4 ms·

I think a "written interview" for a remote position is actually a really good idea; it shows writing skills, and ability to communicate in a remote position. I

I think a "written interview" for a remote position is actually a really good idea; it shows writing skills, and ability to communicate in a remote position. I don't like the questions about high school, especially the personal questions. It's been 25 years (and longer for others), it wasn't particularly good period for me to the point of being traumatic, and I'm a completely different person then I was then. I don't see how it really matters for any aspect of the job either (technical, social, or cultural). We could argue a bit about some of the other questions, but overall it should be entirely doable to complete this in 30 to 60 minutes, the time a regular video chat would take, and it's probably less stressful for quite a few people. I don't really see how this is an "Interview from Hell".

heartofadog 5y ago
Overall it should be entirely doable to complete this in 30 to 60 minutes, This is ludicrous of course. There no way you can sanely expect someone to answer 37 open-ended / largely interpretive questions of this sort in 30 minutes. Or even 90.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  unless of course the answers are of roughly the same length as the questions themselves.
  - heartofadog 5y ago
    Which makes them basically meaningless as questions.
the_jeremy 5y ago
1. The questions on both high school and college should be meaningless for anyone 5+ years into their career. I am a different person than I was in high school. 2. It is unclear from the prompt how much detail to provide - many of these questions could have multi-page responses. Is that preferred, or penalized? 3. There are far too many questions (37!). "Choose 3 of the above, and write 10-20 sentences on them" would be a much better prompt if your goal was to evaluate writing skills and communication ability. Good writing takes time. 4. The asymmetric time spent between candidate and company. So far Canonical has only done the "6 second resume test", and then asks the candidate to spend an unbounded amount of time answering these questions. The company is wasting time of candidates that would not be a good fit for the role. 5. Heavily biased toward native English speakers. I have worked with people who can clearly communicate their thoughts but make English grammar mistakes. The worst part is they bill this as an attempt at avoiding bias.
- Beltalowda 5y ago
  I think you can (and should) use your own judgement in how much detail you want to provide. It's the same with a normal interview question: on any question you have the choice to give a short concise answer or go in to great detail. For some of these questions I would provide a fairly short answer, on others a much more expansive one. > So far Canonical has only done the "6 second resume test", and then asks the candidate to spend an unbounded amount of time answering these questions I don't know who gets this assignment: maybe they're very selective about it, or they shotgun it to loads of people. The intro text leads me to believe that it's not shotgunned, but hard to be sure. Most intro calls I've had were 100% a complete waste of time for both of the participants by the way, where they just read what's on the website and job posting ("I can read thank you"), and you just repeat what's on your CV ("surely you can read too?"), after which you're typically given some technical assignment or a second (actually useful) interview. > 5. Heavily biased toward native English speakers. I have worked with people who can clearly communicate their thoughts but make English grammar mistakes. The worst part is they bill this as an attempt at avoiding bias. English is the language in which Canonical communicates, and selecting for English proficiency makes sense, just as selecting for proficiency in $technology makes sense. Does this advantage native English speakers? Sure, but that can't really be helped I'm afraid. I've worked with non-native coworkers (as a non-native speaker myself, I should add) that were a pain to work with because half the time they wrote some documentation there were so many odd grammar mistakes that it was hard to read, and in some cases very unclear. So the bias is skill-based.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    > The intro text leads me to believe that it's not shotgunned Given that they asked questions about high school, and also questions about being an 'industry thought leader', I disagree.
a-dub 5y ago
maybe too many prompts, but yes, what happens during a first interview is generally these sorts of discussions followed by the interviewer jotting down notes. asking candidates to submit short essays where they can choose what to highlight and how seems like a fine idea. just needs a "pick a few from each category" and "400-600 words please" designation. probably also more suitable for people who work in product design / management or data science / business analyst / staff swe hybrid roles (roles where defining the work is part of the work) than people who are looking to complete predefined task assignments or solve issues with high velocity.
ivraatiems 5y ago
I agree that the idea is fine, but this is way way too many questions and would take me more than 60 minutes, especially given that there are no guidelines provided about length of response. I would find this agonizing to complete, personally. A conversation is much less pressure for me. The length and complexity is a red flag, and the questions about high school are just absurd. Who cares?

