 or 5 interviews maybe 4 having coding challenges. At least one role will end up having 5 stages! At least one will end up being just a 15-30 mins chat with no challenge, with either an instant offer at the end or a phone call from the recruiter 20 mins after you leave the interview. Inevitably I end up taking the one that was just a short chat.

smnscu 6y ago
Wow you just made me realise that most of my jobs are the same, I've passed plenty of coding challenges with flying colours but almost always went for the jobs where we just chatted and got along immediately.
- wojciii 6y ago
  I had one whiteboard interview (which I blew) in the past. I decided not to do whiteboard or challenges that take time unless I get paid. Most work I got was because I could show previous experience which matches the job I was trying to get.
dleslie 6y ago
Indeed, when I interview I view whiteboard coding, take-home tests and so forth as red flags. The happiest jobs I've had were those where the interview was naught more than a friendly conversation regarding my CV.

BossingAround 6y ago

> This guy obviously loves interviews. I hate them. I am not going to practice interviews with my friends and have a real interview once a month like he advised. You can love or hate interviews, but they are the way to get into a company. If you dream of getting into $BigCo, you better nail your interview. If you don't care what company you work for as long as you get enough money at the end of the month, that's perfectly fine. No need to practice interviews then. Personally, while I don't dream of getting into Google, Facebook, or another company with comically high hiring bar, I like self-improvement and if I know I'm bad at interviews, I want to improve just for the sake of it. I'm sure interviewing skills translate well into other areas, such as public speaking, presentations, demos, sales, pre-sales, ...

cloverich 6y ago
I think that's the actual complaint though -- interview skills get people good at things they don't want to get good at, at the expense of things they do want to get good at. And the things they want to get good at may be, ironically, the actual skills they need for the job they are applying for!