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Why is this scope of the interview a problem though? The intention is to get a good impression of the abilities. It doesn't mean you need really to do a perfect

Why is this scope of the interview a problem though? The intention is to get a good impression of the abilities. It doesn't mean you need really to do a perfect 100% on all questions and know every single detail. And then, after interviewing a couple of candidates, they can choose what they do, or where to set the actual bar. And probably they also have certain priorities. And I assume there actually are junior people who have experience in all the listed technologies. Maybe not so many, but there are. It's not so uncommon that you play with technology already during school.

Hamuko 6y ago
>The intention is to get a good impression of the abilities. It doesn't mean you need really to do a perfect 100% on all questions and know every single detail. Hopefully that is being conveyed to the candidate as well because if you're in an interview for hours, being barraged by a lot of technical questions and not having any proper answers to them, it's pretty much soulcrushing.
- bartread 6y ago
  It hasn't happened for a long time but I remember, many years ago, being repeatedly frustrated by attending job interviews where I was questioned about languages/skills that clearly weren't listed on my CV and/or where I'd been clear with the recruiter up front that I had no knowledge or experience in these areas. E.g., even now I have next to no knowledge of Python because I've never used it in detail. Nor do I claim to have done on my CV. An interview where I get asked "Lots of Python" questions (see the second round section on OP) isn't going to go well, and even as a veteran engineer with a fairly thick skin I'm not going to be terribly happy about enduring it. This kind of problem is exacerbated if your interviewers haven't done sufficient prep so, instead of realising that you don't know anything about a particular technology, they take your poor performance in that area as an indication that you overall suck. I understand why companies ask these standardised batches of questions: we all know that IT is full of jokers who claim proficiency in technologies where in reality they have very limited exposure and skill. But if somebody's actually told you they don't know something then you're simply wasting your time and theirs, and creating an unnecessarily negative experience, by going through the motions. The thing with Google is that, because so many people want to work there, there will likely be somebody in that mass of candidates that has reasonable knowledge in all those areas, and they can afford to be that picky. Most companies can't which, overall, I think is a good thing.
  - dd82 6y ago
    I've been in this spot a couple times, and one thing I found helpful was to ask if I could do the question in a language of my choosing, even if it wasn't in line with their lingua franca. The one that said yes turned out to be a pretty enjoyable interview, because we chatted a bit about how implementation details differ between languages and how X could be done in Y, and vice versa. The one that said no... I think I got a better signal of job suitability from that one question than anything else. >This kind of problem is exacerbated if your interviewers haven't done sufficient prep so, instead of realising that you don't know anything about a particular technology, they take your poor performance in that area as an indication that you overall suck. Absolutely, I've been on the interviewee side of this a couple times, so absolutely try to ensure I have a list of questions for the candidate, including a number of references to their CV and github (or other public code repo). I'm there to get a signal on their suitability for working here, not to stroke my ego.
    - bartread 6y ago
