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Things I was asked to do while job hunting
- belinder 6y agoWould have liked to have seen in the article what this 'sane, speedy hiring process' was
- apozem 6y agoI wanted to keep my post short but it was a couple rounds of interviews. - Initial phone screen explaining my career - Technical conversation with team lead where we talked about the tools that would be used in the job - Soft skill screen where we talked about how to handle workplace scenarios - Final interview with cofounder with some technical content, some cultural
- throwawayboise 6y ago> Pass a cognitive test asking me to do basic arithmetic and convert fractions as fast as I could. I would fail this. I have had a lifelong inability to do simple arithmetic mentally. When I had to learn multiplication tables I finally memorized them by using flash cards and a payment schedule set up by my parents. In fourth grade we had "time tests" where you had to do a page of sums and were graded based on how quickly you completed it. I never finished them in the maximum time allotted because I had to count on my fingers. Even today I will sometimes do that, or I will use offsets from a few sums that I do know. For example, 7+6. For some reason I know 7+7 is 14, so 7+6 is one less than that. Hence 13. Anyone else think this way as an adult?
- the_af 6y agoI have trouble with basic arithmetic as well, never learned the multiplication tables and employ all sort of tricks like the one you mention. I still blank out when someone wants me to do basic arithmetic on the spot. It's a bit embarrassing.
- crocsarecool 6y agoOh gosh me too!! I’m so embarrassed to do mental math. Unless I have a pen and paper or use of my fingers, I can’t do it. It feels like the numbers start disappearing from my head as soon as I start calculating.
- cutemonster 6y agoDoes this happen also if your're at home alone, and trying some arithmetics?
- crocsarecool 6y agoYup! If I can write my work down, I’m okay, but I feel like the numbers slip if I calculate in my head. If I’m trying 9+8, I’ll think 9 is close to 10, so I’ll +1, now I can do 10+8=18. As I work this in my head, I’ll start to forget that I originally started with a 9, and I have to figure out what number I used (+1) to make the problem easier, which often makes me restart the problem. It’s like a loop. I can’t do word problems very well either. There are so many numbers, then you have to figure out what they’re really asking. It’s frustrating because I can tell it’s simple stuff, but I just can’t hold on to everything at once. I guess it’s like a learning disability. That said, for every pain I’ve had with math, I’ve breezed through with English and writing. When I was younger doing my SATs, I completely tanked math, but had a perfect score in the English and writing sections.
- dblohm7 6y ago> In fouth grade we had "time tests" where you had to do a page of sums and were graded based on how quickly you completed it. I never finished them in the maximum time allotted because I had to count on my fingers. Even today I will sometimes do that, or I will use offsets from a few sums that I do know. For example, 7+6. For some reason I know 7+7 is 14, so 7+6 is one less than that. Hence 13. Anyone else think this way as an adult? When it comes to adding and subtracting, that's definitely me!
- SixDouble5321 6y agoMemorization of numbers generally, but yes to the above.
- fermentation 6y agoI also had trouble memorizing arithmetic/multiplication tables. To this day I have no idea what 7*8 is (I can spend a few seconds figuring it out but I just never memorized it like most people). For some reason my university math courses disallowed calculators, and I vividly remember sitting in my Calculus III course counting those "number dots"[0] on every exam. [0]: https://64.media.tumblr.com/uwQaNeR4EjfyqysnvQFexD3vo1_400.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/uwQaNeR4EjfyqysnvQFexD3vo1_400.j...
- Kluny 6y agoThink 5-6-7-8. 7 times 8 is 56. Or use a calculator, who cares. Arithmetic is mostly memorization.
- sneak 6y agoI'm in the same boat. 8*7 is naturally 8 squared (64) minus 8. :D
- Ekaros 6y agoOr 7 squared (49) plus 7. Which for some reason is stuck in my brain...
- pavel_lishin 6y agoI don't understand how those number dots are supposed to help with multiplication.
- stordoff 6y agoI never bothered learning them either (apart from the squares, which stuck quickly for some reason) - I just got fast enough at working them out from known values (squares, 10x is trivial, 5x is half of that) that no one could really tell the difference. I think it actually helped me in some ways, because those "tricks" (mentally breaking it down into simpler steps) generalise to larger numbers quite well.
- ergot_vacation 6y agoExact same thing here. I'm actually having a moment realizing this is more common than I thought. Everyone always acted like it was the easiest thing in the world (even the ones that hated math) and that I must have brain damage or something. But to this day, if you put a gun to my head, I could not tell you what 7*8 was in any less that a minute (and possible not at all without some paper to work it out).
