11 ms·

Job interviews that go too far

65 points by pmoriarty 4y ago

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
"But we have a labor shortage" /s On a serious note, I've also been nearly burned out by these week-long take home assignments which are only one stage of several and end up eating my weekends completely only to find myself rejected or ghosted after completing them (I'm a penetration tester so most common candidate testing methodology I've seen is a week long CTF set up by their security team, where you need to find as many flags/vulnerabilities as you can and also write a report, so it always ends up into a huge time sink of finding needles in a haystack and also write a multi page report about how I did it, only for then to be rejected). Often there's also some IQ test and other nonsense stages, plus the usual Zoom/Teams/Meets calls in between with their recruiters/hiring managers, during working hours. Oh, and don't get me started on the 20 page online form with 50 questions some companies want you to fill as part of your application. I honestly have no idea how people with full time jobs who can't slack off at work and have other responsibilities, hobbies and interests, are able to keep this up. I feel like these long and stressful interview processes are mainly geared towards ambitious new-grads or people with no other goal in life than always interviewing for the next best job. I sometimes want to give up on the IT industry and go to med school instead as I don't see how I can keep this up long term, for the grand sum of €50K/year, if this interviewing process is the norm or if it will get even crazyer. Or maybe I should quit my job, start learning leetcode, and move to a country with some FAANG jobs.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  > I feel like these long and stressful interview processes are mainly geared towards ambitious new-grads or people with no other goal in life than working. The point is probably very much this - finding people who will over-perform without reciprocation.
- kayadera 4y ago
  On a some related note, I struggle to understand how those with no-slack full-time technical jobs have technical hobbies. I'll give it a go every so often but get burned out quickly. I have a nice collection of in-progess but dormant pieces of software.
  - id 4y ago
    Maybe there aren't that many no-slack full-time technical jobs.
    - ok123456 4y ago
      or maybe the people who have slack full-time jobs are trying to protect them.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    Don’t. It’s bullshit. At big tech companies when times are good, many people are sitting around waiting for paint to dry. (Ie some nutty process) Remember they are a profit center and get slacktime and fancy stuff. Ditto outside of engineering. I knew one SE with a pretty big territory who travelled with his wife. They were swingers. The dude would just setup random meetings so the company would spring for their hotel. We’d get our steak dinner, they would get their freak on. At the end, he’s pulling in 3% of whatever crap we were buying.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    > I have a nice collection of in-progess but dormant pieces of software. That's already more than I have; I get my job satisfaction from my job, I like to spend my free time with family and hobbies that don't involve more work. But, different strokes for different people; I like playing video games, others like writing code for fun.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I used to. Then I got married, a wife and kids are far more fulfilling. When I get any free time (rare) I want to be out in my shop doing something not technical. Or at least not technically in the way of my job, sometimes the things I work on are mechanically complex.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  >Often there's also some IQ test and other nonsense stages I actually support IQ tests and the likes, but it's the way that all these companies are doing this which sticks out. All of them somehow have their own flavor and keep the information to themselves (or to the company which they outsource their shenanigans to). It would be so much more efficient if we had an employee-centric approach where employees could provide access to this information, with verification, and it was up to the employee to give employers information on their current status and growth. You want the data? There you go, verified, now move on to stage 5 and no dawdling. If you're going to toss out CVs, portfolios, certificates, diplomas, that's one thing (why again are we doing this?). If you're also going to give us all different kinds of "here's this whacky syntax no one uses" questions along with the umpteenth "IQ test" because god forbid we shorten the process, you're not suffering from a labor shortage. You're suffering from being a pretty princess too afraid to take a risk.
  - mattcwilson 4y ago
    Pretend you’re hiring in this landscape. If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do, and if you feel like it’s required to stay competitive, why wouldn’t you? (To be clear: I don’t condone the practice at all, but I at least can understand possible rationales)
    - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
      >If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do I agree with the general premise (this wouldn't happen if people finally stood up against it), but this has yet to be proven. Hiring absolutely isn't grounded in reality as much as it likes to think it is, even if the arguments sound rational beyond surface level. Additionally I feel most companies severely underestimate the costs of this entire circus, and overestimate the risks and cost of bad hires. But that's not something I can back up with numbers.
    - bluGill 4y ago
      > if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do Does it though? Has anyone done any form of analysis to show it works? I know my boss a few years back asked about asking technical questions and HR said we had to run a real scientific experiment to prove it works, basically a round of technical interviews, but the technical interviewers write down a score but are not invited to the actual decision process, then after 6 months we open the score and see if it correlates at all to on the job performance. When we interview there is a set of questions we are allowed to ask/score on (HR says they have run the data to prove those results make a difference) Most companies could get just as good results if they put all resumes in a box and do a random drawing to figure out who to hire.
binarymax 4y ago
This is fraud. If the firm doesn’t have an open role available but advertises as such, and then extracts free labor as a ruse, it’s fraud.
- cbg0 4y ago
  Good luck proving that.
  - 6510 4y ago
