6 ms·

Is the current push back against coding tests in job hiring perhaps similar to this push back against the SAT?

yeahwhatever10 5y ago
I think that is more about the disconnect between coding tests and the actual day to day work and skills required to do the job. Example: I could have a high level of competency in software engineering and also not care how a mouse gets out of a bucket.
- alecbz 5y ago
  Those "mouse getting out of a blender" brain-teasers or whatever are pretty unheard of at this point I think. Most people complain about coding questions, generally leetcode-style questions I think.
artful-hacker 5y ago
It's similar but it also brings in a challenging problem: coding tests costs candidates far more than it costs employers in terms of time. I am currently interviewing and two of the companies I am otherwise excited for sent take-home tests that just exhaust me, especially after a long day of otherwise productive work. I've got 12 years of experience under my belt but somehow great references and a killer resume aren't enough to convince them I can find a security vulnerability.
- geraldwhen 5y ago
  I do coding tests for the first interview. Nothing hard, just enough to do basic data modeling and writing a unit test. I also time cap to under an hour, and the internet is available as a resource. This filters out most people.
- smilekzs 5y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Any decent interviewer spends the same man-hour as the candidate does.
adfgadfgaery 5y ago
The SAT has been demonstrated to be effective at predicting success in university. We have almost no evidence about the computer industry's hiring practices. It is completely unscientific. Interviews operate on folklore, not statistics.
- bluGill 5y ago
  This is something your HR department should be very concerned about. If the questions you ask during your interview are not useful in finding a good candidate why are you asking. This isn't just about time either, interviews have some strong laws around them so asking the wrong question could get you in court. I know when we wanted to do a coding test they told use we need to spend 6 months of giving everyone a coding test, have it independently graded by someone not involved in the hiring process. Then after people have worked here for 6 months we examine our actual results from those we hired and see if the tests at all predicted something useful. (or something like that - there is room in the scientific process for some variation)
  - alecbz 5y ago
    The bar below which HR has to be worried is not "we've scientifically determined that our interview questions lead to good on-the-job performance". There has to be some reasonable sense in which you could argue the interview filters for good candidates, but no one is requiring you run studies. Google once did a retrospective study and found that interview scores for people we ended up hiring were not correlated at all with people's on-the-job performance. I'm pretty sure nothing really changed as a result of this. I think it's a combination of the industry, especially FAANG, being kind of "stuck" on these kinds of interviews, and a lack of clearly better alternatives (I think there are better alternatives but it's not like I can point to studies backing me up). > I know when we wanted to do a coding test they told use we need to spend 6 months of giving everyone a coding test, have it independently graded by someone not involved in the hiring process. Then after people have worked here for 6 months we examine our actual results from those we hired and see if the tests at all predicted something useful. This is interesting but also way heavier weight than anything I've ever heard of. OOC where do you work? (Like vague description of kind of company, if you're not comfortable sharing the specific name).
hiq 5y ago
> Is the current push back against coding tests in job hiring Is there such a pushback? As in, is the percentage of the workforce refusing to take such tests increasing?
- alecbz 5y ago
  I don't know if there's a _rising_ pushback but you definitely do hear a not-small amount of complaining about coding interviews on HN.
  - hiq 5y ago
    Sure, but all in all, you just need 100 frequent HN users hating on these interviews to fill all related threads with such complaints, and there are dozens of millions of SWE worldwide. Big tech companies still hire mostly based on this type of interviews and they've been growing a lot lately, meaning that enough people apply to them. Leetcode and the likes have also democratized the process for many candidates. If anything, I'd say that the proportion of the workforce willing to submit themselves to these tests is increasing, but that's just a guess.
- neon_electro 5y ago
  It very much depends on the style of coding test - personally, I'm more than happy to do take-home style tests where I prepare something in a matter of a few hours, but I can't stand "leetcode" interviews or anything where I'm pressured to produce in 30 minutes or less; perhaps that's because that's typically not how I work in the real world and in my experience, they do a really poor job of demonstrating my skill set and experience. I have terminated interviews before they even got started because of poor interview loop design from employers.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
    From the other part of the table - we'd lose more candidates if we did take-homes. People in general prefer to study once and use that knowledge for multiple companies at once, you can't optimize take-homes like that.
nradov 5y ago
It's more about labor market dynamics and supply versus demand. If there are plenty of developers available to hire then employers will insert extra hurdles in the process to filter out weak candidates (with the understanding that there will be some "false negatives"). But when the labor market is tight then employers will take a chance on any candidate who seems minimally competent because they need to fill the req.