- angelbar 6y ago12+1 for me ;-)
- RedEdward71 6y agoSame here brah. I use finger tricks for much of my quick on-the-spot arithmetic. When I was young(14-24) I could do it in my head, as the years went on I started to rely on some rote memorization and the aforementioned finger shortcuts. These days (in my 50's) I unabashedly use the shortcuts and don't care what wtf anyone thinks...of course the gray in my beard stops most people from razz'in me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sneak 6y agoYes this is how I do the compression of the multiplication table in my head as well. I'm great on the perfect squares, 2, 4, 9, 10 - there are big holes in the rest, and I just add or subtract from values I do know. Fortunately I don't need to use my fingers.
- ear7h 6y ago> I finally memorized them by using flash cards and a payment schedule set up by my parents. This was my exact experience learning to the multiplication tables in 4th grade. Although my payment was watching tv or playing video games. The only one I really learned was multiplying by 8 bc my dad made more effort for me to learn it (he was programmer). I also use random "tricks" for arithmetic, like when multiplying 6 and 7, I'll do (37)+(37) instead because I've memorized 3*7=21 and the addition is easy with no carries
- vagrantJin 6y agoI just abhor the fact that teachers never gave students the intuition to approach problems and solve them. Not that I blame them - but my eyes watered when a visiting lecturer derived formulas we'd used in High school and told to memorize as absolute truths without knowing why. You finally get to appreciate mathematics as a discipline and a tool.
- ghaff 6y agoOne of the problems, especially but not exclusively at the high school level, is that you often haven't been exposed to the math (or other foundational information) that you need to derive things from more or less first principles. Physics is probably the most obvious example. You need Calculus to derive many of the formulae in high school physics but the average student probably hasn't had Calculus yet so they're just equations to memorize.
- Wowfunhappy 6y agoThis is why I think a lot of pre-collegiate curricula is misguided. The ultimate goal of a high school science or math course should be to teach logic and critical thinking ("learning how to learn"). If a student doesn't have the ability to understand why a formula works, we should take a hard look at why we're teaching it, even if that means radically rethinking which subjects are offered.
- 6y ago
- onion2k 6y agoI honestly hate interview tests like this because you never want a developer to do this in their day to day job. Code needs to be clear and simple to be maintainable, so anywhere a developer has done work in their head and just put in a magic number (eg const foo = 763; // I did the math in my head) you would always reject that in a PR and ask them to show where the number came from. If anything being asked to do mental arthimatic in an interview should be a red flag that the company has a code base that could be full of horrible undocumented nonsense.
- josephg 6y agoYeah; or it’s a sign they just have terrible judgement. “What makes a good programmer? Programming is like math right? Let’s assess that!?” The trick for code readability is to always make the compiler do the math. const time_ms = 30 * 1000; This is much easier to read and maintain.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ergot_vacation 6y agoIt's both relieving and stunning how accurate this is to my own experience. I did TERRIBLE in high school (and college) math, almost entirely because I would constantly make little mistakes in the basic arithmetic. The broader concepts? No problem. But then I'd try to do a problem, slip up a few times on the basic math, and get the wrong answer. And there went the points (and test). I took to calling it "Math Dyslexia," although they're only really similar in that both involved unusual last-mile problems rather than fundamental knowledge or intelligence issues. I suspect you won't reply, this being a throwaway, but was there any ADHD involved? That's what I've gradually settled on for myself, not the "bouncing off the walls" bit, but the bit where you have trouble focusing on anything but the things that are "interesting" to you (and then HYPER focus on those things).
- lamontcg 6y agoSounds a bit more like you may have dyscalculia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia I think what the prior poster was describing is more what I have which I've taken to calling "having shit memory". Can't remember numbers or names, can't learn foreign languages well at all. Had trouble in elementary school with doing multiplication tables fast because I couldn't memorize 7s and 8s, so I'd solve 8x8 by doing 6x6=36 (easy) and then 36+6+6+8+8 to complete the square. I can teach myself optimal control theory, but my speed and accuracy at arithmetic is just getting worse as i can use google as a calculator. I did fine in physics and math courses in college because you can use calculators, and because I always picked the easy questions first, and then ran the answers back through to prove they were right in order to find sign errors and such.
