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I once had someone ask me a question like this on the phone and I failed. Do you know why? Because they disqualified themselves from hiring me. What I remembe

I once had someone ask me a question like this on the phone and I failed. Do you know why? Because they disqualified themselves from hiring me. What I remember from that phone screen was getting mentally _TIRED_, sighing, and then lying about not being able to do it. Seriously, don't fucking ask me to describe code or algorithms over the phone. The number of times I've had someone do some variation of this over my lifetime is such that I don't want to have you as a co-worker or a manager. Do you know why I have this attitude? Because the number of times I've seen people actively be wrong in what they're looking for, as in technically wrong and therefore I failed, is enough that I've decided if you think this is the right way to go about hiring, you're doing it wrong and I don't want to be in that hellhole.

ALittleLight 6y ago
That doesn't seem like a fair restriction to put on an interviewer to me. I'm just supposed to assume the candidate knows how to write code rather than ask them to demonstrate? I imagine if I was hiring someone to play in a band or sing in a choir it would probably be a good idea to ask them to play or sing a bit before extending an offer. If I was hiring someone to work at plumbing company, I'd probably ask them a "How would you fix..." type question or two. Saying that these questions are forbidden just because you are sometimes tired of doing them strikes me as unreasonable. While, of course, you get to decide what signals would make a company a bad fit for you - e.g. if I asked you my question you might think my company would be a bad fit for you, the interviewer decides which answers are a bad fit for the company. I would definitely take an answer like this as indicating a bad fit for the company. This line from your comment is interesting to me though: "I've seen people actively be wrong in what they're looking for, as in technically wrong and therefore I failed". I frequently ask questions where I expect the candidate to want to clarifications or challenge what I'm saying. That's part of my job, and I'm trying to test for it the best way I know how. If you're happy with your job interviewing performance, then more power to you, but if you aren't - you may consider changing how you think about instances where the interviewer is wrong. Perhaps they are presenting opportunities for you to engage with them in a productive way, and even if they aren't doing so intentionally, maybe they are doing so unintentionally.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  > Saying that these questions are forbidden just because you are sometimes tired of doing them strikes me as unreasonable. You know what's unreasonable? Interviewing a bricklayer and asking them to describe how they lay bricks over the phone. And this is why your comparison to singing is hugely flawed. The phone is literally designed for carrying and hearing voices, not for more complex things. You act as if it's literally impossible to figure out if someone can code unless you're trying to do it over the phone. > This line from your comment is interesting to me though: "I've seen people actively be wrong in what they're looking for, as in technically wrong and therefore I failed". I frequently ask questions where I expect the candidate to want to clarifications or challenge what I'm saying. I once had someone ask me what _type_ was returned from a controller in asp.net MVC, and when I gave the technically correct response this person told me I was wrong, a view is returned, then immediately ended the call. The number of times I've seen stuff like this happen is way too high. But more than that, I want to address the attitude in that last point. This is a _HUGE_ problem with interviewers. They often come to conclusions they ought not come to based upon the circumstances. And the defenseless interviewee's are left trying to suss out hidden requirements like "expects them to ask clarifying questions". Interviewee's come in and have to try and navigate these byzantine, hidden requirements. And the question is, why do interviewers have hidden requirements like this? Because they know if they're _HONEST_ and communicate what they're looking for, the candidate will give it to them. That by itself should be a wake up call that interview's are hostile and un-real. I'm just in a position in my career that I have the leverage to refuse to play those games. If you do something like that, you fundamentally have no clue how to actually hire people, and I refuse to bring any value to you or your company.
  - martythemaniak 6y ago
    Honestly, have neither of you heard of coderpad? My screens are like the GGP's question, except both I am the candidate are on the phone and on coderpad. Coderpad even had voice and video calls now. The candidate is free to Google, to use the repl, to use any language, etc. If the candidates wants, they can just share their screen in their own environment. But asking a candidate for 30-50 lines of code is completely normal.

ALittleLight 6y ago

That doesn't seem like a fair restriction to put on an interviewer to me. I'm just supposed to assume the candidate knows how to write code rather than ask them to demonstrate? I imagine if I was hiring someone to play in a band or sing in a choir it would probably be a good idea to ask them to play or sing a bit before extending an offer. If I was hiring someone to work at plumbing company, I'd probably ask them a "How would you fix..." type question or two. Saying that these questions are forbidden just because you are sometimes tired of doing them strikes me as unreasonable. While, of course, you get to decide what signals would make a company a bad fit for you - e.g. if I asked you my question you might think my company would be a bad fit for you, the interviewer decides which answers are a bad fit for the company. I would definitely take an answer like this as indicating a bad fit for the company. This line from your comment is interesting to me though: "I've seen people actively be wrong in what they're looking for, as in technically wrong and therefore I failed". I frequently ask questions where I expect the candidate to want to clarifications or challenge what I'm saying. That's part of my job, and I'm trying to test for it the best way I know how. If you're happy with your job interviewing performance, then more power to you, but if you aren't - you may consider changing how you think about instances where the interviewer is wrong. Perhaps they are presenting opportunities for you to engage with them in a productive way, and even if they aren't doing so intentionally, maybe they are doing so unintentionally.

RandoHolmes 6y ago
> Saying that these questions are forbidden just because you are sometimes tired of doing them strikes me as unreasonable. You know what's unreasonable? Interviewing a bricklayer and asking them to describe how they lay bricks over the phone. And this is why your comparison to singing is hugely flawed. The phone is literally designed for carrying and hearing voices, not for more complex things. You act as if it's literally impossible to figure out if someone can code unless you're trying to do it over the phone. > This line from your comment is interesting to me though: "I've seen people actively be wrong in what they're looking for, as in technically wrong and therefore I failed". I frequently ask questions where I expect the candidate to want to clarifications or challenge what I'm saying. I once had someone ask me what _type_ was returned from a controller in asp.net MVC, and when I gave the technically correct response this person told me I was wrong, a view is returned, then immediately ended the call. The number of times I've seen stuff like this happen is way too high. But more than that, I want to address the attitude in that last point. This is a _HUGE_ problem with interviewers. They often come to conclusions they ought not come to based upon the circumstances. And the defenseless interviewee's are left trying to suss out hidden requirements like "expects them to ask clarifying questions". Interviewee's come in and have to try and navigate these byzantine, hidden requirements. And the question is, why do interviewers have hidden requirements like this? Because they know if they're _HONEST_ and communicate what they're looking for, the candidate will give it to them. That by itself should be a wake up call that interview's are hostile and un-real. I'm just in a position in my career that I have the leverage to refuse to play those games. If you do something like that, you fundamentally have no clue how to actually hire people, and I refuse to bring any value to you or your company.
- martythemaniak 6y ago
  Honestly, have neither of you heard of coderpad? My screens are like the GGP's question, except both I am the candidate are on the phone and on coderpad. Coderpad even had voice and video calls now. The candidate is free to Google, to use the repl, to use any language, etc. If the candidates wants, they can just share their screen in their own environment. But asking a candidate for 30-50 lines of code is completely normal.