    It is very easy to hammer it into law. Government should treat the fake job formula like what it is: Sabotage of the economy. In our system applicants have to pay for their own education, spend time doing it and government is investing in education. We are extremely serious about training and employment. Parties that want to get involved should be held to high standards. It's not like we've never created (and enforced) a standard for anything.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      You're talking about how outrageous it is, but not how a legal test for it would work without doing more harm than good.
      - 6510 4y ago
        heh, I deleted that part of my post as there are more qualified (dare I say competent) people to create such laws. It could for example work like this (which is much like it use to work in the Netherlands) - If you are looking for work or if you are looking to improve your position you must submit your resume to the government agency. (Ideally this agency also makes an effort to preserve and validate diplomas and previous employment) You provide a salary indication, travel time and if you are willing to relocate for a new job. - If you are looking to hire someone or are looking to replace someone you must submit your job offer to the government agency. A rather large fee must be paid. (700-3000 euro) The agency also makes an effort to preserve previous offers and has access to current employment. - An appointment is scheduled. The employer (or employee) must attend this meeting. You are left very little room for rescheduling. The point of the meeting is to establish how serious you are about hiring (or getting hired). The offer (or resume) is examined and the agency employee asks questions. - Even the vaguest hint you are not being serious results in termination of services. (The employer shall lose the fee.) They may try again in 3 months or 12 depending on how much of a troll they are. - Since the investigator has access to a lot of data they can quickly (or at a later date) point out where the job offer is unrealistic. Minimum wage for skills in high demand is not an acceptable offer. - After the interrogation the investigator compares available resumes to the job offer and schedules a new appointment for the employer and up to 4 candidates. - The next meeting starts with the investigator briefly describing the upcoming candidates. - The potential employees one by one get to sit next to the employer in front of the desk. The investigator starts each interview with the glorification of the company looking to hire and asks the employee if they have any questions. - Then the employer is granted a bit of room to ask his questions. - After the final applicant is interviewed the investigator gives his preference to the employer but they are free to chose one of the other applicants. The employer orders the acceptable applicants by preference. - If non of the applicants are satisfying the job description is considered insufficient. If it is mildly insufficient a new job offer can be filled for which a new fee shall be paid. If it is terribly insufficient the employer will have to wait for 3 months before trying again. - If the investigator agrees the available candidates are poor fits for the job opening the offer shall remain open and compared against new resumes. - Each employee gets up to 4 interviews. They may chose who to work for if they are the preferred candidate. If they didn't make it to the top of the list they get additional interviews. - If they decline what the investigator considers a great offer they get no further service for 3-12 months. A great offer must be substantial improvement over their current job. - If any party is unhappy with the result they must fill an appeal with an independent oversight committee. The investigator will assist with filling out the forms. - If the new hire fails to live up to expectations the employer must schedule a meeting and discuss this with the investigator. The biggest advantage of the formula is that the employer is not the authority figure in the room. They are as much the subject of the process as the applicant. Demonstrate poor behavior and you are out.
secretsatan 4y ago
I'm pretty sure one example project I was requested to do was just a way for them to solve a problem, I solved it and never heard back. It turned out to be pretty tricky to accomplish, requiring tracking down some obscure tool. I did do it in the time limit required, but looking back on it, it was a very particular problem with very specific constraints that most common industry tools did not solve...
Nextgrid 4y ago
This is why I have a policy of not doing any take-home tests, exactly to discourage this kind of bullshit and force the company to incur a cost (if they want to "test" me they need to sacrifice an hour of their own dev's time for an in-person/screenshare test) so they can't just "spray and pray" the test to everyone that comes by.
- bluGill 4y ago
  I'll do the take home tests if I find them interesting. Interesting to me is important. Last time I did one I found a recursive (not tail recessive) solution to a problem that I already knew was a simple iteration using a couple standard library functions - but where is the fun in that? I learned a lot and didn't care that I didn't get the job. (I did earn a call back, which is great considering at the time I didn't qualify for the advanced position they were hiring for)
incomingpain 4y ago
My favourite job interview that went too far... I applied for a sysadmin/netadmin job at a 24x7 facility that basically can't go offline. As many 9s as possible. So they required a rather senior tech for the position and I surprisingly did qualified. The requirements were very steep like 10 years experience, loads of certs etc. You know the type. I got the interview. First I needed to fill out paperwork before I could go onsite. It was general 'this is a factory and is dangerous blah blah, do you have experience' which sure I do. I've worked in countless factories, several were even more industrial and dangerous than theirs. I get onsite and I'm business casual. First thing I'm told is, "the interview got rescheduled to 30 minutes later so everyone was available.' but they failed to tell me... Then I get told that I'm dressed to 'froo froo' but I said that business casual seems appropriate. I sat there the ~45 minutes for the interview completely alone. Eventually I get brought to the interview and the conference room is packed. Well over a dozen people there to interview me. In the interview they explained everything they actually needed. They didn't need just a senior sysadmin and netadmin who must know the tech so well they know how to fix issues instantly. There will also be no other IT people, you're responsible for everything from outlook to factory software. They also needed DBA and someone who can