- cutemonster 6y agoWhat about probability calculations? Like, calculating how likely X is to happen Y times in a row? If you can use calculators Btw from that Wikipedia article, about ADHD: > In 2015, it was established that 11% of children with dyscalculia also have ADHD
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- unanswered 6y ago> For some reason I know 7+7 is 14, so 7+6 is one less than that. Hence 13. Anyone else think this way as an adult? I also reason 7+6 by going down or up from 14 or 12, but I would not characterize myself as having dyscalcula of any severity.
- MaximumYComb 6y agoI was quite gifted at math, first place out of a school year of 250+ students. I know as an adult that I have all nm for all 0<n,m<10 memorised. When I see something like 79 I use memory and not logic. I feel a lot of math is made easier once some facts become so simple they're memorised. I can do large arithmetic quite easily in my head due to having the basics memorised.
- mbrameld 6y agoI do it by getting to 10 first: 7 + 3 is 10, 6 - the 3 I just added to the 7 is 3, and 10 + that 3 is 13.
- schwartzworld 6y agoI'm not sure you need to memorize the tables to do multiplication in your head. The 10s are a freebie, and the 2s can be done by most people without much effort, for numbers under 100. 5s are just half of the 10s. 9s are just 10x - 1x. 11s are adorable. I'd wager most people internalize little tricks like these for all the multiples of single digit numbers and the lower double digits. Of course, if you do math in your head all the time, eventually you memorize frequent combinations. Anybody who can trivially multiply high doubles digits or 3 digit numbers in their head is exceptional.
- dctoedt 6y agoOne of the things: "Enter my years of experience with “Problem Solving.” I am 28 years old, so I put 28."
- User23 6y agoMy ideal hiring system has the following properties: 1) When I am looking for a job, I get to work with people who are better than me and who will raise me up to their level. 2) When I am looking to fill a job, I get to work with people who are better than me and who will raise me up to their level. At a first glance this suggests that my ideal hiring system doesn't exist. Thanks to multidimensionality that's not necessarily true, but it's not necessarily false either.
- Kluny 6y agoThanks to multidimensionality, I'd say it's totally false. You can hire someone, or be hired by, someone who will raise your level via leadership, emotional skills, salesmanship, writing skills, and a million other "soft" things, besides the universe of technical skills that exist. I would think you only need someone to be better than you at one thing to make them a worthwhile hire or coworker.
- one2three4 6y agoI feel for him but honestly what he's been through is small potatoes. Been looking in earnest for 1 month now. I've done about 10 take-homes, 20 codility-style, a couple personality and IQ ones, numerous screens... Yes. Hiring is totally broken. And/or there is an glut of devs out there to the point where landing a decent offer is really hard if you're going the traditional way (i.e. not having someone from inside rooting for you). My job market is EU.
- throwaway743 6y agoI've been looking since the end of October, since getting laid off. Had quite a lot of interviews, passed the majority of technicals given, etc, but did not receive any offers. At the end of January I said fuck it and am now in the process of building the foundation for my small business. The job hunting process is incredibly disheartening and stressful, and I'd rather put that energy to use rather than waste. US/NY market here
- one2three4 6y agoBest of luck with your endeavor.
- ipnon 6y agoI've come to the same conclusion, that it's easier and more profitable to create and sell your own application than to do the hiring song and dance, especially in the long term.
- weird-eye-issue 6y agoGood luck if you think it is easier! By the way, have you created a profitable business before?
- ipnon 6y agoI have never made a profitable startup before, wish me luck.
- f6v 6y agoWhat Klarna does is immediately send you some sort of IQ test after you apply. Needless to say, I failed miserably. At least now I know that I'm cognitively challenged.
- one2three4 6y agoNope. That's a skill as well. Practice a bit and you'll be flying through them.
- jasonladuke0311 6y agoThey never responded to my application so I’m even dumber than that
- imwillofficial 6y agoEvery “personality quiz” I took for the military I “popped” on and had to talk to a psych doc. After the third time, having no history of killing animals as a child or other aberrant behavior, I asked the doc, “why am I here?” “Your answers were too normal, indicating you’re hiding something” Can’t win with these guys hahahaha
- Jugurtha 6y agoI remember an exam in our probability class. Bayes, and all. The problem gave the probability of hitting a rabbit, but asked to compute the probability of killing the rabbit given certain premises. I answered that there was no way to know, given that hitting the animal and killing the animal were not the same thing. Semantics matter. One of the professors was really into that debate (during the exam) and said I was right. The other said "What are you talking about... It's a rabbit". I asked what if I hit the rabbit in its tail or foot. He said "It's a rabbit", then curved his hand to mime a rabbit's foot, and said "if you hit the rabbit here, he'll die". I said what's the probability of the rabbit dying given you hit the foot? The other professor taunted him saying I was technically right. Anyway... I wrote that, for the exam, we'll consider that any hit is considered lethal, then proceeded to answer the question.
