4 ms·

All day doing presentations? That isn't what we are talking about here. Starting the day with 30 minutes of "open mic" to introduce yourself and tell us about

All day doing presentations? That isn't what we are talking about here. Starting the day with 30 minutes of "open mic" to introduce yourself and tell us about something cool that you did is an outright invitation to start the day by getting us excited to hire you, a 30-minute uninterrupted opportunity to show yourself in the best light. How can that be a bad thing? Some so presentation-phobic that they won't do that is not going to bring a lot of value to the organization.

potamic 6y ago
You seem to have an impression that a certain personality type will be better at doing their work than others. That's a very limiting view in my opinion, and you're going to pass over entire groups of people who can bring a lot of value. Neurodiversity can be just as important as gender diversity and cultural diversity. If you work with only one kind, then your world-view will be limited by that kind. I've come across many a smart person who would abhor the idea of listening to a presentation, let alone give one. Give me a document they'll say, and they will go through it at depth and collaborate amazingly over text. A mix of both is required. You don't want everyone to be giving presentations all day, just as you don't want no one to be attending any presentations. Diversity is essential, and it's more effective to create structures that allow different types of people to work with one another than to mould people into personalities.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  It's not possible to create a "perfect" interview process. I can literally give your criticism to every single interview process you can ever imagine and be correct in that criticism. It's akin to saying that because some people have anxiety issues, we should completely do away with interviews and just let people randomly walk in and do work. Because that's the only way to potentially avoid the criticism you gave here, only that's also not true because locale comes into play. "You didn't create a building every 500 feet that people can walk into, so now you're disenfranchising people without cars!". My point here is that this is not a useful criticism. Come up with a useful grievance, one that's actually actionable, and then maybe we can talk.
  - potamic 6y ago
    Well to start with, I would put more onus on the interviewer to extract information rather than on the candidate who is already likely to be stressed. Not every personality difference can be reduced to anxiety. That is precisely the kind of closed world-view I was talking about that can form within homogeneous groups.
snypox 6y ago
Imo this is plain stupid, sorry. Many people don’t have such abilities, and 95% of the people I know never needed to present something to any audience so they don’t have experience in it either. This sounds awesome for a marketing or PR manager or even for a vice president, but a weird method for software engineering positions.
- RandoHolmes 6y ago
  > Many people don’t have such abilities, and 95% of the people I know never needed to present something to any audience so they don’t have experience in it either. You act as if the people listening aren't aware of this. What is it you believe exactly, that if person A sounded nervous they wouldn't be hired? The entire point is to get a conversation started, and the following Q&A allows them to do something everyone needs to do in a job, which is to answer questions. No interview process is perfect. You can literally give me a description of any interview process and I can start finding problems with it. Just as you can literally give me a description of any software solution and I can start finding problems with it. That you can find problems with it doesn't make it useless or harmful. Please come up with better criticisms.
username90 6y ago
> Some so presentation-phobic that they won't do that is not going to bring a lot of value to the organization. I can do presentations, however you are asking me to hold a free 30 minute lecture teaching your employees about something. I'd rather not, basically every company gets excited to hire me anyway and I'd rather spend a few hours doing some comfortable coding over spending a few hours preparing a presentation.

potamic 6y ago

You seem to have an impression that a certain personality type will be better at doing their work than others. That's a very limiting view in my opinion, and you're going to pass over entire groups of people who can bring a lot of value. Neurodiversity can be just as important as gender diversity and cultural diversity. If you work with only one kind, then your world-view will be limited by that kind. I've come across many a smart person who would abhor the idea of listening to a presentation, let alone give one. Give me a document they'll say, and they will go through it at depth and collaborate amazingly over text. A mix of both is required. You don't want everyone to be giving presentations all day, just as you don't want no one to be attending any presentations. Diversity is essential, and it's more effective to create structures that allow different types of people to work with one another than to mould people into personalities.

RandoHolmes 6y ago
It's not possible to create a "perfect" interview process. I can literally give your criticism to every single interview process you can ever imagine and be correct in that criticism. It's akin to saying that because some people have anxiety issues, we should completely do away with interviews and just let people randomly walk in and do work. Because that's the only way to potentially avoid the criticism you gave here, only that's also not true because locale comes into play. "You didn't create a building every 500 feet that people can walk into, so now you're disenfranchising people without cars!". My point here is that this is not a useful criticism. Come up with a useful grievance, one that's actually actionable, and then maybe we can talk.
- potamic 6y ago
  Well to start with, I would put more onus on the interviewer to extract information rather than on the candidate who is already likely to be stressed. Not every personality difference can be reduced to anxiety. That is precisely the kind of closed world-view I was talking about that can form within homogeneous groups.

snypox 6y ago

Imo this is plain stupid, sorry. Many people don’t have such abilities, and 95% of the people I know never needed to present something to any audience so they don’t have experience in it either. This sounds awesome for a marketing or PR manager or even for a vice president, but a weird method for software engineering positions.

RandoHolmes 6y ago
> Many people don’t have such abilities, and 95% of the people I know never needed to present something to any audience so they don’t have experience in it either. You act as if the people listening aren't aware of this. What is it you believe exactly, that if person A sounded nervous they wouldn't be hired? The entire point is to get a conversation started, and the following Q&A allows them to do something everyone needs to do in a job, which is to answer questions. No interview process is perfect. You can literally give me a description of any interview process and I can start finding problems with it. Just as you can literally give me a description of any software solution and I can start finding problems with it. That you can find problems with it doesn't make it useless or harmful. Please come up with better criticisms.

username90 6y ago

> Some so presentation-phobic that they won't do that is not going to bring a lot of value to the organization. I can do presentations, however you are asking me to hold a free 30 minute lecture teaching your employees about something. I'd rather not, basically every company gets excited to hire me anyway and I'd rather spend a few hours doing some comfortable coding over spending a few hours preparing a presentation.