7 ms·

A rather tired conversation in my opinion. Everybody likes to complain about interviews, but every single alternative I've heard is even worse: Take-homes are

A rather tired conversation in my opinion. Everybody likes to complain about interviews, but every single alternative I've heard is even worse: Take-homes are biased toward those willing to work hours for free, a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume, a casual conversation is biased toward the likable and native english speakers, high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good at whiteboarding

Analemma_ 6y ago
This shouldn't be downvoted, it's exactly right. For every "do this instead" I've ever seen in articles bemoaning the state of tech interviewing, I've seen a dozen people attacking that other thing just as vehemently. There's nothing even remotely approaching a consensus viewpoint on what we should do instead.
- ghayes 6y ago
  And with all things in life, the answer lies in the middle. You should ask programming questions, but they should be applicable, universal and not “trick” questions. You can do a take home, but if you do, make it 60 minutes and fun. You will end up whiteboarding in a room, but you should train your team to be good at this, shadow them and help them get better at it. Nothing is wrong with these techniques, per se, but often they end up as a terrible candidate or hiring experience.
ssutch3 6y ago
We do “take homes” that are paid at $65/hr. Still, biased toward people who can make the time.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Any process that isn't flying to rural Africa and going door to door is biased.
mhh__ 6y ago
> high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good at whiteboarding Shouldn't the process itself be biased towards people who can enunciate their thoughts anyway?
alpha_squared 6y ago
What if there were a certification authority that could claim that professionals are, indeed, competent in X, Y, Z within software? And, of course, that authority would need to be recognized by A, B, C companies. That'd certainly skip the endless, often mind-numbing, repetitiveness of technical interviews (especially for those with many years of experience) and can jump straight to culture/team/behavior fit. This is basically what all engineering disciplines do and it's why I take "software engineer" with a massive grain of salt.
- joeax 6y ago
  I have several certifications from Microsoft and Google and, for the most part, mean jack to an interviewer. I am still forced to leetcode and answer mind-numbing questions. On a side note, of all the choices I prefer a take-home, as long as it is timeboxed to no more than 1-2 hours.
  - ornornor 6y ago
    It never is one or two hours though. It might be if you designed the thing and know exactly how to get there and handle all the corner cases. Oh and also we always underestimate. I have yet to see a 1–2h take home test actually be doable in that amount of time. It’s more like 8–10h to get going, have something meaningful, and code that isn’t inscrutable.
    - hiq 6y ago
      The timebox has to be enforced on the company side, meaning that you have e.g. 2h to submit your answer once you've opened their link (which you should be free to open at any time, so that you're sure you have the time allotted).
      - ornornor 6y ago
        I don’t know about you but I suck the most when coding in a <textarea> HTML element instead of my editor and with a gun to my head.
deleted 6y ago
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MattGaiser 6y ago
I can leetcode hours for free or I can do small projects for free and usually learn a new thing while doing it instead of trying to memorize something about a binary tree. Take home projects just make the hours overt.
bweitzman 6y ago
I've paid candidates and been paid by potential employers to complete take homes. I've also given candidates the opportunity to substitute a piece of open source code in place. This is admittedly still biased towards people who have available time, paid or unpaid, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
908B64B197 6y ago
I like take-home as a filter for candidate from institutions that have low signal to noise ratio (getting hundreds of applicants from "some technical institute" and then have a sub 5% hire rate). But I know from college applicants that take-home end up at the bottom of the pile in terms of priority vs in-person interview with a real engineer. Unless it's FAANG of course.
tinkertamper 6y ago
Recently I started trying something new for our interviews. I start with a phone interview that is more about discussing their background, expertise, what they need to feel productive, and explain the role. If I think they’d be a good culture and expertise fit, I send them something like this (I’ve made a few): https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754e626 https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754.... It’s a small “api service” that represents a POC with some bugs and bad practices. I tell them to look over it, write down notes on how to make it production ready, setup a time to discuss their thoughts in a second call. No code writing necessary. It ends up being an excellent Rorschach test where folks can really show/express their unique skill sets and experience. I ultimately let them drive the conversation and it gives me great insights into what experiences have shaped their career and what it might be like to collaborate with them. Best of all it does resemble what some of their day to day might look like better than hand crafting some tree algorithm.
- alltakendamned 6y ago
  Damn that SQL injection will get you owned in 3 seconds or less :D
  - aurbano 6y ago
    It really really sucks that it’s almost 2021 and we still have to try to sneak in a little SQL injection just to see if they know about it... Ffs is that never going to go away?
