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Definitely not - if an author has written a book in German (even if it's not their native language) then giving them a German test is definitely insulting, the

Definitely not - if an author has written a book in German (even if it's not their native language) then giving them a German test is definitely insulting, the same applies for a newscaster in Italian if they have done reporting in Italian previously. What you say applies if you're hiring people for their first position at that task (e.g. the author writing their first book in German or a newscaster who has never done reporting in Italian professionally). If you're hiring people at some hypothetical "level 10" then your interview needs to discriminate between "level 9 or less" people and "level 10 or more" people, but asking them to assert that they meet "level 1" implies that they might not, and that implication is literally insulting.

sokoloff 5y ago
In the interview case, you often have someone who claims they wrote a book in German (but you can’t see the book) or to be a professional Italian newscaster (but you can’t see any of their reporting). Switching part of the interview to be in Italian or German would not be seen as disrespectful, right? It’s interesting that some find the coding equivalent insulting rather than merely a bar pointlessly laid on the ground to be stepped over.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  The difference IMHO is in the expectations of what's required from the applicant. Switching part of the interview to be in Italian or German would not be seen as disrespectful as it does not add much (if anything) to the length of the interview, but asking them to fill a 30-minute quiz on basic Italian/German grammar would be disrespectful. A bar pointlessly laid on the ground to be stepped over is reasonable iff it's you can just quickly to step over it - but if they ask the candidate to waste half an hour to prove their capacity for stepping over bars laying on the ground, that is disrespectful of their time. For programming, a trivial short task (e.g. fizzbuzz) is appropriate but a trivial long task is appropriate only for junior positions but disrespectful for senior ones - ask something that tests whether they're capable of something serious, because passing the trivial task can't be sufficient anyway.
allo37 5y ago
I think the issue is what happens if an author ghostwrote a book in German? I guess that's the book version of copying code off Stack Overflow and claiming it's yours? People trying to game the system make it crappier for everyone else.

sokoloff 5y ago

In the interview case, you often have someone who claims they wrote a book in German (but you can’t see the book) or to be a professional Italian newscaster (but you can’t see any of their reporting). Switching part of the interview to be in Italian or German would not be seen as disrespectful, right? It’s interesting that some find the coding equivalent insulting rather than merely a bar pointlessly laid on the ground to be stepped over.

PeterisP 5y ago
The difference IMHO is in the expectations of what's required from the applicant. Switching part of the interview to be in Italian or German would not be seen as disrespectful as it does not add much (if anything) to the length of the interview, but asking them to fill a 30-minute quiz on basic Italian/German grammar would be disrespectful. A bar pointlessly laid on the ground to be stepped over is reasonable iff it's you can just quickly to step over it - but if they ask the candidate to waste half an hour to prove their capacity for stepping over bars laying on the ground, that is disrespectful of their time. For programming, a trivial short task (e.g. fizzbuzz) is appropriate but a trivial long task is appropriate only for junior positions but disrespectful for senior ones - ask something that tests whether they're capable of something serious, because passing the trivial task can't be sufficient anyway.

allo37 5y ago

I think the issue is what happens if an author ghostwrote a book in German? I guess that's the book version of copying code off Stack Overflow and claiming it's yours? People trying to game the system make it crappier for everyone else.