I think that is more about the disconnect between coding tests and the actual day to day work and skills required to do the job. Example: I could have a high level of competency in software engineering and also not care how a mouse gets out of a bucket.

alecbz 5y ago
Those "mouse getting out of a blender" brain-teasers or whatever are pretty unheard of at this point I think. Most people complain about coding questions, generally leetcode-style questions I think.

artful-hacker 5y ago

It's similar but it also brings in a challenging problem: coding tests costs candidates far more than it costs employers in terms of time. I am currently interviewing and two of the companies I am otherwise excited for sent take-home tests that just exhaust me, especially after a long day of otherwise productive work. I've got 12 years of experience under my belt but somehow great references and a killer resume aren't enough to convince them I can find a security vulnerability.

geraldwhen 5y ago
I do coding tests for the first interview. Nothing hard, just enough to do basic data modeling and writing a unit test. I also time cap to under an hour, and the internet is available as a resource. This filters out most people.
smilekzs 5y ago
I respectfully disagree. Any decent interviewer spends the same man-hour as the candidate does.

adfgadfgaery 5y ago

The SAT has been demonstrated to be effective at predicting success in university. We have almost no evidence about the computer industry's hiring practices. It is completely unscientific. Interviews operate on folklore, not statistics.

bluGill 5y ago
This is something your HR department should be very concerned about. If the questions you ask during your interview are not useful in finding a good candidate why are you asking. This isn't just about time either, interviews have some strong laws around them so asking the wrong question could get you in court. I know when we wanted to do a coding test they told use we need to spend 6 months of giving everyone a coding test, have it independently graded by someone not involved in the hiring process. Then after people have worked here for 6 months we examine our actual results from those we hired and see if the tests at all predicted something useful. (or something like that - there is room in the scientific process for some variation)
- alecbz 5y ago
  The bar below which HR has to be worried is not "we've scientifically determined that our interview questions lead to good on-the-job performance". There has to be some reasonable sense in which you could argue the interview filters for good candidates, but no one is requiring you run studies. Google once did a retrospective study and found that interview scores for people we ended up hiring were not correlated at all with people's on-the-job performance. I'm pretty sure nothing really changed as a result of this. I think it's a combination of the industry, especially FAANG, being kind of "stuck" on these kinds of interviews, and a lack of clearly better alternatives (I think there are better alternatives but it's not like I can point to studies backing me up). > I know when we wanted to do a coding test they told use we need to spend 6 months of giving everyone a coding test, have it independently graded by someone not involved in the hiring process. Then after people have worked here for 6 months we examine our actual results from those we hired and see if the tests at all predicted something useful. This is interesting but also way heavier weight than anything I've ever heard of. OOC where do you work? (Like vague description of kind of company, if you're not comfortable sharing the specific name).

hiq 5y ago

> Is the current push back against coding tests in job hiring Is there such a pushback? As in, is the percentage of the workforce refusing to take such tests increasing?

alecbz 5y ago
I don't know if there's a _rising_ pushback but you definitely do hear a not-small amount of complaining about coding interviews on HN.
- hiq 5y ago
  Sure, but all in all, you just need 100 frequent HN users hating on these interviews to fill all related threads with such complaints, and there are dozens of millions of SWE worldwide. Big tech companies still hire mostly based on this type of interviews and they've been growing a lot lately, meaning that enough people apply to them. Leetcode and the likes have also democratized the process for many candidates. If anything, I'd say that the proportion of the workforce willing to submit themselves to these tests is increasing, but that's just a guess.
neon_electro 5y ago
It very much depends on the style of coding test - personally, I'm more than happy to do take-home style tests where I prepare something in a matter of a few hours, but I can't stand "leetcode" interviews or anything where I'm pressured to produce in 30 minutes or less; perhaps that's because that's typically not how I work in the real world and in my experience, they do a really poor job of demonstrating my skill set and experience. I have terminated interviews before they even got started because of poor interview loop design from employers.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
  From the other part of the table - we'd lose more candidates if we did take-homes. People in general prefer to study once and use that knowledge for multiple companies at once, you can't optimize take-homes like that.

nradov 5y ago

It's more about labor market dynamics and supply versus demand. If there are plenty of developers available to hire then employers will insert extra hurdles in the process to filter out weak candidates (with the understanding that there will be some "false negatives"). But when the labor market is tight then employers will take a chance on any candidate who seems minimally competent because they need to fill the req.