go on the floor to be a labourer sometimes. I answered 'I am always happen to help in an emergency but I don't know anything about how to work the factory floor." At this point I was pretty well done the interview but happy to continue and exercise that skill. So they ask me what would be one of my top achievements. Given the no-downtime nature they would appreciate my story. I was onsite at a large enterprise and was doing cisco aironet changes as well as some core vlan to leaf changes in relation to a new ssid I was deploying. That all went great. There was another team who was onsite, literally IBM bladecenter supervisor was being paid to fully update a bladecenter. He got to patching while I was working. When i finished i got back together and asked how it was going and they said great. Ive done those firmware patches before, they are certainly annoying but given I'd spent fair amount of time doing my job I was already curious. They ought to have completed already. I stood around and was trying to be helpful but then the IBM tech decided he needed to go for a smoke. After he came back in from his smoke his hands were shaking like mad. He couldn't type on the keyboard anymore. Middle of the night outside the secured building isn't a safe place to be, I asked if everything was alright. He said he needed another smoke and left for another smoke and he never came back. Quick note, we ended up not paying any $ for the tech. He had a mental breakdown because he realized he applied the wrong firmware to the networking card. It no longer functioned. Long story short, I took lead to figure out what was even going on. I checked each of the chassis ports and found all traffic was coming over the first port. I broke LACP on the switch and using a single gig port the entire bladecenter operated the next day no big trouble. We were easy 2 hours out of the maintenance window but real major consequences was still an hour ahead. So getting up and running was huge keeping their business running. So interviewer's response? 'That's the best story you have? a total failure that I would blame you for?' I answer, "Perhaps I didn't tell it well. The owners sure appreciated my work and even got us the chefs table at a steakhouse as thanks." His reply, "how much do you want? you seem to think you're worth more than you are." I replied, "I am worth what someone will pay me for my skills. It's not just salary but benefits as well. I would expect this position described to me has a significant budget." He pressed me for a number but I said "I'm not 100% what a position like this would pay, it has steep requirements and I don't have many competitors. I believe you will be fair market value you will offer." He replied, "If I give you too much, we won't have budget for equipment. Typically equipment purchases come out of the technician's budget." I was 100% certain I wouldn't want the job so I replied, "I would estimate this position would be $25/hr plus the usual benefits." LOL, ok my estimate might have been really far off but when he heard my number his demeanor changed bigtime. He started talking about all the benefits of working there. One of the benefits was that 'sometimes you can even come into the air conditioning and sit at your desk.' like omg. Obviously they offered me a job at the $25/hr which i had a hearty laugh at.
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
You people need to get some self-respect and stop working for free. They only get away away with this because you allow them to. Next time you're asked to work for free, this is what you do: you say, "Fuck you, pay me". If you want to be a little less blunt, have ready a template contract to write up the job they've requested, with your price, ready for them to sign. If they laugh in your face, laugh in theirs and walk away. If you're in a position of desperation, first get out of that position before you go to these interviews. You cannot negotiate when you're hungry. Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  > Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff. Many? Billions.
  - samhw 4y ago
    I assume they meant "many tech workers / job hunters / the kind of people on this forum", not orphans in darkest Africa or Christian Bale losing weight for a role.
    - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
      And hungry in the sense of hungry for money, achievements and career, not literally hungry. I mean some SF folk live in such luxury that they think eating is a nuisance not worth their attention, so they take on subscriptions or all-in-one meal replacements at 10x the cost and 0.1x the flavor of normal food (think Soylent, Juicero, etc). If your company or colleagues glorify that lifestyle, run away.
      - samhw 4y ago
        That's become me, to be honest. Money has reached the point where it doesn't mean anything any more. For the last year or so I've taken cabs everywhere I've gone, even down the road to go to the shops. This sounds like a brag, but it's really not: I'm not rich, and it means I'm pinioned to my job and can't quit. I was addicted to heroin before, but I think quality-of-life addiction is possibly worse in some ways.
steveBK123 4y ago
I have a company that told me their first tech round (before speaking to coworkers, manager, etc) is a recorded programming sandbox problem solving for an hour. They give you a MSFT Teams number to call into someone on the team who is on-call while doing work, in case you have any questions re: the test. Otherwise they stressed it is “not interactive”. They then look at your results / watch the recording and let you know if they want to talk. A bit over the top for an experienced hire interview loop.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  At least it's only one hour and not a "3 hour take home tests with REST APIs, microservices, containers, NoSQL database, documentation and unit tests", that actually takes a full weekend to a whole week to complete to spec.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Agreed, I’ve also done the take-home multi-hour, take a weekend ones. Worse from a time consumption perspective. However - Something about the panopticon recorded timed test thing feels a little big brother to me.
- mekoka 4y ago