      > I've been in this spot a couple times, and one thing I found helpful was to ask if I could do the question in a language of my choosing This is a great strategy and, as you say, if they say no you've learned something useful. When we interview we always make it clear to the candidate that they can pick a language with which they're familiar. We tend to ask for "C-like" at the application stage but have some flexibility around imperative/OO languages. E.g., Python or Ruby might be OK, as might JavaScript.
      - dd82 6y ago
        Same here, but the downside with this is the interviewer might not be too familiar with the candidate's language selection and therefore miss out on nuances about implementation details. It hasn't happened yet to me, but we do have golang here and I'm not familiar with it at all and am picking it up on my spare time.
- dd82 6y ago
  Absolutely. I try to convey this in my interviews that I do have questions, but want to keep it low pressure and the goal is to get an honest assessment of who you are. If someone gets a question wrong, I explain why and ask them how they would alter knowing the issue. One thing I've found pretty helpful with this is a code sample demonstrating mutable default args in python. Most juniors and a surprising number of mids haven't come across this even after 2 or more years of experience with the language, so they're surprised by it. I then explain how the issue happens, and then ask them how they would fix the function. For me, its those kind of questions where you as an interviewer are able to provide a tiny hint or nudge when the person is stuck that gives much more insight. They're not getting the answer, and are doing the work themselves but doing that in a bit of an unnatural environment like an interview makes me very, very happy for them. I had an interview with a candidate who didn't know python much, but liked it for its conciseness for interviewing, but worked in golang regularly. Candidate hadn't heard of this, and was surprised by it, and after understanding the reason behind the behavior, we ended up on a pretty enjoyable tangental discussion of how other languages had similar gotchas and the experiences thereof. Conversely, when a person is interviewing for a role at a much higher level than they're qualified for and are missing things despite hints, suggestions and outright pointers, its a significant letdown, and I hope those candidates are able to use these questions as guideposts of where to increase their knowledge and awareness.
dan-robertson 6y ago
It looks like a lot of the interview is targeted towards the candidate’s CV, eg it surely isn’t a standard question to ask the candidate about their PyConf talks.
- fingerlocks 6y ago
  It doesn’t look like a real interview itinerary at all to me. Leetcode forums are filled with Apple interview experiences and none of them are anything like this. Also, I’m also a bit skeptical of the python bits, as I can’t recall anything but indifference from Apple towards supporting python. MacOS ships with a very outdated version of it.
  - soneil 6y ago
    I've been involved with hiring (although at a company that's far from a household name), and the second half at least, sounds perfectly reasonable to me. They've taken the stuff he claims to know in-depth and explored it. That's the perfect place to dig deep. You don't take someone who has PyCon on their CV and get them to do fizzbuzz on a whiteboard - and there's no point getting into the weeds on topics they haven't even mentioned. "What makes this candidate unique" is the best place to spend the meat of an in-person interview - and the best place for the candidate to sell themselves too. Its usually far too late into the process to waste anyone's time with asking every candidate the same stock questions.
    - fingerlocks 6y ago
      > You don't take someone who has PyCon on their CV and get them to do fizzbuzz on a whiteboard Disagree. I’ve also interviewed hundreds of candidates over the last couple decades, spanning a half dozen or so companies, and there’s always been a rule of consistency. Giving candidates wildly different interview experiences introduces bias, at the very least, but it also makes it very difficult to select the best candidate among a pool. There is simply no way to compare each and stack rank them, you might as well pick one at random.