- goatinaboat 6y agowhat's the probability of the rabbit dying given you hit the foot? A rabbit who can’t run is easy prey for a fox or a buzzard so... pretty high?
- pavel_lishin 6y agoThe probability of any rabbit dying is 100%, eventually.
- toast0 6y agoThe probability of a rabbit dying is 1. Can't change that. Depends which foot then, I suppose. Probably a rabbit missing a rear foot is going to have a real hard time getting around, but one missing a front foot may be better able to adapt. We'll probably need to do a study to know for sure.
- beforeolives 6y agoShould we interpret a problematic hiring process as a red flag about the company in general? Any stories showing the opposite (i.e. poor hiring process at a great company to work for)?
- ghaff 6y agoWithout naming names, good companies can absolutely have sub-optimal hiring processes (at least in some cases) for various reasons. I didn't experience it. But then I didn't go anywhere near normal channels.
- kemitche 6y agoGenerally, I'd say no, but it probably depends on the types of problems. Companies have areas of expertise and areas of weakness - their hiring process might be a weakness, but that doesn't necessarily mean that working for the company will be all bad. That said, the hiring process is a view into the company culture, and if the view of the culture you get is not good, then working for the company is probably not going to be great.
- candiddevmike 6y agoHow I hire: review applications and any portfolio attachments or links (yes, putting links to prior work on resumes is a good idea!). I then take the top 5 candidates out to lunch (pre COVID) or virtual face to face. This meeting isn't an interrogation, it's a conversation between adults to see if there is a good overlap with my needs and your needs. I typically ask philosophical, open ended questions, many of which have no relevance to the domain I'm hiring for. If this goes OK, I prepare an offer with a 14-30 day contract period to make sure they can do the work and the work is what they want to do. After that, I let them be hired on or continue contracting. Astute readers will notice I don't consult with anyone underneath me--I may have them review anonymized applications or meeting notes, but I think having the peers you'll work with involved in the hiring process causes too much nepotism, cargo culting, and embarrassing displays of "stump the chump". As a leader, I know the skills I need, and I know who will jive with the team structure. I don't need people wishing I had hired X over Y or turning down people that may be smarter than them.
- Kluny 6y agoWow, that makes too much sense. It must be illegal.
- cornel_io 6y agoThe problem with that strategy is mainly just that you lose access to the best candidates, who won't accept a period of offer uncertainty because they have as many other solid offers as they care to take interviews. You run the real risk of biasing your process towards the worst candidates, who are constantly on the job market and are happy to take any shot they can get; that said, you also lessen the risk of one of those people getting into your company as a full hire, so it isn't all bad. It's a great way to do "fresh out of school" hiring, though, where there's no meaningful signal to look at (grades and school are trash) and good people aren't self-selected out the way they are later.
- axiolite 6y agoHow much are you going to know about a "fresh out of school" hire after 2 weeks, though? The less work experience they have, the longer it's going to take for them to really get up to speed and show that they will become valuable assets to the company. A 6-month contract might make sense there, but not a short-term one.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoI've had similar experiences across my career. If you have any self-esteem the process is a sad joke. It's amazing how many outfits - recruiters and hiring companies - don't realize how many yellow and red flags they emit in the most basic of interactions. I have a phrase I like to repeat: How you hire is who you hire.
- one2three4 6y ago"How you hire is who you hire." I like that. Reminds me of "You optimize what you measure". The thing is that they can do it. It's a buyers market - that is if you consider sellers the people selling their know-how and time for a living.
- heavyset_go 6y ago> It's amazing how many outfits - recruiters and hiring companies - don't realize how many yellow and red flags they emit in the most basic of interactions. It's like an reverse "cast a wide net" type of situation, where the net is tiny and full of holes, but there are so many desperate people out there that they still catch enough candidates with it to never question their methods.
- chiefalchemist 6y agoRight. "There aren't any good candidates," they typically say. Actually, there are. But not if they go about it they way they do, and keep doing. It's like saying, "There aren't any fish." And then casting the net back into your toilet.