  Devil's advocate here. That's the kind of interview problem solving test I prefer. You're given an hour to solve a problem that probably takes less than half that time (if we go by the typical problem given for tech interviews). The ticking time stress effect is thus somewhat alleviated and you can focus more on the problem. You're left solving the problem on your own. The alternative is a distracting onlooker who keeps bugging you with "what are you thinking?" As if probing people for meta explanations of their mental processes is how we help them solve problems. You're given a phone number to call if you need help. If my assumptions are correct, their approach is not too far off the mark.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    I guess I’ll just add that - as a candidate, for a somewhat niche experienced role, it is incredibly off-putting. They absolutely do not get a lot of applicants for this role. I don’t even have a job spec & having not spoken to anyone technical, I really don’t know the day to day & responsibilities of the potential job. Which is to say, I don’t know that I even want it. I will probably not bother to continue with them as there were some other red flags that point to them being very lean & stingy, which is their reputation on the street.
Dave3of5 4y ago
Having just been through the recruitment hellscape last year the take home tests are absurd. Some companies are asking for whole weekends worth of work before you even get to speak to anyone. Needless to say if a company is asking for an 8 hour take home, you bet your ass they don't respect you as a candidate and won't respect you as an employee. I hoped that if we collectively stopped doing these then they would go away but there are a lot of people who like doing these and believe they are a net positive for some reason.
- mrjin 4y ago
  Walk away. Trust me, 99.99% of the time, you will prove yourself wasting time on similar situations.
lapcat 4y ago
I'm self-employed and don't need a job but am still open to the right opportunity. The last job I interviewed for was looking for a specialist in a particular field, which I am (fairly well known in that circle), and they told me they've been looking to fill the position for a full year before they interviewed me. The interview seemed to go well, and they wanted to continue with the process, but they said the next step was a take-home project. I wasn't thrilled, because my qualifications should already be established, but they said it's their mandatory procedure. I thought, ok, I'm interested in this job, and maybe I can power through the project quickly. But no, the project was rather open-ended, more of an unsolved problem than an already solved problem, and I started to see that I could spend an unknown number of hours on it. So I said fuck it and told them I've changed my mind about the job. I noticed many months later after I turned them down that they were still trying to fill the position. This is an employer just shooting themselves in the foot. They created their own "labor shortage". It's actually the second time in a row that I got this kind of absurdity. I was contacted unsolicited by an engineering manager from DuckDuckGo looking for a specialist. I asked them what their hiring procedure was, and it was even worse: they had multiple pre-hiring projects and some kind of probationary period before permanent hire. So I asked if I could just skip this, given my qualifications, and they said no, that's just how they do things at DuckDuckGo, and they believed their hiring process has been "successful" for them. So I basically said no thanks, buh-bye. And they also were continuing to try to fill the position many months after I said no.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  > they had multiple pre-hiring projects and some kind of probationary period Duck Duck Go paid me to do their projects. I can understand skipping it if you don't want to put the time in; but at least they aren't taking your work for free.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > Duck Duck Go paid me to do their projects. I can understand skipping it if you don't want to put the time in; but at least they aren't taking your work for free. Correct, they did pay. But I didn't really care about that. My only interest was a permanent job, not a short term contract. If I want short term contracts, I can find those elsewhere.
mrjin 4y ago
There are always people in vulnerable positions and there are more than enough suckers willing to take advantage of that. My tip to avoid that is to ask for a phone screening for around a hour, walk away if cannot get one. If they don't want to invest one hour in you, then why would you spend anytime with them?
jaggederest 4y ago
I've found in the past that if a company presents an onerous task for interviews, and isn't interested in paying directly for the work, sometimes they are willing to donate an equivalent sum to a non-profit of your choice. Of course, the fact that they won't pay directly is useful information when interviewing, by itself, but a donation can indicate respect for your investment of time and effort.
xyzzy4747 4y ago
Never do an interview where you aren’t at least equally wasting someone else’s time.
lelandfe 4y ago
I'm too nervous to name the company, but here we go. [Edit: whatever, I didn't sign an NDA. This was Algolia] I've been meaning to get this off my chest. Out of all ~100 interviews I took over the last 8 months, there was a singular egregious example. It netted out upwards of 25hrs. You may ask, "lelandfe, why did you go through all of this?" It had been 8 months without a paycheck; I barely made rent this month (landed a dream job recently! phew). This was for a senior demo eng role: 1. 30m phone screen 2. 30m behavioral 3. 1hr technical. Asked to write a hashmap to filter JSON, binary search over an array, and a Markdown renderer 4. 8hr take home assignment. But, "if you do wish to spend more [time], please go ahead." I spend the minimum time needed, which winds up being more like 14hrs. I have to register for the platform, come up with a fictitious company, and then design and build a real demo site using the service – turning over the source code and live demo at the end. The scoring rubric is how creative the use of the platform is, and how much value the search service adds to my fake company. 5. 2hr written email correspondence test. I'm given 3 fake emails from "customers," each asking about specifics of the platform, e.g. "where can I find X and Y on the admin?" and "please define concepts Z and A for me." 6. 30m presentation of take home to 10 employees of the SaaS company, followed by 30m Q&A with the team. I'm only made aware of this after turning in my take home. Building and rehearsing the presentation takes around 3hrs. 7. 3hr on-site 8. Day after on-site: 15m wrap-up discussion w/HR 9. 15m wrap-up discussion w/engineering manager Through all of this, every decision maker expressed extreme satisfaction with my performance, and the engineering manager repeatedly told me how smart and well-spoken I was. A week later, I get, as an email: "our team has decided to pass on your candidacy." They adamantly refuse to give me more feedback (though admitting: position still open, no other candidates in final stages), and don't refer me to other roles.
- itronitron 4y ago
