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> If I'd had the opportunity to read-up on it, I would have been fine. This highlights the paradox of Hackerrank-style tests. They would make sense in an age w

by m000 6y ago

> If I'd had the opportunity to read-up on it, I would have been fine. This highlights the paradox of Hackerrank-style tests. They would make sense in an age where the overhead to refresh your knowledge about something took time and effort: Find a relevant paper book, read it, perhaps type-out the examples. But in that age. where they would make sense, we didn't have the technology to make them available to the masses. Today, where refreshing your existing knowledge only takes a couple of minutes searching online, these tests actually do a bad job in telling apart the code-monkey from the expert who happens to be a bit rusty on a specific topic.

colinmhayes 6y ago
The point of hacker rank isn't to tell apart the code-monkey from the expert who is rusty. It's to find the people who are willing to spend hundreds of unpaid hours grinding leetcode. The thought process is that you only need two things to become a successful developer. Baseline critical thinking skills and the willingness to spend 60 hours a week reading up on best practices. If you can pass leetcodes interviews you've probably got both those. Figuring out if someone is an expert coder is hard, figuring out if they have these skills that you believe are required to become an expert coder is easier.
- m000 6y ago
  Still, it makes little sense if the applicant holds a BSc/MSc/PhD on the subject. These degrees require many more hours of commitment than the time you need to master leetcode. Moreover, the scope of leetcode assignments is rarely broader or deeper than an advanced-course assignment. Just take 5' to go through their academic record, take their professional experience into account, and you're done. No need for dubious "magic" solutions and useless charades. Even if you include cheaters, what makes the recruiters believe that someone who has cheated their way through a comp-sci master's program will have trouble cheating to inflate their Hackerrank?

by m000 6y ago

colinmhayes 6y ago

The point of hacker rank isn't to tell apart the code-monkey from the expert who is rusty. It's to find the people who are willing to spend hundreds of unpaid hours grinding leetcode. The thought process is that you only need two things to become a successful developer. Baseline critical thinking skills and the willingness to spend 60 hours a week reading up on best practices. If you can pass leetcodes interviews you've probably got both those. Figuring out if someone is an expert coder is hard, figuring out if they have these skills that you believe are required to become an expert coder is easier.

m000 6y ago
Still, it makes little sense if the applicant holds a BSc/MSc/PhD on the subject. These degrees require many more hours of commitment than the time you need to master leetcode. Moreover, the scope of leetcode assignments is rarely broader or deeper than an advanced-course assignment. Just take 5' to go through their academic record, take their professional experience into account, and you're done. No need for dubious "magic" solutions and useless charades. Even if you include cheaters, what makes the recruiters believe that someone who has cheated their way through a comp-sci master's program will have trouble cheating to inflate their Hackerrank?