- cutemonster 6y agoI'm curious about how an interview process would work, if you got to design it? What elements would it include, and not include
- chiefalchemist 6y agoWell, it would be more conversational for starters. That is, it's _not_ about hiring but fit - for all parties involved. For example, "Tell us why we should hire you." The classic closing question. Fair enough. But then I get to ask, "Tell me why I should want to have a career here," should be fair game. It's not. I've sat through far too many (traditional) interviews where they have a "you need us more than we need you" mindset. Ironic, eh. That's a cultural red flag. Just one example, btw. Culture matters. And it comes out in how you hire. And that determines who you hire, who you retain, or more importantly don't retain.
- trentnix 6y agoI just went through a job search and had most of the same experiences. I even had a recruiter, one that headhunted me, recommend an opportunity only to pause and remark that my experience as a business owner was a “problem”. I couldn’t help myself but to laugh and ask “then why did you call me to tell me how great of a fit I am???” Add those experiences to daily visits to the bizarre, cargo-cult world of virtue signaling, victimhood, and motivational quotes that is LinkedIn and you have a recipe for career despair. LinkedIn is like Mos Eisley mixed with Initech from Office Space. I hope I never have to job hunt ever again.
- CapitalistCartr 6y agoI fail "personality tests" because I am, in fact, not average, and because I don't care enough to lie on them.
- specialist 6y agoIn a world built on lies, truthsaying is seditious.
- throwawayboise 6y agoI always feel like I can pick the answers that indicate the competitive, Type-A, entrepreneurial types of people that the hiring company is looking for. But I'm told the tests are actually rigged to detect that. So who knows? I've only had one job where something like that was part of the screening process.
- ahepp 6y agoI'm curious if there's anything more advanced to detect lying than "you scored too high"
- emodendroket 6y agoThey ask multiple questions meant to determine the same thing.
- heavyset_go 6y agoIf you're just average then that raises suspicion, too.
- xyzelement 6y agoI find that the experience one has recruiting is directly related to where that person is interviewing which in turn is related to their caliber. On one extreme, a very desirable dev has the luxury of ignoring all but the most thoughtful recruiter pings on LinkedIn. He can also tune out companies that are too small, not tech-focused, don't have a good reputation, whatever. The small remainder of recruiters and companies that he will speak to are much more likely to have their shit together and provide a solid recruiting experience. On the other hand, if someone doesn't have a ton of options, they end up being much less selective about whom they speak to and where they interview, in addition to being less likely to be recruited by the top players to begin with. I think this explains the dichotomy of why some people consistently have horrible experiences and some never have them. And then there's the "hint" that if you only have the horrible experiences, there is something you need to strategically change.
- toast0 6y ago> On one extreme, a very desirable dev has the luxury of ignoring all but the most thoughtful recruiter pings on LinkedIn. You've set your sights too low. A very desirable dev doesn't need to interface with LinkedIn at all.
- xyzelement 6y agoI can see how that could be true although seems silly to limit your inbound opportunities that way (my last 2 roles came via a LI reach-out so I am biased) What has been your path that landed you amazing highly paid roles and why do you think you're not missing out by not hearing from a broader set of companies?
- toast0 6y agoWent to a small college in Milwaukee cause I knew someone going there on IRC and they had low admission standards. Got my job at Yahoo Travel via Topcoder referal (before LinkedIn existed). Worked there for seven years. Got many many many spams from LinkedIn to my yahoo-inc address when people uploaded the corporate address book and LinkedIn wouldn't let you unsubscribe without making an account. Made enough to pay a mortgage on a bay area house with a single income. Got recruited to WhatsApp by Brian Acton who was breifly my boss's boss at Yahoo. Worked there for not quite eight years. Made enough to retire comfortably. Could I have been more highly paid? Probably when I was working for Yahoo, I got a bigger salary when I moved to a startup. I doubt I could have found anything better post 2014 though. If I was looking now, I would probably look at selected company's hiring pages and/or through niche sites like HN's who's hiring etc.
- hartator 6y ago> Anyway, hiring is broken, we all know it. I don’t get why people says X is broken. When processes work exactly as designed. It’s just shitty processes.
- voiper1 6y ago>The cognitive test actually made me laugh. Imagine a workplace where someone yells, “Nazario! Get over here, we need someone add some fractions! No calculators!!!” Wait, that person calling him over must be an imposter - surely they had to pass the same cognitive test!