Hamuko 6y ago

>The intention is to get a good impression of the abilities. It doesn't mean you need really to do a perfect 100% on all questions and know every single detail. Hopefully that is being conveyed to the candidate as well because if you're in an interview for hours, being barraged by a lot of technical questions and not having any proper answers to them, it's pretty much soulcrushing.

bartread 6y ago
It hasn't happened for a long time but I remember, many years ago, being repeatedly frustrated by attending job interviews where I was questioned about languages/skills that clearly weren't listed on my CV and/or where I'd been clear with the recruiter up front that I had no knowledge or experience in these areas. E.g., even now I have next to no knowledge of Python because I've never used it in detail. Nor do I claim to have done on my CV. An interview where I get asked "Lots of Python" questions (see the second round section on OP) isn't going to go well, and even as a veteran engineer with a fairly thick skin I'm not going to be terribly happy about enduring it. This kind of problem is exacerbated if your interviewers haven't done sufficient prep so, instead of realising that you don't know anything about a particular technology, they take your poor performance in that area as an indication that you overall suck. I understand why companies ask these standardised batches of questions: we all know that IT is full of jokers who claim proficiency in technologies where in reality they have very limited exposure and skill. But if somebody's actually told you they don't know something then you're simply wasting your time and theirs, and creating an unnecessarily negative experience, by going through the motions. The thing with Google is that, because so many people want to work there, there will likely be somebody in that mass of candidates that has reasonable knowledge in all those areas, and they can afford to be that picky. Most companies can't which, overall, I think is a good thing.
- dd82 6y ago
  I've been in this spot a couple times, and one thing I found helpful was to ask if I could do the question in a language of my choosing, even if it wasn't in line with their lingua franca. The one that said yes turned out to be a pretty enjoyable interview, because we chatted a bit about how implementation details differ between languages and how X could be done in Y, and vice versa. The one that said no... I think I got a better signal of job suitability from that one question than anything else. >This kind of problem is exacerbated if your interviewers haven't done sufficient prep so, instead of realising that you don't know anything about a particular technology, they take your poor performance in that area as an indication that you overall suck. Absolutely, I've been on the interviewee side of this a couple times, so absolutely try to ensure I have a list of questions for the candidate, including a number of references to their CV and github (or other public code repo). I'm there to get a signal on their suitability for working here, not to stroke my ego.
  - bartread 6y ago
    > I've been in this spot a couple times, and one thing I found helpful was to ask if I could do the question in a language of my choosing This is a great strategy and, as you say, if they say no you've learned something useful. When we interview we always make it clear to the candidate that they can pick a language with which they're familiar. We tend to ask for "C-like" at the application stage but have some flexibility around imperative/OO languages. E.g., Python or Ruby might be OK, as might JavaScript.
    - dd82 6y ago
      Same here, but the downside with this is the interviewer might not be too familiar with the candidate's language selection and therefore miss out on nuances about implementation details. It hasn't happened yet to me, but we do have golang here and I'm not familiar with it at all and am picking it up on my spare time.
dd82 6y ago
Absolutely. I try to convey this in my interviews that I do have questions, but want to keep it low pressure and the goal is to get an honest assessment of who you are. If someone gets a question wrong, I explain why and ask them how they would alter knowing the issue. One thing I've found pretty helpful with this is a code sample demonstrating mutable default args in python. Most juniors and a surprising number of mids haven't come across this even after 2 or more years of experience with the language, so they're surprised by it. I then explain how the issue happens, and then ask them how they would fix the function. For me, its those kind of questions where you as an interviewer are able to provide a tiny hint or nudge when the person is stuck that gives much more insight. They're not getting the answer, and are doing the work themselves but doing that in a bit of an unnatural environment like an interview makes me very, very happy for them. I had an interview with a candidate who didn't know python much, but liked it for its conciseness for interviewing, but worked in golang regularly. Candidate hadn't heard of this, and was surprised by it, and after understanding the reason behind the behavior, we ended up on a pretty enjoyable tangental discussion of how other languages had similar gotchas and the experiences thereof. Conversely, when a person is interviewing for a role at a much higher level than they're qualified for and are missing things despite hints, suggestions and outright pointers, its a significant letdown, and I hope those candidates are able to use these questions as guideposts of where to increase their knowledge and awareness.

dan-robertson 6y ago

It looks like a lot of the interview is targeted towards the candidate’s CV, eg it surely isn’t a standard question to ask the candidate about their PyConf talks.

fingerlocks 6y ago
It doesn’t look like a real interview itinerary at all to me. Leetcode forums are filled with Apple interview experiences and none of them are anything like this. Also, I’m also a bit skeptical of the python bits, as I can’t recall anything but indifference from Apple towards supporting python. MacOS ships with a very outdated version of it.
- soneil 6y ago
  I've been involved with hiring (although at a company that's far from a household name), and the second half at least, sounds perfectly reasonable to me. They've taken the stuff he claims to know in-depth and explored it. That's the perfect place to dig deep. You don't take someone who has PyCon on their CV and get them to do fizzbuzz on a whiteboard - and there's no point getting into the weeds on topics they haven't even mentioned. "What makes this candidate unique" is the best place to spend the meat of an in-person interview - and the best place for the candidate to sell themselves too. Its usually far too late into the process to waste anyone's time with asking every candidate the same stock questions.
  - fingerlocks 6y ago
    > You don't take someone who has PyCon on their CV and get them to do fizzbuzz on a whiteboard Disagree. I’ve also interviewed hundreds of candidates over the last couple decades, spanning a half dozen or so companies, and there’s always been a rule of consistency. Giving candidates wildly different interview experiences introduces bias, at the very least, but it also makes it very difficult to select the best candidate among a pool. There is simply no way to compare each and stack rank them, you might as well pick one at random.