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I was often shocked by this as well, until I did an interview where I was asked a similarly trivial question, and I became that person. I completely flubbed the

I was often shocked by this as well, until I did an interview where I was asked a similarly trivial question, and I became that person. I completely flubbed the interview, locked up, and, whilst I could write code that did things, I just couldn’t wrap my head around the question, and no amount of effort would chill me out. Obviously I didn’t land the thing. Some things like fizz buzz are gonna be so trivially easy that anyone should be able to do it, but try to understand where your candidate’s headspace is. (I was also a TA in a course that did these sorts of trivial challenges, and going through that experience really made me take a hard look at how I perceived those 1st year students)

ALittleLight 6y ago
I proposed to my manager (although this proposal was rejected) that we try something like putting our high performers through our interview loops. This would let us calibrate our questions and answers. If you're right, that intermittently otherwise good candidates flub simple questions, I feel like that would come up in the test interviews - and maybe there could be a good compromise that somehow takes this into account.
- noodlesUK 6y ago
  Unfortunately, I think that whilst it's a good idea to run a few mock interviews with "known good" people who already work well within the company, I also think that you can't replicate the stress that a potential candidate might feel where the stakes are non-existent, and a rapport already exists between interviewer and interviewee.
  - mattm 6y ago
    A good rule of thumb I've heard is that for an hour interview, you should expect people that work for you to solve and complete it in about 20 minutes. If it takes them longer than that, the question will be too difficult for candidates once stress is factored in.
dcolkitt 6y ago
I’m pretty sympathetic to this. Anybody, me included, could definitely lock up. Who hasn’t had a day where their brain refuses to work. But the thing about interviews is that you always want to heavily bias towards false negatives. A single bad hire is just astronomically costly. I think it’s fair to say that many smaller companies have literally been bankrupted by one incompetent person. When it comes to engineering positions, this is especially true. I’d rather nuke 20 good candidates having a bad day, then risk letting one bad engineer through the door. That’s why I’m skeptical that the interview process can even be “fixed”. Fundamentally it’s a mis-alignment of incentives. Employers have very strong to rule out candidates at even the slightest hint of incompetence. But for the interviewee, being judged so quickly, harshly and unfairly on a such a personal level makes them feel vulnerable and hurt.
mattm 6y ago
I've found that when an interview question seems too easy, I'll think "What's the catch?". That can start me down a spiral of wasting time and energy wondering if I'm missing something.

ALittleLight 6y ago

I proposed to my manager (although this proposal was rejected) that we try something like putting our high performers through our interview loops. This would let us calibrate our questions and answers. If you're right, that intermittently otherwise good candidates flub simple questions, I feel like that would come up in the test interviews - and maybe there could be a good compromise that somehow takes this into account.

noodlesUK 6y ago
Unfortunately, I think that whilst it's a good idea to run a few mock interviews with "known good" people who already work well within the company, I also think that you can't replicate the stress that a potential candidate might feel where the stakes are non-existent, and a rapport already exists between interviewer and interviewee.
- mattm 6y ago
  A good rule of thumb I've heard is that for an hour interview, you should expect people that work for you to solve and complete it in about 20 minutes. If it takes them longer than that, the question will be too difficult for candidates once stress is factored in.

dcolkitt 6y ago

I’m pretty sympathetic to this. Anybody, me included, could definitely lock up. Who hasn’t had a day where their brain refuses to work. But the thing about interviews is that you always want to heavily bias towards false negatives. A single bad hire is just astronomically costly. I think it’s fair to say that many smaller companies have literally been bankrupted by one incompetent person. When it comes to engineering positions, this is especially true. I’d rather nuke 20 good candidates having a bad day, then risk letting one bad engineer through the door. That’s why I’m skeptical that the interview process can even be “fixed”. Fundamentally it’s a mis-alignment of incentives. Employers have very strong to rule out candidates at even the slightest hint of incompetence. But for the interviewee, being judged so quickly, harshly and unfairly on a such a personal level makes them feel vulnerable and hurt.

mattm 6y ago

I've found that when an interview question seems too easy, I'll think "What's the catch?". That can start me down a spiral of wasting time and energy wondering if I'm missing something.