3 ms·

It's not nitpicking. I want to draw attention to the fact that the so-called "false negatives" that everyone claims are acceptable casualties of the system are

by _qulr 6y ago

It's not nitpicking. I want to draw attention to the fact that the so-called "false negatives" that everyone claims are acceptable casualties of the system are not just random false negatives. Audition-style coding interviews systematically discriminate against people who tend to experience extreme nervousness during auditions but otherwise perform normally on the job. Note that this thread started with "Everyone loves to read and write about how developer interviewing is flawed, but no one wants to go out on a limb and make suggestions about how to improve it." Now you're saying applicants can train for this, applicants can train for that, but what happened to the original point about how to improve the process instead of making candidates take difficult steps to adapt to the flawed process?

robocat 6y ago
I know I am being oppositional, but your style of argument comes across to me as deep diving on points where you can be correct, or changing the subject. I am trying to argue against your original thesis which I will paraphrase as “a quiz detecting incompetence is actually detecting stage fright” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758092 Anyone who thinks XML is a valid solution to a priority queue is incompetent (even if they were prompted by the recruiter as said in sibling comment). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758234 Stage fright is real, and it is unavoidable in an interview i.e. even if coding quizzes were removed then the problem still exists, so arguing just against quizzes is silly IMHO. > everyone claims are acceptable casualties of the system I would say instead that casualties are unavoidable - interviews must be imperfect because time is limited (regardless of how much we may try to improve interviews.) > systematically discriminate against people who tend to experience extreme nervousness during auditions but otherwise perform normally on the job. Interviews are by definition systematically discriminatory: one is trying to select one person. The data is dirty, and if you make interviews more inclusive on one dimension you are discriminating against others on that dimension. They must be systematic as per anti-discrimination regulations, or else you will get sued to your cost. How to improve interviews to reduce false negatives is hard, but I think you are oversimplifying it down to “quizzes are bad”, which is at odds with many smart professionals who say they are good for detecting incompetent developers. You have not suggested any improvement that detects incompetence. > Note that this thread started with "Everyone loves to read and write about how developer interviewing is flawed, but no one wants to go out on a limb and make suggestions about how to improve it." I can also cherry pick a quote further up-thread: “To many people, the coding interviews is a chance to break the traditional mold and land a job that would have been out of reach otherwise.”
- _qulr 6y ago
  > your style of argument comes across to me as deep diving on points where you can be correct, or changing the subject. There's only so much that can be said in a HN comment. I'm trying to avoid writing a whole treatise. > Stage fright is real, and it is unavoidable in an interview i.e. even if coding quizzes were removed then the problem still exists, so arguing just against quizzes is silly IMHO. The conclusion doesn't follow. The problem still exists, yes, but I think everyone would acknowledge that casual chatting is easier than coding quizzes? Thus, if you tend to experience performance anxiety, then tasks that are more difficult to perform are more strongly negatively affected by performance anxiety. Compare with other issues that affect performance, e.g., drunkenness. Being drunk will affect your speech, but it severely affects your ability to more complex tasks such as driving a car. > Interviews are by definition systematically discriminatory: one is trying to select one person. That's not what systematic discrimination means. It means discriminating against a certain class of people who all share the same characteristic. Some examples are gender, race, and age, but that's not an exhaustive list. > You have not suggested any improvement that detects incompetence. I fundamentally disagree that this should be the main purpose and focus of hiring and interviews. I think rampant, exaggerated paranoia is one of the reasons that tech hiring is so messed up. The irrational fear of the "bad hire". Few other industries are so afraid of this. The reality is that it's impossible to avoid bad hires, and trying to be perfect in this respect will distort the whole process. Professional sports spend vastly more time and money on talent evaluation and acquisition than tech, but still they make "bad hires" all the time. Wasted #1 draft picks. Multi-million-dollar contracts for busts. It's just expected, a cost of doing business. They shrug it off and move on, and keep making mistakes too, because perfection is unattainable. "How can we drop coding tests... while still being ultra-paranoid?" is not a question I can answer. My answer is to not be so paranoid, and just accept the inevitable mistakes, a more relaxed process which also allows you to find the "diamonds in the rough". > I can also cherry pick a quote further up-thread: “To many people, the coding interviews is a chance to break the traditional mold and land a job that would have been out of reach otherwise.” I don't know why it's cherry picking to restate the original context into which I first replied in this thread. In any case, I already replied to that quote too.
  - 6y ago

