4 ms·

> but it’s more fair than the alternative. What alternative? Talking to people, presenting them with company problems, and listening to their opinion about the

> but it’s more fair than the alternative. What alternative? Talking to people, presenting them with company problems, and listening to their opinion about them, aka. "how would you do X if you had Y?" kinda questions? Getting to know them in the interview process, to see if they are a good fit to the people already in the department? Taking the time and risk involved to hire people if they seems okay and then evaluating them during a probation period? Because, to me that looks a lot fairer than "HERE SOLVE THIS PUZZLE REAL QUICK ON WHITEBOARD NO LOOKUP ANYTHING YOU GOT X MINUTES GOGOGOOGOGOOGOGOOGOOGO!"

Clubber 5y ago
Yes, the current interview process is a complete disaster to anyone who knows different. Unfortunately it's been going on so long, that's all people know. I've mentioned this before but it seems to me like the current cargo-culted interview process was designed to not find applicable candidates in the US to get around the H1B visa requirements.
edanm 4y ago
It's maybe "fairer" (though that is very debatable), but it usually gives worse outcomes. The reason many companies moved closer to Leetcode style problems is that the alternative, which is to not ask people to actually program during interviews, made companies end up hiring people who don't know how to code at all. And just saying "we'll hire for a probationary period and then fire them if they can't code" isn't a very good idea, for anyone involved. Companies are usually reluctant to fire, so they might end up with a bad employee. And even if they don't, most people don't want to make a major change like starting a new job, if there's a significant chance they'll be fired fairly soon.
- usrbinbash 4y ago
  > And just saying "we'll hire for a probationary period and then fire them if they can't code" isn't a very good idea, for anyone involved. And how exactly do puzzle style interviews prevent that, when it's simply possible to learn for the test, instead of learning what the test tries to evaluate? > the alternative, which is to not ask people to actually program during interviews The alternative to "puzzle interview" is not "no programming questions". Interviews should always give examples, including architecture questions, questions that test the general understanding of the candidate and at least ine small example problem that has to do with the real codebase. That's an adequate test to filter out people who can't code, and a far cry from completely arbitrary and unrelated puzzles that can be memorized in advance.
  - edanm 4y ago
    I think we completely agree. I was specifically responding to this from the parent comment: > What alternative? Talking to people, presenting them with company problems, and listening to their opinion about them, aka. "how would you do X if you had Y?" kinda questions? Which I understood to mean that no actual coding would be done, it would be more of an open-ended interview about work history / etc. Which I would argue is far worse than Leetcode style questions. And I'm also arguing for the idea that the fairest interview is the one that gives the most accurate answer to "will this person be a good developer for the company". But of course if there's something that's even better than Leetcode, obviously companies should want to adopt that instead. At our company, we do something very close to what you propose: - an initial phone screen with a very simple "Fizzbuzz" style programming filter. - After that, an open-ended architecture problem (how would you build such-and-such system), which can go in many different directions, and can include a few specific coding examples. - Finally, a real programming task for ~1-2 hours. Sit down in front of a computer with access to internet etc, and do these tasks. We find that these in combination give a great answer to all our questions (well, the "ability" portion at least, which has the most weight.)

Clubber 5y ago

Yes, the current interview process is a complete disaster to anyone who knows different. Unfortunately it's been going on so long, that's all people know. I've mentioned this before but it seems to me like the current cargo-culted interview process was designed to not find applicable candidates in the US to get around the H1B visa requirements.

edanm 4y ago

It's maybe "fairer" (though that is very debatable), but it usually gives worse outcomes. The reason many companies moved closer to Leetcode style problems is that the alternative, which is to not ask people to actually program during interviews, made companies end up hiring people who don't know how to code at all. And just saying "we'll hire for a probationary period and then fire them if they can't code" isn't a very good idea, for anyone involved. Companies are usually reluctant to fire, so they might end up with a bad employee. And even if they don't, most people don't want to make a major change like starting a new job, if there's a significant chance they'll be fired fairly soon.

usrbinbash 4y ago
> And just saying "we'll hire for a probationary period and then fire them if they can't code" isn't a very good idea, for anyone involved. And how exactly do puzzle style interviews prevent that, when it's simply possible to learn for the test, instead of learning what the test tries to evaluate? > the alternative, which is to not ask people to actually program during interviews The alternative to "puzzle interview" is not "no programming questions". Interviews should always give examples, including architecture questions, questions that test the general understanding of the candidate and at least ine small example problem that has to do with the real codebase. That's an adequate test to filter out people who can't code, and a far cry from completely arbitrary and unrelated puzzles that can be memorized in advance.
- edanm 4y ago
  I think we completely agree. I was specifically responding to this from the parent comment: > What alternative? Talking to people, presenting them with company problems, and listening to their opinion about them, aka. "how would you do X if you had Y?" kinda questions? Which I understood to mean that no actual coding would be done, it would be more of an open-ended interview about work history / etc. Which I would argue is far worse than Leetcode style questions. And I'm also arguing for the idea that the fairest interview is the one that gives the most accurate answer to "will this person be a good developer for the company". But of course if there's something that's even better than Leetcode, obviously companies should want to adopt that instead. At our company, we do something very close to what you propose: - an initial phone screen with a very simple "Fizzbuzz" style programming filter. - After that, an open-ended architecture problem (how would you build such-and-such system), which can go in many different directions, and can include a few specific coding examples. - Finally, a real programming task for ~1-2 hours. Sit down in front of a computer with access to internet etc, and do these tasks. We find that these in combination give a great answer to all our questions (well, the "ability" portion at least, which has the most weight.)