7 ms·

If I am running the company, I would MUCH rather operate short-handed than "fix" my recruiting problems by lowering the bar. You don't have to agree with the b

If I am running the company, I would MUCH rather operate short-handed than "fix" my recruiting problems by lowering the bar. You don't have to agree with the bar the companies are using, but that is the bar they have converged on, and one that plenty of people are capable of passing. Would much rather compete for those people.

sbacic 5y ago
This is all contingent on said leetcode riddles actually helping with candidate selection. If they aren't, you've just limited your pool of potential candidates for no reason whatsoever.
- seanp2k2 5y ago
  https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards
jjav 5y ago
> If I am running the company, I would MUCH rather operate short-handed than "fix" my recruiting problems by lowering the bar. Nobody is talking about lowering the bar, but of putting the bar in the right zipcode. An extremely high bar of leetcode testing is irrelevant to the actual job, so that's an irrelevant bar.
- mcguire 5y ago
  And yet, those companies seem to be more successful than others with "more relevant" bars.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Leet code interviews only showed up late in these companies trajectories. Internally it’s no longer about what the company wants so much as what people inside the company want which presents huge conflicts of interest. Google for example has done significant research and found such practices wasteful, but internal culture is what it is. In practical terms the FAANG companies internal processes are horrible and they can’t seem to innovate at all, but as long as they continue to print money there is zero reason to risk change.
  - mech422 5y ago
    Google actually admitted their 'elite' leet code interview process didn't actually help the outcomes... This is the first link I dug up about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/google-finally-admits-that-its-infamous-brainteasers-were-completely-useless-for-hiring/277053/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/google-...
    - dmoy 5y ago
      That isn't about the leetcode interviewing. That's about the microsoft-era actual riddles, like "if you were reduced to the size of an ant and put in a blender, how would you get out?"
      - mech422 5y ago
        eh - I wouldn't be surprised to see the same article about the leetcode stuff. Maybe using methods that have nothing to do with the job, just don't lead to good results ?
        xyzelement 5y ago
        So let me get this straight, you cited a random "first link you dug up", unrelated to your point, and claim it as evidence because you "wouldn't be surprised" if some other article (that doesn't exist) supported your view?
        mech422 5y ago
        I didn't cite it, and I didn't say some other article existed.. What I said was basically "google admitted their old method didn't work, here's a link if your interested. I wouldn't be surprised if the new method doesn't work either, and we see articles about that in a few years" The I "wouldn't be surprised" part comes from both methods actually having very little to do with the job at hand, and therefore I think they would BOTH be bad predictors of performance at that job..
        5y ago
  - jjav 5y ago
    Or you could look at it as those companies have so much money and fame that they have tens of thousands of candidates pounding at their door so they can afford to arbitrarily reject approximately everyone. But if you're running a startup (target audience of ycombinator), you'd do well to play a smarter game since you can't outspend or out-fame the FAANGs. A big part of that is to have better interviewing practices than they do.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  This may seem coldly logical but in the absence of my own researched opinions, I am evaluating the merit of the opinion about these interviews based on their origin: You have - companies that settled on this process, who have been able to attract top tallent that has cleared this bar. You have - employees of these companies that were able to clear the interview bar. And then you have - people who don't work for these companies, proclaim to have no interest/ability to clear the bar, but claim to have a valid view into where the bar should be. In the absence of other data it doesn't seem like the last group is likely to be objectively right
  - pianoben 5y ago