heartofadog 5y ago

Overall it should be entirely doable to complete this in 30 to 60 minutes, This is ludicrous of course. There no way you can sanely expect someone to answer 37 open-ended / largely interpretive questions of this sort in 30 minutes. Or even 90.

tpoacher 5y ago
unless of course the answers are of roughly the same length as the questions themselves.
- heartofadog 5y ago
  Which makes them basically meaningless as questions.

the_jeremy 5y ago

1. The questions on both high school and college should be meaningless for anyone 5+ years into their career. I am a different person than I was in high school. 2. It is unclear from the prompt how much detail to provide - many of these questions could have multi-page responses. Is that preferred, or penalized? 3. There are far too many questions (37!). "Choose 3 of the above, and write 10-20 sentences on them" would be a much better prompt if your goal was to evaluate writing skills and communication ability. Good writing takes time. 4. The asymmetric time spent between candidate and company. So far Canonical has only done the "6 second resume test", and then asks the candidate to spend an unbounded amount of time answering these questions. The company is wasting time of candidates that would not be a good fit for the role. 5. Heavily biased toward native English speakers. I have worked with people who can clearly communicate their thoughts but make English grammar mistakes. The worst part is they bill this as an attempt at avoiding bias.

Beltalowda 5y ago
I think you can (and should) use your own judgement in how much detail you want to provide. It's the same with a normal interview question: on any question you have the choice to give a short concise answer or go in to great detail. For some of these questions I would provide a fairly short answer, on others a much more expansive one. > So far Canonical has only done the "6 second resume test", and then asks the candidate to spend an unbounded amount of time answering these questions I don't know who gets this assignment: maybe they're very selective about it, or they shotgun it to loads of people. The intro text leads me to believe that it's not shotgunned, but hard to be sure. Most intro calls I've had were 100% a complete waste of time for both of the participants by the way, where they just read what's on the website and job posting ("I can read thank you"), and you just repeat what's on your CV ("surely you can read too?"), after which you're typically given some technical assignment or a second (actually useful) interview. > 5. Heavily biased toward native English speakers. I have worked with people who can clearly communicate their thoughts but make English grammar mistakes. The worst part is they bill this as an attempt at avoiding bias. English is the language in which Canonical communicates, and selecting for English proficiency makes sense, just as selecting for proficiency in $technology makes sense. Does this advantage native English speakers? Sure, but that can't really be helped I'm afraid. I've worked with non-native coworkers (as a non-native speaker myself, I should add) that were a pain to work with because half the time they wrote some documentation there were so many odd grammar mistakes that it was hard to read, and in some cases very unclear. So the bias is skill-based.
- michaelt 5y ago
  > The intro text leads me to believe that it's not shotgunned Given that they asked questions about high school, and also questions about being an 'industry thought leader', I disagree.

a-dub 5y ago

maybe too many prompts, but yes, what happens during a first interview is generally these sorts of discussions followed by the interviewer jotting down notes. asking candidates to submit short essays where they can choose what to highlight and how seems like a fine idea. just needs a "pick a few from each category" and "400-600 words please" designation. probably also more suitable for people who work in product design / management or data science / business analyst / staff swe hybrid roles (roles where defining the work is part of the work) than people who are looking to complete predefined task assignments or solve issues with high velocity.

ivraatiems 5y ago

I agree that the idea is fine, but this is way way too many questions and would take me more than 60 minutes, especially given that there are no guidelines provided about length of response. I would find this agonizing to complete, personally. A conversation is much less pressure for me. The length and complexity is a red flag, and the questions about high school are just absurd. Who cares?