  Yeah, 4 and 5 are things they should train you on after you start. Also, I don't know why anyone would ever need to write their own hashmap, and if you have a hashmap then you don't need binary search :\ . I agree with TrackerFF that someone likely vetoed the group consensus, also potentially a funding issue.
- TrackerFF 4y ago
hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago
It's fair to ask people to do work, but they should be paid for it if it goes beyond an hour or so. I've turned down opportunities with a ridiculous recruiting process, I couldn't imagine what it would be like when you actually worked for them! When I was managing the software division of an IT services company, we would send all candidates a fizz-buzz type programming assessment that should only take 5-10 minutes to complete. After that, we would do a 15 minute phone screen then had someone come in for a 1-2 hour long interview with some live programming. The point of the exercises in the interview was to see someone's thought process, not if they could actually "complete" the exercises. At that point, we'd have a pretty good idea of where a candidate's skill were at and we could start the process of extending an offer if the team agreed they were a good fit. There were a few occasions where the candidates had no experience with any of the tech we were using, but were obviously capable developers. We'd usually make an offer at the lower end of the salary range for that position with a raise being guaranteed in 10 weeks if they met the requirements. There was the expectation that they'd do a bit learning outside of work hours if needed. Everyone who was given that offer accepted it and was given the raise.
- endemic 4y ago
  > There were a few occasions where the candidates had no experience with any of the tech we were using, but were obviously capable developers. We'd usually make an offer at the lower end of the salary range for that position with a raise being guaranteed in 10 weeks if they met the requirements. This is great. Makes sense for the business, and the results spoke for themselves.
- uvnq 4y ago
  > then had someone come in for a 1-2 hour long interview with some live programming. The point of the exercises in the interview was to see someone's thought process, not if they could actually "complete" the exercises. I don't know much about industry and interviews yet. Do you think this is the case for most interviews? That they care about your thought process, not just if you can complete the problem? Is it necessary to learn/memorize all algorithms and data structures, or is it better to practice and focus on improving my problem solving skills and thought process?
TrackerFF 4y ago
I'm actually all for take-home projects, because I excel at them - and I have the time. But I fully understand that others don't have the time, or don't want to risk being ghosted after submitting work. Ideally, if we're stuck with whiteboarding and take-homes, candidates should get to choose. But with that said, ref. the article...25 pages? Who comes up with that kind of work? My take-home projects have been like 2-3 pages max, and took maybe 2-3 hour to finish from beginning to end.
dkersten 4y ago
I've just been through a job search. While I didn't have to do any take home projects, one company I interviewed at had multiple hours of different interviews (coding, design, etc). I thought I did pretty well (everyone seemed happy with my answers) and I feel like I'm very well suited to the job I interviewed for, given the projects I've worked on previously, but ultimately I didn't get an offer. That could be for any number of reasons, of course, but the feedback they gave is that I didn't manage to "fully complete" the design interview. This is a little baffling to me because the role I was interviewing for doesn't sound like it requires people to design full, complete distributed services within one hour in a high pressure interview situation. I know I can design complex systems, because I've successfully done so multiple times in the past, and I work well enough under pressure, but that I would miss something in a mere hour of an interview is almost a given. My best designs come when I can sleep on it and take a little time. Besides, some of the greatest engineers I know don't do well in artificial interview situations. On the other hand, I also interviewed at another company for a very similar role, yet this time it was a 90 minute chat about stuff I'd worked on in the past. They do normally do an hour long coding task, but they let me skip it because they could see from my experience and the person who referred me vouched for my ability to write code. At the end of the 90 minutes, I was basically told they liked me and hoped I would join and that they'd give me an offer the next day. I happily accepted this offer. During this time a Google recruiter also contacted me but when he said that their process typically takes months I declined right away. I can't think of any time in my career where I'd care to spend months to maybe get a job at Google.
corobo 4y ago
Have you ever looked at a job at Canonical (Ubuntu)? I think that's the most jaw dropping interview process I've ever seen Effectively you write an autobiography and they might read it. I gave up after a couple of hours realising it was such a dumb waste of time to be writing about high school.. I left over half my lifetime ago lmao. It was like squeezing blood out of a stone trying to remember anything from that time. Don't even bother applying if you have ADHD or anything with similar symptoms, you're not what they're after. https://twitter.com/dmsimard/status/1505262381609406467 https://twitter.com/dmsimard/status/1505262381609406467
voidfunc 4y ago
I prefer the take home project interviews because im not great at on-demand recall of algorithms for a whiteboard session
beej71 4y ago
I tell candidates to bring some code--any code--they wrote and are particularly proud of. Then in the interview, I have them teach me how it works, tell me about potential improvements, and describe rationale. In my experience, this has been a quick and effective measure, both technical and behavioral. I find it immoral to ask candidates to put in hours of uncompensated work they wouldn't have normally done. And I don't think it gives good data. Once we hired a dev with zero experience with the platform, language, libraries, or tooling. It was clear from the interview they had skills, though. After two weeks, they were producing good code. After a month, great code. Absolute win. And they never would have been picked by a "spend 16 hours making us a demo project" company.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
Something the article doesn't bother to try and explain, why has interviewing become so difficult? Is the market oversaturated with low quality candidates? Or has the recruiter been integrated internally into companies such that the role has become more bureaucratic?

