3 ms·

The problems with this seem to be: - too many questions - unfocused questions - poor guidance on how much to write - Or maybe canonical don’t hire much? I

The problems with this seem to be: - too many questions - unfocused questions - poor guidance on how much to write - Or maybe canonical don’t hire much? I feel like they probably came from either a big brainstorming session, adding to some standard template, or trying fewer questions and then adding more when candidates failed to intuit the right kind of responses. That said, it feels like it’s on-the-margin good for companies to be experimenting with different hiring processes in general and trying to reduce bias in the process is a noble goal so I’m not massively sad about this. I think oxide also do some kind of written submission based hiring process for example (and they do it with the very reasonable claim that they think written communication is important so they want to hire for it). If you’re good at passing ‘standard’ interview processes then it’s probably fine to skip this one and maybe you’d wish they’d go for the same process as everyone else. If you suck at the standard ‘algorithms’ questions, maybe you’d be thankful that something else exists (though maybe there are still algorithms questions later) and keen to give it a try. That could end up biasing canonical’s candidates towards people who are undervalued by the market which could make it cheaper for them to hire (by spending less effort trying to close on candidates with lots of competing offers)

version_five 5y ago
> If you’re good at passing ‘standard’ interview processes then it’s probably fine to skip this one and maybe you’d wish they’d go for the same process as everyone else. If you suck at the standard ‘algorithms’ questions, maybe you’d be thankful that something else exists This is a good point I didn't consider. (I made two other posts in this thread criticizing the process) If someone is going to spend hours revising for another kind of in-person interview due to their discomfort with the prospect, and would rather invest the same time in providing written answers, they may view this as a better alternative, and that's fair. I don't know enough about the overall process to understand if putting good work into the written part gives them a break on other parts where they may otherwise not perform well. And I still think that making everybody do this is asymmetrical. They could ask everyone to do it and assess them algorithmically for example, wasting huge amounts of peoples time. Maybe if it's given as a choice vs a "get to know you" interview by a recruiter, and it's explained how both are equivalent?
- freedomben 5y ago
  I agree, I think the idea of a "written" interview is interesting and might be a good idea. The problem I have with this is that there's not enough Canonical skin in the game. They have you do this before they invest any of their time in you. That means that if it takes you 20 hours to respond to all of these in writing, it's nothing from them to trash can your application. They aren't incentivized to make sure they're balancing the value they get with the time it takes to do it. They're basically that person who orders the Lobster and several rounds of imported beer because somebody else is paying the tab. If it was on their dime they'd be a lot more reasonable. At least, at a minimum, do this toward the end. Do the culture fit interview and the aptitude test first so a lot fewer candidates waste their time writing the book you asked for.
yunohn 5y ago
> maybe you’d be thankful that something else exists That’s the thing though, this is only the beginning of their larger interview process which still includes all the usual suspects: > The stages for this application are: - Review of resume (done) - Written interview (this step) - Standardised aptitude and personality assessment - Culture, HR, peer interviews and tech assessments - Hiring manager and senior lead interviews
- thewebcount 5y ago
  Yeah and that “personality assessment” is another term for building in bias at most companies. “We were impressed with you, but you weren’t a ‘personality fit, so we’re going to pass.’”
thewebcount 5y ago
> trying to reduce bias in the process is a noble goal I feel like this does the opposite. The first half is about how well you performed in high school (WTF? High school was 30 years ago for me. How is that relevant?), how well you did in college, and how well you did compared to your peers in those situations. What if I didn’t graduate high school or college? What if I come from someplace where schooling is done differently? What if I did poorly in one of those but my peers were geniuses? What if I did well but my peers were idiots? How does this give them any signal at all?
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  Yeah I deliberately didn’t claim that it actually reduced bias. (Though I think I’d be more worried about class signifiers in the language/content/choice of the answers). It also feels somewhat questionable to me whether working hard to reduce bias is worth it for the company. Obviously there are legal obligations to avoid discrimination but being fair to everyone can mean more work per hire making the process more expensive. The best argument in favour of trying to be fair is that it increases your chance of finding a hire with outlier performance, though I think it is pretty easy to drop such people at other steps.

version_five 5y ago

> If you’re good at passing ‘standard’ interview processes then it’s probably fine to skip this one and maybe you’d wish they’d go for the same process as everyone else. If you suck at the standard ‘algorithms’ questions, maybe you’d be thankful that something else exists This is a good point I didn't consider. (I made two other posts in this thread criticizing the process) If someone is going to spend hours revising for another kind of in-person interview due to their discomfort with the prospect, and would rather invest the same time in providing written answers, they may view this as a better alternative, and that's fair. I don't know enough about the overall process to understand if putting good work into the written part gives them a break on other parts where they may otherwise not perform well. And I still think that making everybody do this is asymmetrical. They could ask everyone to do it and assess them algorithmically for example, wasting huge amounts of peoples time. Maybe if it's given as a choice vs a "get to know you" interview by a recruiter, and it's explained how both are equivalent?

freedomben 5y ago
I agree, I think the idea of a "written" interview is interesting and might be a good idea. The problem I have with this is that there's not enough Canonical skin in the game. They have you do this before they invest any of their time in you. That means that if it takes you 20 hours to respond to all of these in writing, it's nothing from them to trash can your application. They aren't incentivized to make sure they're balancing the value they get with the time it takes to do it. They're basically that person who orders the Lobster and several rounds of imported beer because somebody else is paying the tab. If it was on their dime they'd be a lot more reasonable. At least, at a minimum, do this toward the end. Do the culture fit interview and the aptitude test first so a lot fewer candidates waste their time writing the book you asked for.

yunohn 5y ago

> maybe you’d be thankful that something else exists That’s the thing though, this is only the beginning of their larger interview process which still includes all the usual suspects: > The stages for this application are: - Review of resume (done) - Written interview (this step) - Standardised aptitude and personality assessment - Culture, HR, peer interviews and tech assessments - Hiring manager and senior lead interviews

thewebcount 5y ago
Yeah and that “personality assessment” is another term for building in bias at most companies. “We were impressed with you, but you weren’t a ‘personality fit, so we’re going to pass.’”

thewebcount 5y ago

> trying to reduce bias in the process is a noble goal I feel like this does the opposite. The first half is about how well you performed in high school (WTF? High school was 30 years ago for me. How is that relevant?), how well you did in college, and how well you did compared to your peers in those situations. What if I didn’t graduate high school or college? What if I come from someplace where schooling is done differently? What if I did poorly in one of those but my peers were geniuses? What if I did well but my peers were idiots? How does this give them any signal at all?

dan-robertson 5y ago
Yeah I deliberately didn’t claim that it actually reduced bias. (Though I think I’d be more worried about class signifiers in the language/content/choice of the answers). It also feels somewhat questionable to me whether working hard to reduce bias is worth it for the company. Obviously there are legal obligations to avoid discrimination but being fair to everyone can mean more work per hire making the process more expensive. The best argument in favour of trying to be fair is that it increases your chance of finding a hire with outlier performance, though I think it is pretty easy to drop such people at other steps.