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In a tough hiring market, making the first interview automated is a bad idea. It might be a bad idea during any kind of market, but I find it particularly off-p
by axg11 5y ago
In a tough hiring market, making the first interview automated is a bad idea. It might be a bad idea during any kind of market, but I find it particularly off-putting today, when there are many job options for a software developer.
The cost of an automated interview is asymmetric. It will take the candidate a few hours, whereas a reviewer may look at the submissions for <5 mins. This is starkly different to technical interviews at other companies. A whiteboard technical interview requires equal amounts of time to be spent by the interviewer and candidate. That's a great signal that the company is willing to invest time ($$$) to find the right candidate.
I think Github's intentions are pure. I take what they are saying at face value. There is no such thing as a perfect technical interview process and I admire that they are trying to align their technical interviews with the actual day-to-day work process. However, I think it would benefit both them and candidates if they came up with a process that focused more on the _human_ component.
- geoffmanning 5y agoIf you think a little deeper about that 5min vs 3hrs between reviewer and reviewee, you may consider that the reviewer is likely to have a great deal many of reviewees to review. In the choice of initial friction and evaluation before human interaction, it always depends on economics. Engineers don't generally enjoy interviewing people. We want to solve problems. But once there is a candidate that has caught our attention, we love meeting our potential new work mate.
- danamit 5y agoSimply no, unless I am getting paid to do the test, I am not doing until I don't know what I am gonna work on exactly and for how much. GitHub is only getting away with this because they are too big, and people assume the best about them. This won't fly elsewhere. Engineers don't enjoy wasting time either.
- Msw242 5y agoIf you're a small startup you absolutely cannot do this in the current market. You can maybe start with a 10-15 chat with a founder to build rapport, and then move to 1:many.
- geoffmanning 5y agoYou kind of making my point for me about economics playing a part. No, a mom and pop shop, or even some boring established company that has no 'status' would not be likely to get many applicants w that much friction. The popularity of the company and the perceived 'prize' that the engineer gets by becoming part of that company determines how much friction they can (and rightly should) add to the employment process to weed out the majority of applicants and focus on the ones that really want it (and really deserve it).