65 points by pmoriarty 4y ago

"But we have a labor shortage" /s On a serious note, I've also been nearly burned out by these week-long take home assignments which are only one stage of several and end up eating my weekends completely only to find myself rejected or ghosted after completing them (I'm a penetration tester so most common candidate testing methodology I've seen is a week long CTF set up by their security team, where you need to find as many flags/vulnerabilities as you can and also write a report, so it always ends up into a huge time sink of finding needles in a haystack and also write a multi page report about how I did it, only for then to be rejected). Often there's also some IQ test and other nonsense stages, plus the usual Zoom/Teams/Meets calls in between with their recruiters/hiring managers, during working hours. Oh, and don't get me started on the 20 page online form with 50 questions some companies want you to fill as part of your application. I honestly have no idea how people with full time jobs who can't slack off at work and have other responsibilities, hobbies and interests, are able to keep this up. I feel like these long and stressful interview processes are mainly geared towards ambitious new-grads or people with no other goal in life than always interviewing for the next best job. I sometimes want to give up on the IT industry and go to med school instead as I don't see how I can keep this up long term, for the grand sum of €50K/year, if this interviewing process is the norm or if it will get even crazyer. Or maybe I should quit my job, start learning leetcode, and move to a country with some FAANG jobs.

formerly_proven 4y ago
> I feel like these long and stressful interview processes are mainly geared towards ambitious new-grads or people with no other goal in life than working. The point is probably very much this - finding people who will over-perform without reciprocation.
kayadera 4y ago
On a some related note, I struggle to understand how those with no-slack full-time technical jobs have technical hobbies. I'll give it a go every so often but get burned out quickly. I have a nice collection of in-progess but dormant pieces of software.
- id 4y ago
  Maybe there aren't that many no-slack full-time technical jobs.
  - ok123456 4y ago
    or maybe the people who have slack full-time jobs are trying to protect them.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Don’t. It’s bullshit. At big tech companies when times are good, many people are sitting around waiting for paint to dry. (Ie some nutty process) Remember they are a profit center and get slacktime and fancy stuff. Ditto outside of engineering. I knew one SE with a pretty big territory who travelled with his wife. They were swingers. The dude would just setup random meetings so the company would spring for their hotel. We’d get our steak dinner, they would get their freak on. At the end, he’s pulling in 3% of whatever crap we were buying.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  > I have a nice collection of in-progess but dormant pieces of software. That's already more than I have; I get my job satisfaction from my job, I like to spend my free time with family and hobbies that don't involve more work. But, different strokes for different people; I like playing video games, others like writing code for fun.
- bluGill 4y ago
  I used to. Then I got married, a wife and kids are far more fulfilling. When I get any free time (rare) I want to be out in my shop doing something not technical. Or at least not technically in the way of my job, sometimes the things I work on are mechanically complex.
BlargMcLarg 4y ago
>Often there's also some IQ test and other nonsense stages I actually support IQ tests and the likes, but it's the way that all these companies are doing this which sticks out. All of them somehow have their own flavor and keep the information to themselves (or to the company which they outsource their shenanigans to). It would be so much more efficient if we had an employee-centric approach where employees could provide access to this information, with verification, and it was up to the employee to give employers information on their current status and growth. You want the data? There you go, verified, now move on to stage 5 and no dawdling. If you're going to toss out CVs, portfolios, certificates, diplomas, that's one thing (why again are we doing this?). If you're also going to give us all different kinds of "here's this whacky syntax no one uses" questions along with the umpteenth "IQ test" because god forbid we shorten the process, you're not suffering from a labor shortage. You're suffering from being a pretty princess too afraid to take a risk.
- mattcwilson 4y ago
  Pretend you’re hiring in this landscape. If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do, and if you feel like it’s required to stay competitive, why wouldn’t you? (To be clear: I don’t condone the practice at all, but I at least can understand possible rationales)
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    >If people will submit to it, if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do I agree with the general premise (this wouldn't happen if people finally stood up against it), but this has yet to be proven. Hiring absolutely isn't grounded in reality as much as it likes to think it is, even if the arguments sound rational beyond surface level. Additionally I feel most companies severely underestimate the costs of this entire circus, and overestimate the risks and cost of bad hires. But that's not something I can back up with numbers.
  - bluGill 4y ago
    > if it provides a more reliable signal of likely success than degrees or certifications do Does it though? Has anyone done any form of analysis to show it works? I know my boss a few years back asked about asking technical questions and HR said we had to run a real scientific experiment to prove it works, basically a round of technical interviews, but the technical interviewers write down a score but are not invited to the actual decision process, then after 6 months we open the score and see if it correlates at all to on the job performance. When we interview there is a set of questions we are allowed to ask/score on (HR says they have run the data to prove those results make a difference) Most companies could get just as good results if they put all resumes in a box and do a random drawing to figure out who to hire.

binarymax 4y ago

This is fraud. If the firm doesn’t have an open role available but advertises as such, and then extracts free labor as a ruse, it’s fraud.

cbg0 4y ago
Good luck proving that.
- 6510 4y ago
  It is very easy to hammer it into law. Government should treat the fake job formula like what it is: Sabotage of the economy. In our system applicants have to pay for their own education, spend time doing it and government is investing in education. We are extremely serious about training and employment. Parties that want to get involved should be held to high standards. It's not like we've never created (and enforced) a standard for anything.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    You're talking about how outrageous it is, but not how a legal test for it would work without doing more harm than good.
    - 6510 4y ago
      heh, I deleted that part of my post as there are more qualified (dare I say competent) people to create such laws. It could for example work like this (which is much like it use to work in the Netherlands) - If you are looking for work or if you are looking to improve your position you must submit your resume to the government agency. (Ideally this agency also makes an effort to preserve and validate diplomas and previous employment) You provide a salary indication, travel time and if you are willing to relocate for a new job. - If you are looking to hire someone or are looking to replace someone you must submit your job offer to the government agency. A rather large fee must be paid. (700-3000 euro) The agency also makes an effort to preserve previous offers and has access to current employment. - An appointment is scheduled. The employer (or employee) must attend this meeting. You are left very little room for rescheduling. The point of the meeting is to establish how serious you are about hiring (or getting hired). The offer (or resume) is examined and the agency employee asks questions. - Even the vaguest hint you are not being serious results in termination of services. (The employer shall lose the fee.) They may try again in 3 months or 12 depending on how much of a troll they are. - Since the investigator has access to a lot of data they can quickly (or at a later date) point out where the job offer is unrealistic. Minimum wage for skills in high demand is not an acceptable offer. - After the interrogation the investigator compares available resumes to the job offer and schedules a new appointment for the employer and up to 4 candidates. - The next meeting starts with the investigator briefly describing the upcoming candidates. - The potential employees one by one get to sit next to the employer in front of the desk. The investigator starts each interview with the glorification of the company looking to hire and asks the employee if they have any questions. - Then the employer is granted a bit of room to ask his questions. - After the final applicant is interviewed the investigator gives his preference to the employer but they are free to chose one of the other applicants. The employer orders the acceptable applicants by preference. - If non of the applicants are satisfying the job description is considered insufficient. If it is mildly insufficient a new job offer can be filled for which a new fee shall be paid. If it is terribly insufficient the employer will have to wait for 3 months before trying again. - If the investigator agrees the available candidates are poor fits for the job opening the offer shall remain open and compared against new resumes. - Each employee gets up to 4 interviews. They may chose who to work for if they are the preferred candidate. If they didn't make it to the top of the list they get additional interviews. - If they decline what the investigator considers a great offer they get no further service for 3-12 months. A great offer must be substantial improvement over their current job. - If any party is unhappy with the result they must fill an appeal with an independent oversight committee. The investigator will assist with filling out the forms. - If the new hire fails to live up to expectations the employer must schedule a meeting and discuss this with the investigator. The biggest advantage of the formula is that the employer is not the authority figure in the room. They are as much the subject of the process as the applicant. Demonstrate poor behavior and you are out.

secretsatan 4y ago

I'm pretty sure one example project I was requested to do was just a way for them to solve a problem, I solved it and never heard back. It turned out to be pretty tricky to accomplish, requiring tracking down some obscure tool. I did do it in the time limit required, but looking back on it, it was a very particular problem with very specific constraints that most common industry tools did not solve...