- ajcp 6y agoIt's actually just a long-con truth test to easily catch any false-positives that got through the process ;)
- ahepp 6y ago>Work as a contractor because the company forgot I said I’d be moving and didn’t want to file the paperwork in two states. At the time, I did not know the school or state of my wife’s residency. That seems extremely reasonable to me. Last time I was looking, there was a lot of bullshit, but I just ignored it. There are (and always will be) a lot of stupid, difficult people out there. Life will always be miserable if you feel obliged to do what they ask. That said, one that really pissed me off was asking me to record a self-interview. I'm fine doing some quick screens that might help weed out spam resumes. But to blatantly say "our time is more valuable than yours" is pretty ludicrous given the state of the labor market.
- apozem 6y ago> That seems extremely reasonable to me. I actually agreed to do this. I was willing to contract for a a few months until we moved. Didn't matter :(
- BlargMcLarg 6y agoPersonality tests are really not ok for a multitude of reasons. Almost always are they used to eliminate outliers or fish for personalities which are almost similar to the ones already present. Extremely ironic, as many personality tests emphasize people of different strengths cover weaknesses as long as they don't clash (personal favorite: companies only hiring happy-go-lucky people who won't question things, and then wonder why they critical issues aren't found). Also, companies who "want to hire for inclusivity" but then eliminate candidates based on a few petty personality differences screams the opposite of inclusivity.
- s__s 6y agoHaving similar / compatible personalities within your team is absolutely critical. Diversity is valuable in so far as having diverse skill sets or diverse backgrounds. Not diverse personalities. There’s no value in putting people who won’t get a long together in a team. Forming a tight bond and shared culture is ideal.
- perl4ever 6y ago>Not diverse personalities. If everyone on a team has the same sort of personality, you run the risk they will all leave at about the same time for the same reasons, if they become dissatisfied. If you have at least one 10x person with social phobia who hates interviews, then you can at least dump all the work on them. I failed a personality test once, by which I mean I decided any company that gave a flowchart reading test for all programmers wasn't a "cultural fit" for me.
- invisibledev 6y ago> I accepted a position with a company that had a sane, speedy hiring process. The consultancy can hire quickly because they can immediately bill you out. It doesn't mean they're a better/more efficient employer or whatever. But I can understand OP's frustration.
- ab_testing 6y agoHonestly reading about this ,none of this sounds any bad. There are worse interviews where you make videos of yourself answering questions about yourself and posting them on anonymous servers. Then on the other side of the spectrum is the whole leetcode thing where you solve 3-4 leetcode hard questions in 45 minutes while someone is staring and judging you for asking clarifications on questions.
- anm89 6y agoI'll go through a lot of bullshit for an interview but one thing I absolutely refuse to do is personality tests. That is the ultimate red flag in my mind.
- oboes 6y agoWhile going through the interview process for a government-owned agency tasked with developing IT products for my city, I was told that as per regulation I had to pass some kind of test organized by a third-party HR company. The interviewer explaining that to me was like "we're sorry but you'll have to go through this test even though it's annoying, but that's the rule and we all had to" (big red flag). So next week I went to that HR company expecting some kind of technical/programming assignment (it was a Python position). Instead had to take part in some weird theater play in which I was playing as a clerk at the municipal office. I was given 30 minutes to study documentation about an imaginary new regulation (related to noise pollution IIRC), and then some actor entered the room and pretended to be a stubborn and angry citizen complaining about that regulation. After that confusing and embarrassing experience, I tried to explain that I didn't understand the point of this thing since I was applying to a programming job with no customer/citizen-facing component. But they were adamant that it was relevant, because it was a government job, and apparently everybody in government is a city clerk. The full thing went on for 3 hours (I hadn't been informed it would take so long). As a compensation for my time I was given a tuna sandwich (I wish I was joking).
- geocrasher 6y agoSounds like it was a case of them trying to hire somebody who was smart enough to program in Python but too passive or desperate to walk out on a test it was clearly irrelevant. Did you end up taking the job?
- oboes 6y agoNo, don't know if it was because of this test (I did complain when they asked me for my opinion of the test). I found something else some time later and I think I dodged a bullet. I think the blame for this test might lie on government mismanagement rather than the would-be actual employer. There is a rule making vetting by a 3rd company mandatory in the hiring process (to avoid nepotism), but they do the same kind of test for completely unrelated kind of government jobs. I have two friends who had to go through something similar when interviewing for a different local government employer (not IT-related for them, but still unrelated to a clerk job).
- mgarfias 6y agoGodaddy gave me an iq test. That was nuts.