by _qulr 6y ago

robocat 6y ago

I know I am being oppositional, but your style of argument comes across to me as deep diving on points where you can be correct, or changing the subject. I am trying to argue against your original thesis which I will paraphrase as “a quiz detecting incompetence is actually detecting stage fright” https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758092 Anyone who thinks XML is a valid solution to a priority queue is incompetent (even if they were prompted by the recruiter as said in sibling comment). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24758234 Stage fright is real, and it is unavoidable in an interview i.e. even if coding quizzes were removed then the problem still exists, so arguing just against quizzes is silly IMHO. > everyone claims are acceptable casualties of the system I would say instead that casualties are unavoidable - interviews must be imperfect because time is limited (regardless of how much we may try to improve interviews.) > systematically discriminate against people who tend to experience extreme nervousness during auditions but otherwise perform normally on the job. Interviews are by definition systematically discriminatory: one is trying to select one person. The data is dirty, and if you make interviews more inclusive on one dimension you are discriminating against others on that dimension. They must be systematic as per anti-discrimination regulations, or else you will get sued to your cost. How to improve interviews to reduce false negatives is hard, but I think you are oversimplifying it down to “quizzes are bad”, which is at odds with many smart professionals who say they are good for detecting incompetent developers. You have not suggested any improvement that detects incompetence. > Note that this thread started with "Everyone loves to read and write about how developer interviewing is flawed, but no one wants to go out on a limb and make suggestions about how to improve it." I can also cherry pick a quote further up-thread: “To many people, the coding interviews is a chance to break the traditional mold and land a job that would have been out of reach otherwise.”

_qulr 6y ago
> your style of argument comes across to me as deep diving on points where you can be correct, or changing the subject. There's only so much that can be said in a HN comment. I'm trying to avoid writing a whole treatise. > Stage fright is real, and it is unavoidable in an interview i.e. even if coding quizzes were removed then the problem still exists, so arguing just against quizzes is silly IMHO. The conclusion doesn't follow. The problem still exists, yes, but I think everyone would acknowledge that casual chatting is easier than coding quizzes? Thus, if you tend to experience performance anxiety, then tasks that are more difficult to perform are more strongly negatively affected by performance anxiety. Compare with other issues that affect performance, e.g., drunkenness. Being drunk will affect your speech, but it severely affects your ability to more complex tasks such as driving a car. > Interviews are by definition systematically discriminatory: one is trying to select one person. That's not what systematic discrimination means. It means discriminating against a certain class of people who all share the same characteristic. Some examples are gender, race, and age, but that's not an exhaustive list. > You have not suggested any improvement that detects incompetence. I fundamentally disagree that this should be the main purpose and focus of hiring and interviews. I think rampant, exaggerated paranoia is one of the reasons that tech hiring is so messed up. The irrational fear of the "bad hire". Few other industries are so afraid of this. The reality is that it's impossible to avoid bad hires, and trying to be perfect in this respect will distort the whole process. Professional sports spend vastly more time and money on talent evaluation and acquisition than tech, but still they make "bad hires" all the time. Wasted #1 draft picks. Multi-million-dollar contracts for busts. It's just expected, a cost of doing business. They shrug it off and move on, and keep making mistakes too, because perfection is unattainable. "How can we drop coding tests... while still being ultra-paranoid?" is not a question I can answer. My answer is to not be so paranoid, and just accept the inevitable mistakes, a more relaxed process which also allows you to find the "diamonds in the rough". > I can also cherry pick a quote further up-thread: “To many people, the coding interviews is a chance to break the traditional mold and land a job that would have been out of reach otherwise.” I don't know why it's cherry picking to restate the original context into which I first replied in this thread. In any case, I already replied to that quote too.
- 6y ago