    Personally I suck at leetcode questions, but nevertheless have snuck in to some of these so-called "top-tier" companies. And let me tell you! These questions have fuck-all to do with the actual work the happens there. Sure, you can usually find someone to tell you how much rainwater accumulates into a random bar chart, but I see as much brain-dead code at the top as anywhere else. As much great code, too, FWIW. Everywhere, the key skills that make for a successful IC are the same, and they definitely don't require implementing splay trees or skip lists from scratch and without references. 99% of the time it's shuffling bits around and using hash maps. Honestly the people I work with who advocate the hardest for leetcode are the ones who had to grind hard and, evidently, want others to suffer too. As if a sane process would mean their own suffering was in vain.
    - xyzelement 5y ago
      I am not sure that's the whole picture. I don't care about leetcode type problems but if I was applying for a job where they were a barrier to entry, I'd go figure out what it takes to master them. The bar may simply be "sober enough to understand what it takes to succeed at this task", "committed enough to prepare" and "smart enough to solve them" These attributes correlate strongly with success, I'd imagine.
      - xemdetia 5y ago
        I disagree with this point because most interviewers and interviewees are novices, and giving them a task that gives straight pass/fail feedback optimizes for the wrong solution for people that can solve puzzles but not think about systems well. I've had many candidates be able to zip through puzzles but when asked relevant questions about building an understanding systems they wash out immediately. Most systems are more than one code file and I don't need to waste my hiring expenses teaching them how to think about systems from near scratch and having to heavy hand review them to write good code. I have generally found the only leetcode grind types to be less self sufficient and not really a signifier to success. In my experience the leetcode grind type can't even expand on their own answers to answer any useful questions like 'where and why would you use what you just made' and 'what technologies have you used that might utilize this technique' ends up with crickets. Right now my interview has a wash out coding exercise that is beginner oriented to get the resume liars but other than that it's all systems.
rubicon33 5y ago
This always strikes me as the answer that a computer science reclusive would take. You would rather throw cryptic riddles and math puzzles at your lesser man, than pick up the phone and call their previous employer and ask how they performed, what projects they worked on, etc. I would bet money that the latter is far more predictive of quality candidates than any leetcode problem you randomly pluck from the ether and expect them to solve under pressure. But again, I expect nothing less from an industry that isn't exactly known for being good at human interaction.
- rkeene2 5y ago
  The company that the candidate previously worked for is typically not permitted to say anything about the candidate without prior authorization. Your proposed solution is not workable. I've previously hired contractors with minimal interviewing because they came from a trusted partner to my organization, so I asked the partner about their productivity and skills and they were given good reviews relative to what we were trying to accomplish. Each of them were a net negative with respect to the project. The time it took me to review their pull requests and help them write code which was passable was longer than it would have taken me to write the code myself. Additionally, the code that was passable has been a constant source of bugs. A more thorough technical interview may have avoided hiring them. In retrospect, the correct course of action would have been to not hire anyone until someone qualified was available. This anecdote does support the grand-parent posters theory that operating with fewer incompetent people is better. Additionally, their proposal is generally workable (which again, yours is not). Competence is a spectrum and so at some level of competence there will be people who are competent but unable to pass overly complex interview questions. The fact that this overlap exists seems to be what you are complaining about. Even still, not hiring people in this overlap is probably safer than hiring people which make the system worse in my experience.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > The company that the candidate previously worked for is typically not permitted to say anything about the candidate without prior authorization. Your proposed solution is not workable. You're right in that HR of their previous (likely current) employes won't say or allow saying anything. But of course they're likely not giving as references their current boss, for obvious reasons. Their previous bosses though, who have also left that company, will speak to you freely.