    - jolux 6y ago
      the only way it could possibly go away for good is database libraries that don’t support dynamic SQL. But you almost always need the flexibility at some point, and SQL is so powerful that taking it off the table is hard to justify.
      - alltakendamned 6y ago
        just use prepared statements instead of string concantenation to build your SQL statements.
didibus 6y ago
I've found asking people to write a small program works pretty well. Like ask someone to build a command line app that arranges your mp3 files in folders of their artist's name. You can even ask it to be whiteboarded, or coded in a notepad, no code execution or IDE. I found that to quickly tell you if someone can write programs. Surprisingly (and maybe not surprisingly), a lot of people can do difficult leetcode questions, but can't write a small app, or can't do it well. It'll quickly show you about how the candidate can come up with some level of UX, handle OSish level stuff, how they structure and think about their code and readability, how they model data, and depending on the app you ask them to write, it could include a little algorithm in it as well.
- kyting 6y ago
  That kind of UX experience, OSish or design small app whatever can be learned very quick on job. However Leetcode skill is not -- you have to devote 2~3 hours per day to grind and practice.
yourabstraction 6y ago
Yes, it's extremely tired. FAANG companies are not dumb, they hire at scale and know how to find talented engineers using a rigorous/repeatable interview process. I think most of the complaints come from people who fail these interviews (I used to be one), and don't want to admit that maybe they're not good enough.
- jariel 6y ago
  "how to find talented engineers using a rigorous/repeatable interview process" There's not much evidence that they are doing the best at hiring for those wth 7+ years experience by using said interview styles.
- jolux 6y ago
  It takes a talented bullshitter to convince themselves that a 30 minute whiteboarding session can determine anything of worth about a person’s first month at a company, let alone year or two. “We only hire the best” is just marketing.
  - pb7 6y ago
    Well, that's why the standard interview loop consists of at least 5-6 45 minute sessions that intentionally do not overlap in subject matter done by separate people. If the signal is not strong enough, then more interviews are done. Works pretty well I think.
    - jolux 6y ago
      Do you have any empirical data demonstrating that this “works well” or are you just assuming? What is your definition of “works well?” Low false positive? Low false negative?
      - pb7 6y ago
        Empirical data that it works pretty well? I think the fact that this has been the de facto way of interviewing at the top tech companies during the time that tech has absolutely exploded in ways never seen before, I'd say yeah, it's working pretty well. I think you're seeking an explanation where one is not owed. If it wasn't working well, it would be changed, just like the brain teaser questions of the early 2000s pioneered by Google. And look, I get it, it's frustrating. I share in that frustration as someone that wants to switch companies but knows that I will have to put in the effort outside of work to prepare for that. But I still think the process is much more meritocratic and predictable than virtually every other industry.
deleted 6y ago
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gofreddygo 6y ago
I don't think so. Other orgs don't have recruiting problems that FAANGs do. They can do better than imitating FAANG processes. They can afford to go wrong and self correct more. They can find a strategy that works for them which can combine whiteboarding, pairing, casual conversations, references, real life problems, letting the candidate showcase their work. The problem isn't that they don't work and they gave up, problem is they aren't trying.
asdff 6y ago
There was a time where you would just hire someone and fire them if it wasn't working out. Why make the barrier to entry so high and prone to bias when you can always just let people go who aren't doing the work?
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  Yes, I've worked at places where that was the approach. Problem is if you end up doing it very often it costs you a lot of time and you do have to eat some inital payroll and administrative costs. Plus out of respect for the candidate, they've quit their prior job, maybe moved and signed a new lease, and now they are unemployed 30 or 60 days later. You really need to have some basis for confidence that the candidate is a good fit before you put yourself and them through that. Even for entry level jobs where what they know coming in isn't too important, you want smart people who can get along with the team and learn.
mcntsh 6y ago
What about a pair-programming session? Even having failed some pair-programming interviews, I've felt at least like it was a fair assessment. It's an equal time investment between myself and the company, working on something pertinent to what I would be doing, in a realistic environment. Contrast to whiteboard interviews where I've been assessed on how to calculate the number of moves of a knight on a chessboard given position X to position Y on a whiteboard in front of three people as a front-end developer. Contrast to take-home interviews which basically function as a way for the interviewing company to save on time and money by putting the whole time-investment on the interviewee.
bananaface 6y ago
a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume Could you explain this a bit? I'd have thought this is the only real way to judge someone. People will lie but figuring that out is part of the process.