Nextgrid 4y ago

This is why I have a policy of not doing any take-home tests, exactly to discourage this kind of bullshit and force the company to incur a cost (if they want to "test" me they need to sacrifice an hour of their own dev's time for an in-person/screenshare test) so they can't just "spray and pray" the test to everyone that comes by.

bluGill 4y ago
I'll do the take home tests if I find them interesting. Interesting to me is important. Last time I did one I found a recursive (not tail recessive) solution to a problem that I already knew was a simple iteration using a couple standard library functions - but where is the fun in that? I learned a lot and didn't care that I didn't get the job. (I did earn a call back, which is great considering at the time I didn't qualify for the advanced position they were hiring for)

incomingpain 4y ago

My favourite job interview that went too far... I applied for a sysadmin/netadmin job at a 24x7 facility that basically can't go offline. As many 9s as possible. So they required a rather senior tech for the position and I surprisingly did qualified. The requirements were very steep like 10 years experience, loads of certs etc. You know the type. I got the interview. First I needed to fill out paperwork before I could go onsite. It was general 'this is a factory and is dangerous blah blah, do you have experience' which sure I do. I've worked in countless factories, several were even more industrial and dangerous than theirs. I get onsite and I'm business casual. First thing I'm told is, "the interview got rescheduled to 30 minutes later so everyone was available.' but they failed to tell me... Then I get told that I'm dressed to 'froo froo' but I said that business casual seems appropriate. I sat there the ~45 minutes for the interview completely alone. Eventually I get brought to the interview and the conference room is packed. Well over a dozen people there to interview me. In the interview they explained everything they actually needed. They didn't need just a senior sysadmin and netadmin who must know the tech so well they know how to fix issues instantly. There will also be no other IT people, you're responsible for everything from outlook to factory software. They also needed DBA and someone who can go on the floor to be a labourer sometimes. I answered 'I am always happen to help in an emergency but I don't know anything about how to work the factory floor." At this point I was pretty well done the interview but happy to continue and exercise that skill. So they ask me what would be one of my top achievements. Given the no-downtime nature they would appreciate my story. I was onsite at a large enterprise and was doing cisco aironet changes as well as some core vlan to leaf changes in relation to a new ssid I was deploying. That all went great. There was another team who was onsite, literally IBM bladecenter supervisor was being paid to fully update a bladecenter. He got to patching while I was working. When i finished i got back together and asked how it was going and they said great. Ive done those firmware patches before, they are certainly annoying but given I'd spent fair amount of time doing my job I was already curious. They ought to have completed already. I stood around and was trying to be helpful but then the IBM tech decided he needed to go for a smoke. After he came back in from his smoke his hands were shaking like mad. He couldn't type on the keyboard anymore. Middle of the night outside the secured building isn't a safe place to be, I asked if everything was alright. He said he needed another smoke and left for another smoke and he never came back. Quick note, we ended up not paying any $ for the tech. He had a mental breakdown because he realized he applied the wrong firmware to the networking card. It no longer functioned. Long story short, I took lead to figure out what was even going on. I checked each of the chassis ports and found all traffic was coming over the first port. I broke LACP on the switch and using a single gig port the entire bladecenter operated the next day no big trouble. We were easy 2 hours out of the maintenance window but real major consequences was still an hour ahead. So getting up and running was huge keeping their business running. So interviewer's response? 'That's the best story you have? a total failure that I would blame you for?' I answer, "Perhaps I didn't tell it well. The owners sure appreciated my work and even got us the chefs table at a steakhouse as thanks." His reply, "how much do you want? you seem to think you're worth more than you are." I replied, "I am worth what someone will pay me for my skills. It's not just salary but benefits as well. I would expect this position described to me has a significant budget." He pressed me for a number but I said "I'm not 100% what a position like this would pay, it has steep requirements and I don't have many competitors. I believe you will be fair market value you will offer." He replied, "If I give you too much, we won't have budget for equipment. Typically equipment purchases come out of the technician's budget." I was 100% certain I wouldn't want the job so I replied, "I would estimate this position would be $25/hr plus the usual benefits." LOL, ok my estimate might have been really far off but when he heard my number his demeanor changed bigtime. He started talking about all the benefits of working there. One of the benefits was that 'sometimes you can even come into the air conditioning and sit at your desk.' like omg. Obviously they offered me a job at the $25/hr which i had a hearty laugh at.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

You people need to get some self-respect and stop working for free. They only get away away with this because you allow them to. Next time you're asked to work for free, this is what you do: you say, "Fuck you, pay me". If you want to be a little less blunt, have ready a template contract to write up the job they've requested, with your price, ready for them to sign. If they laugh in your face, laugh in theirs and walk away. If you're in a position of desperation, first get out of that position before you go to these interviews. You cannot negotiate when you're hungry. Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff.

jrootabega 4y ago
> Unfortunately, the reality is, many people are hungry, which is why they put up with this stuff. Many? Billions.
- samhw 4y ago
  I assume they meant "many tech workers / job hunters / the kind of people on this forum", not orphans in darkest Africa or Christian Bale losing weight for a role.
  - Cthulhu_ 4y ago
    And hungry in the sense of hungry for money, achievements and career, not literally hungry. I mean some SF folk live in such luxury that they think eating is a nuisance not worth their attention, so they take on subscriptions or all-in-one meal replacements at 10x the cost and 0.1x the flavor of normal food (think Soylent, Juicero, etc). If your company or colleagues glorify that lifestyle, run away.
    - samhw 4y ago
      That's become me, to be honest. Money has reached the point where it doesn't mean anything any more. For the last year or so I've taken cabs everywhere I've gone, even down the road to go to the shops. This sounds like a brag, but it's really not: I'm not rich, and it means I'm pinioned to my job and can't quit. I was addicted to heroin before, but I think quality-of-life addiction is possibly worse in some ways.