sbacic 5y ago

This is all contingent on said leetcode riddles actually helping with candidate selection. If they aren't, you've just limited your pool of potential candidates for no reason whatsoever.

seanp2k2 5y ago
https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards

jjav 5y ago

> If I am running the company, I would MUCH rather operate short-handed than "fix" my recruiting problems by lowering the bar. Nobody is talking about lowering the bar, but of putting the bar in the right zipcode. An extremely high bar of leetcode testing is irrelevant to the actual job, so that's an irrelevant bar.

mcguire 5y ago
And yet, those companies seem to be more successful than others with "more relevant" bars.
- Retric 5y ago
  Leet code interviews only showed up late in these companies trajectories. Internally it’s no longer about what the company wants so much as what people inside the company want which presents huge conflicts of interest. Google for example has done significant research and found such practices wasteful, but internal culture is what it is. In practical terms the FAANG companies internal processes are horrible and they can’t seem to innovate at all, but as long as they continue to print money there is zero reason to risk change.
- mech422 5y ago
  Google actually admitted their 'elite' leet code interview process didn't actually help the outcomes... This is the first link I dug up about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/google-finally-admits-that-its-infamous-brainteasers-were-completely-useless-for-hiring/277053/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/google-...
  - dmoy 5y ago
    That isn't about the leetcode interviewing. That's about the microsoft-era actual riddles, like "if you were reduced to the size of an ant and put in a blender, how would you get out?"
    - mech422 5y ago
      eh - I wouldn't be surprised to see the same article about the leetcode stuff. Maybe using methods that have nothing to do with the job, just don't lead to good results ?
      - xyzelement 5y ago
        So let me get this straight, you cited a random "first link you dug up", unrelated to your point, and claim it as evidence because you "wouldn't be surprised" if some other article (that doesn't exist) supported your view?
        mech422 5y ago
        I didn't cite it, and I didn't say some other article existed.. What I said was basically "google admitted their old method didn't work, here's a link if your interested. I wouldn't be surprised if the new method doesn't work either, and we see articles about that in a few years" The I "wouldn't be surprised" part comes from both methods actually having very little to do with the job at hand, and therefore I think they would BOTH be bad predictors of performance at that job..
        5y ago
- jjav 5y ago
  Or you could look at it as those companies have so much money and fame that they have tens of thousands of candidates pounding at their door so they can afford to arbitrarily reject approximately everyone. But if you're running a startup (target audience of ycombinator), you'd do well to play a smarter game since you can't outspend or out-fame the FAANGs. A big part of that is to have better interviewing practices than they do.
xyzelement 5y ago
This may seem coldly logical but in the absence of my own researched opinions, I am evaluating the merit of the opinion about these interviews based on their origin: You have - companies that settled on this process, who have been able to attract top tallent that has cleared this bar. You have - employees of these companies that were able to clear the interview bar. And then you have - people who don't work for these companies, proclaim to have no interest/ability to clear the bar, but claim to have a valid view into where the bar should be. In the absence of other data it doesn't seem like the last group is likely to be objectively right
- pianoben 5y ago
  Personally I suck at leetcode questions, but nevertheless have snuck in to some of these so-called "top-tier" companies. And let me tell you! These questions have fuck-all to do with the actual work the happens there. Sure, you can usually find someone to tell you how much rainwater accumulates into a random bar chart, but I see as much brain-dead code at the top as anywhere else. As much great code, too, FWIW. Everywhere, the key skills that make for a successful IC are the same, and they definitely don't require implementing splay trees or skip lists from scratch and without references. 99% of the time it's shuffling bits around and using hash maps. Honestly the people I work with who advocate the hardest for leetcode are the ones who had to grind hard and, evidently, want others to suffer too. As if a sane process would mean their own suffering was in vain.
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    I am not sure that's the whole picture. I don't care about leetcode type problems but if I was applying for a job where they were a barrier to entry, I'd go figure out what it takes to master them. The bar may simply be "sober enough to understand what it takes to succeed at this task", "committed enough to prepare" and "smart enough to solve them" These attributes correlate strongly with success, I'd imagine.
    - xemdetia 5y ago
      I disagree with this point because most interviewers and interviewees are novices, and giving them a task that gives straight pass/fail feedback optimizes for the wrong solution for people that can solve puzzles but not think about systems well. I've had many candidates be able to zip through puzzles but when asked relevant questions about building an understanding systems they wash out immediately. Most systems are more than one code file and I don't need to waste my hiring expenses teaching them how to think about systems from near scratch and having to heavy hand review them to write good code. I have generally found the only leetcode grind types to be less self sufficient and not really a signifier to success. In my experience the leetcode grind type can't even expand on their own answers to answer any useful questions like 'where and why would you use what you just made' and 'what technologies have you used that might utilize this technique' ends up with crickets. Right now my interview has a wash out coding exercise that is beginner oriented to get the resume liars but other than that it's all systems.

rubicon33 5y ago

This always strikes me as the answer that a computer science reclusive would take. You would rather throw cryptic riddles and math puzzles at your lesser man, than pick up the phone and call their previous employer and ask how they performed, what projects they worked on, etc. I would bet money that the latter is far more predictive of quality candidates than any leetcode problem you randomly pluck from the ether and expect them to solve under pressure. But again, I expect nothing less from an industry that isn't exactly known for being good at human interaction.

rkeene2 5y ago
The company that the candidate previously worked for is typically not permitted to say anything about the candidate without prior authorization. Your proposed solution is not workable. I've previously hired contractors with minimal interviewing because they came from a trusted partner to my organization, so I asked the partner about their productivity and skills and they were given good reviews relative to what we were trying to accomplish. Each of them were a net negative with respect to the project. The time it took me to review their pull requests and help them write code which was passable was longer than it would have taken me to write the code myself. Additionally, the code that was passable has been a constant source of bugs. A more thorough technical interview may have avoided hiring them. In retrospect, the correct course of action would have been to not hire anyone until someone qualified was available. This anecdote does support the grand-parent posters theory that operating with fewer incompetent people is better. Additionally, their proposal is generally workable (which again, yours is not). Competence is a spectrum and so at some level of competence there will be people who are competent but unable to pass overly complex interview questions. The fact that this overlap exists seems to be what you are complaining about. Even still, not hiring people in this overlap is probably safer than hiring people which make the system worse in my experience.
- jjav 5y ago
  > The company that the candidate previously worked for is typically not permitted to say anything about the candidate without prior authorization. Your proposed solution is not workable. You're right in that HR of their previous (likely current) employes won't say or allow saying anything. But of course they're likely not giving as references their current boss, for obvious reasons. Their previous bosses though, who have also left that company, will speak to you freely.