Analemma_ 6y ago

This shouldn't be downvoted, it's exactly right. For every "do this instead" I've ever seen in articles bemoaning the state of tech interviewing, I've seen a dozen people attacking that other thing just as vehemently. There's nothing even remotely approaching a consensus viewpoint on what we should do instead.

ghayes 6y ago
And with all things in life, the answer lies in the middle. You should ask programming questions, but they should be applicable, universal and not “trick” questions. You can do a take home, but if you do, make it 60 minutes and fun. You will end up whiteboarding in a room, but you should train your team to be good at this, shadow them and help them get better at it. Nothing is wrong with these techniques, per se, but often they end up as a terrible candidate or hiring experience.

ssutch3 6y ago

We do “take homes” that are paid at $65/hr. Still, biased toward people who can make the time.

alisonkisk 6y ago
Any process that isn't flying to rural Africa and going door to door is biased.

mhh__ 6y ago

> high-level whiteboarding is biased towards people who are good at whiteboarding Shouldn't the process itself be biased towards people who can enunciate their thoughts anyway?

alpha_squared 6y ago

What if there were a certification authority that could claim that professionals are, indeed, competent in X, Y, Z within software? And, of course, that authority would need to be recognized by A, B, C companies. That'd certainly skip the endless, often mind-numbing, repetitiveness of technical interviews (especially for those with many years of experience) and can jump straight to culture/team/behavior fit. This is basically what all engineering disciplines do and it's why I take "software engineer" with a massive grain of salt.

joeax 6y ago
I have several certifications from Microsoft and Google and, for the most part, mean jack to an interviewer. I am still forced to leetcode and answer mind-numbing questions. On a side note, of all the choices I prefer a take-home, as long as it is timeboxed to no more than 1-2 hours.
- ornornor 6y ago
  It never is one or two hours though. It might be if you designed the thing and know exactly how to get there and handle all the corner cases. Oh and also we always underestimate. I have yet to see a 1–2h take home test actually be doable in that amount of time. It’s more like 8–10h to get going, have something meaningful, and code that isn’t inscrutable.
  - hiq 6y ago
    The timebox has to be enforced on the company side, meaning that you have e.g. 2h to submit your answer once you've opened their link (which you should be free to open at any time, so that you're sure you have the time allotted).
    - ornornor 6y ago
      I don’t know about you but I suck the most when coding in a <textarea> HTML element instead of my editor and with a gun to my head.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

MattGaiser 6y ago

I can leetcode hours for free or I can do small projects for free and usually learn a new thing while doing it instead of trying to memorize something about a binary tree. Take home projects just make the hours overt.

bweitzman 6y ago

I've paid candidates and been paid by potential employers to complete take homes. I've also given candidates the opportunity to substitute a piece of open source code in place. This is admittedly still biased towards people who have available time, paid or unpaid, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

908B64B197 6y ago

I like take-home as a filter for candidate from institutions that have low signal to noise ratio (getting hundreds of applicants from "some technical institute" and then have a sub 5% hire rate). But I know from college applicants that take-home end up at the bottom of the pile in terms of priority vs in-person interview with a real engineer. Unless it's FAANG of course.

tinkertamper 6y ago

Recently I started trying something new for our interviews. I start with a phone interview that is more about discussing their background, expertise, what they need to feel productive, and explain the role. If I think they’d be a good culture and expertise fit, I send them something like this (I’ve made a few): https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754e626 https://gist.github.com/tywalch/cf60e4c942ab6a80e481f4ba6754.... It’s a small “api service” that represents a POC with some bugs and bad practices. I tell them to look over it, write down notes on how to make it production ready, setup a time to discuss their thoughts in a second call. No code writing necessary. It ends up being an excellent Rorschach test where folks can really show/express their unique skill sets and experience. I ultimately let them drive the conversation and it gives me great insights into what experiences have shaped their career and what it might be like to collaborate with them. Best of all it does resemble what some of their day to day might look like better than hand crafting some tree algorithm.

alltakendamned 6y ago
Damn that SQL injection will get you owned in 3 seconds or less :D
- aurbano 6y ago
  It really really sucks that it’s almost 2021 and we still have to try to sneak in a little SQL injection just to see if they know about it... Ffs is that never going to go away?
  - jolux 6y ago
    the only way it could possibly go away for good is database libraries that don’t support dynamic SQL. But you almost always need the flexibility at some point, and SQL is so powerful that taking it off the table is hard to justify.
    - alltakendamned 6y ago
      just use prepared statements instead of string concantenation to build your SQL statements.

