4 ms·

> people don’t care what you’ve done. They care about how you perform in the interview. I think OP is expecting a level of competence from interviewers that si

> people don’t care what you’ve done. They care about how you perform in the interview. I think OP is expecting a level of competence from interviewers that simply doesn’t exist anymore. He’s from a time when the initial conversation would be engineers only and absolutely focused on past projects.

mavelikara 5y ago
> I think OP is expecting a level of competence from interviewers that simply doesn’t exist anymore. No. OP has not realized that the job market has plenty of charlatans who can talk well, but can't do the job.
- gopher_space 5y ago
  That’s why you need competent interviews. Charlatans don’t make it past engineers.
  - mavelikara 5y ago
    > Charlatans don’t make it past engineers. There is plenty of evidence that this just isn't true.
    - gopher_space 5y ago
      Just ask someone to apply claimed knowledge to a novel situation. You can’t bullshit your way through that with someone who does work sitting in the room.
  - bradknowles 5y ago
    With respect, most of the charlatans I’ve seen over the years have been the people conducting the interviews. Fortunately, that hasn’t always been the case, otherwise I wouldn’t be in the job I am today. But that does seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
kamaal 5y ago
Well, yeah, tough luck. There are people out there who keep complaining about talent shortage, and not finding people to do anything at all. But you go through their hiring process and it's all about 10 rounds of questions on OJ sites like LC. Plus they have a bar raiser round which is just basically more of the same. This actually makes the problem much worse because the only people who are acing these tests are people who are investing their time in acing these tests and not people who are actually good at their jobs. If you found a job there is little incentive to do any thing at work, and you are just better off continuing to practice interviewing further, so that you can quit to grab another 50% raise in 6 months. Ironically these kind of people are considered to be in high demand. Most of them haven't done one single turn key project their whole lives, and wouldn't know or even stay to do one if needed. The real ones who have proven track records of delivering projects aren't even considered hiring because they don't know a dozen ways of inverting a tree. The world is an unfair place, most companies with these hiring processes, have moats which are pretty much an infinite gravy train, so its ok to do all this. This is the game, We just have to deal with this as we go.
- skyzyx 5y ago
  I was at AWS for 4 years and spent A LOT of time interviewing. We couldn’t find and interview qualified candidates fast enough. Lots of engineers doing the interviewing; few charlatans. At AWS, however, it’s important to look at the well-roundedness of the candidate. It doesn’t matter how much code you’ve delivered if you’re an asshole in meetings. Being a self-starter, earning the trust of your peers, and being highly-focused on customer experience are all soft skills, but are critical to ensuring success in the role. Hiring the wrong person is costly, and even then, many people at AWS wash-out in the first 2 years. Soft skills and collaborative working habits are MORE important than writing code. Code can be taught. Being collaborative and thinking-like-an-owner is much harder to teach.
- ac2022 5y ago
  Issues like these make me want to move into management and code on my own as a hobby. I am lucky to have a hobby that pays so well but I often see future of programmers bleak. Just recently two of my friends switched their jobs. They may have spend maximum of 30 mins to prepare for their interviews in total. One is a manager and other is recruiter. Their interviews were quick and didn't take more than 3-4 hours each. Not only that they claim they enjoyed the interview process. Our interviews are so grueling, we need to spend hours preparing for our interviews. We are treated like liars and need to proof that we are not lying. I don't know why we take this abuse and how we can fight it. It has been really frustrating for me lately.

mavelikara 5y ago

> I think OP is expecting a level of competence from interviewers that simply doesn’t exist anymore. No. OP has not realized that the job market has plenty of charlatans who can talk well, but can't do the job.

gopher_space 5y ago
That’s why you need competent interviews. Charlatans don’t make it past engineers.
- mavelikara 5y ago
  > Charlatans don’t make it past engineers. There is plenty of evidence that this just isn't true.
  - gopher_space 5y ago
    Just ask someone to apply claimed knowledge to a novel situation. You can’t bullshit your way through that with someone who does work sitting in the room.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  With respect, most of the charlatans I’ve seen over the years have been the people conducting the interviews. Fortunately, that hasn’t always been the case, otherwise I wouldn’t be in the job I am today. But that does seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

kamaal 5y ago

Well, yeah, tough luck. There are people out there who keep complaining about talent shortage, and not finding people to do anything at all. But you go through their hiring process and it's all about 10 rounds of questions on OJ sites like LC. Plus they have a bar raiser round which is just basically more of the same. This actually makes the problem much worse because the only people who are acing these tests are people who are investing their time in acing these tests and not people who are actually good at their jobs. If you found a job there is little incentive to do any thing at work, and you are just better off continuing to practice interviewing further, so that you can quit to grab another 50% raise in 6 months. Ironically these kind of people are considered to be in high demand. Most of them haven't done one single turn key project their whole lives, and wouldn't know or even stay to do one if needed. The real ones who have proven track records of delivering projects aren't even considered hiring because they don't know a dozen ways of inverting a tree. The world is an unfair place, most companies with these hiring processes, have moats which are pretty much an infinite gravy train, so its ok to do all this. This is the game, We just have to deal with this as we go.

skyzyx 5y ago
I was at AWS for 4 years and spent A LOT of time interviewing. We couldn’t find and interview qualified candidates fast enough. Lots of engineers doing the interviewing; few charlatans. At AWS, however, it’s important to look at the well-roundedness of the candidate. It doesn’t matter how much code you’ve delivered if you’re an asshole in meetings. Being a self-starter, earning the trust of your peers, and being highly-focused on customer experience are all soft skills, but are critical to ensuring success in the role. Hiring the wrong person is costly, and even then, many people at AWS wash-out in the first 2 years. Soft skills and collaborative working habits are MORE important than writing code. Code can be taught. Being collaborative and thinking-like-an-owner is much harder to teach.
ac2022 5y ago
Issues like these make me want to move into management and code on my own as a hobby. I am lucky to have a hobby that pays so well but I often see future of programmers bleak. Just recently two of my friends switched their jobs. They may have spend maximum of 30 mins to prepare for their interviews in total. One is a manager and other is recruiter. Their interviews were quick and didn't take more than 3-4 hours each. Not only that they claim they enjoyed the interview process. Our interviews are so grueling, we need to spend hours preparing for our interviews. We are treated like liars and need to proof that we are not lying. I don't know why we take this abuse and how we can fight it. It has been really frustrating for me lately.