didibus 6y ago

I've found asking people to write a small program works pretty well. Like ask someone to build a command line app that arranges your mp3 files in folders of their artist's name. You can even ask it to be whiteboarded, or coded in a notepad, no code execution or IDE. I found that to quickly tell you if someone can write programs. Surprisingly (and maybe not surprisingly), a lot of people can do difficult leetcode questions, but can't write a small app, or can't do it well. It'll quickly show you about how the candidate can come up with some level of UX, handle OSish level stuff, how they structure and think about their code and readability, how they model data, and depending on the app you ask them to write, it could include a little algorithm in it as well.

kyting 6y ago
That kind of UX experience, OSish or design small app whatever can be learned very quick on job. However Leetcode skill is not -- you have to devote 2~3 hours per day to grind and practice.

yourabstraction 6y ago

Yes, it's extremely tired. FAANG companies are not dumb, they hire at scale and know how to find talented engineers using a rigorous/repeatable interview process. I think most of the complaints come from people who fail these interviews (I used to be one), and don't want to admit that maybe they're not good enough.

jariel 6y ago
"how to find talented engineers using a rigorous/repeatable interview process" There's not much evidence that they are doing the best at hiring for those wth 7+ years experience by using said interview styles.
jolux 6y ago
It takes a talented bullshitter to convince themselves that a 30 minute whiteboarding session can determine anything of worth about a person’s first month at a company, let alone year or two. “We only hire the best” is just marketing.
- pb7 6y ago
  Well, that's why the standard interview loop consists of at least 5-6 45 minute sessions that intentionally do not overlap in subject matter done by separate people. If the signal is not strong enough, then more interviews are done. Works pretty well I think.
  - jolux 6y ago
    Do you have any empirical data demonstrating that this “works well” or are you just assuming? What is your definition of “works well?” Low false positive? Low false negative?
    - pb7 6y ago
      Empirical data that it works pretty well? I think the fact that this has been the de facto way of interviewing at the top tech companies during the time that tech has absolutely exploded in ways never seen before, I'd say yeah, it's working pretty well. I think you're seeking an explanation where one is not owed. If it wasn't working well, it would be changed, just like the brain teaser questions of the early 2000s pioneered by Google. And look, I get it, it's frustrating. I share in that frustration as someone that wants to switch companies but knows that I will have to put in the effort outside of work to prepare for that. But I still think the process is much more meritocratic and predictable than virtually every other industry.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gofreddygo 6y ago

I don't think so. Other orgs don't have recruiting problems that FAANGs do. They can do better than imitating FAANG processes. They can afford to go wrong and self correct more. They can find a strategy that works for them which can combine whiteboarding, pairing, casual conversations, references, real life problems, letting the candidate showcase their work. The problem isn't that they don't work and they gave up, problem is they aren't trying.

asdff 6y ago

There was a time where you would just hire someone and fire them if it wasn't working out. Why make the barrier to entry so high and prone to bias when you can always just let people go who aren't doing the work?

throwaway201103 6y ago
Yes, I've worked at places where that was the approach. Problem is if you end up doing it very often it costs you a lot of time and you do have to eat some inital payroll and administrative costs. Plus out of respect for the candidate, they've quit their prior job, maybe moved and signed a new lease, and now they are unemployed 30 or 60 days later. You really need to have some basis for confidence that the candidate is a good fit before you put yourself and them through that. Even for entry level jobs where what they know coming in isn't too important, you want smart people who can get along with the team and learn.

mcntsh 6y ago

What about a pair-programming session? Even having failed some pair-programming interviews, I've felt at least like it was a fair assessment. It's an equal time investment between myself and the company, working on something pertinent to what I would be doing, in a realistic environment. Contrast to whiteboard interviews where I've been assessed on how to calculate the number of moves of a knight on a chessboard given position X to position Y on a whiteboard in front of three people as a front-end developer. Contrast to take-home interviews which basically function as a way for the interviewing company to save on time and money by putting the whole time-investment on the interviewee.

bananaface 6y ago

a "track record" is biased toward those who inflate their resume Could you explain this a bit? I'd have thought this is the only real way to judge someone. People will lie but figuring that out is part of the process.