steveBK123 4y ago

I have a company that told me their first tech round (before speaking to coworkers, manager, etc) is a recorded programming sandbox problem solving for an hour. They give you a MSFT Teams number to call into someone on the team who is on-call while doing work, in case you have any questions re: the test. Otherwise they stressed it is “not interactive”. They then look at your results / watch the recording and let you know if they want to talk. A bit over the top for an experienced hire interview loop.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
At least it's only one hour and not a "3 hour take home tests with REST APIs, microservices, containers, NoSQL database, documentation and unit tests", that actually takes a full weekend to a whole week to complete to spec.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Agreed, I’ve also done the take-home multi-hour, take a weekend ones. Worse from a time consumption perspective. However - Something about the panopticon recorded timed test thing feels a little big brother to me.
mekoka 4y ago
Devil's advocate here. That's the kind of interview problem solving test I prefer. You're given an hour to solve a problem that probably takes less than half that time (if we go by the typical problem given for tech interviews). The ticking time stress effect is thus somewhat alleviated and you can focus more on the problem. You're left solving the problem on your own. The alternative is a distracting onlooker who keeps bugging you with "what are you thinking?" As if probing people for meta explanations of their mental processes is how we help them solve problems. You're given a phone number to call if you need help. If my assumptions are correct, their approach is not too far off the mark.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  I guess I’ll just add that - as a candidate, for a somewhat niche experienced role, it is incredibly off-putting. They absolutely do not get a lot of applicants for this role. I don’t even have a job spec & having not spoken to anyone technical, I really don’t know the day to day & responsibilities of the potential job. Which is to say, I don’t know that I even want it. I will probably not bother to continue with them as there were some other red flags that point to them being very lean & stingy, which is their reputation on the street.

Dave3of5 4y ago

Having just been through the recruitment hellscape last year the take home tests are absurd. Some companies are asking for whole weekends worth of work before you even get to speak to anyone. Needless to say if a company is asking for an 8 hour take home, you bet your ass they don't respect you as a candidate and won't respect you as an employee. I hoped that if we collectively stopped doing these then they would go away but there are a lot of people who like doing these and believe they are a net positive for some reason.

mrjin 4y ago
Walk away. Trust me, 99.99% of the time, you will prove yourself wasting time on similar situations.

lapcat 4y ago

I'm self-employed and don't need a job but am still open to the right opportunity. The last job I interviewed for was looking for a specialist in a particular field, which I am (fairly well known in that circle), and they told me they've been looking to fill the position for a full year before they interviewed me. The interview seemed to go well, and they wanted to continue with the process, but they said the next step was a take-home project. I wasn't thrilled, because my qualifications should already be established, but they said it's their mandatory procedure. I thought, ok, I'm interested in this job, and maybe I can power through the project quickly. But no, the project was rather open-ended, more of an unsolved problem than an already solved problem, and I started to see that I could spend an unknown number of hours on it. So I said fuck it and told them I've changed my mind about the job. I noticed many months later after I turned them down that they were still trying to fill the position. This is an employer just shooting themselves in the foot. They created their own "labor shortage". It's actually the second time in a row that I got this kind of absurdity. I was contacted unsolicited by an engineering manager from DuckDuckGo looking for a specialist. I asked them what their hiring procedure was, and it was even worse: they had multiple pre-hiring projects and some kind of probationary period before permanent hire. So I asked if I could just skip this, given my qualifications, and they said no, that's just how they do things at DuckDuckGo, and they believed their hiring process has been "successful" for them. So I basically said no thanks, buh-bye. And they also were continuing to try to fill the position many months after I said no.

gwbas1c 4y ago
> they had multiple pre-hiring projects and some kind of probationary period Duck Duck Go paid me to do their projects. I can understand skipping it if you don't want to put the time in; but at least they aren't taking your work for free.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > Duck Duck Go paid me to do their projects. I can understand skipping it if you don't want to put the time in; but at least they aren't taking your work for free. Correct, they did pay. But I didn't really care about that. My only interest was a permanent job, not a short term contract. If I want short term contracts, I can find those elsewhere.

mrjin 4y ago

There are always people in vulnerable positions and there are more than enough suckers willing to take advantage of that. My tip to avoid that is to ask for a phone screening for around a hour, walk away if cannot get one. If they don't want to invest one hour in you, then why would you spend anytime with them?

jaggederest 4y ago

I've found in the past that if a company presents an onerous task for interviews, and isn't interested in paying directly for the work, sometimes they are willing to donate an equivalent sum to a non-profit of your choice. Of course, the fact that they won't pay directly is useful information when interviewing, by itself, but a donation can indicate respect for your investment of time and effort.

xyzzy4747 4y ago

Never do an interview where you aren’t at least equally wasting someone else’s time.

lelandfe 4y ago

I'm too nervous to name the company, but here we go. [Edit: whatever, I didn't sign an NDA. This was Algolia] I've been meaning to get this off my chest. Out of all ~100 interviews I took over the last 8 months, there was a singular egregious example. It netted out upwards of 25hrs. You may ask, "lelandfe, why did you go through all of this?" It had been 8 months without a paycheck; I barely made rent this month (landed a dream job recently! phew). This was for a senior demo eng role: 1. 30m phone screen 2. 30m behavioral 3. 1hr technical. Asked to write a hashmap to filter JSON, binary search over an array, and a Markdown renderer 4. 8hr take home assignment. But, "if you do wish to spend more [time], please go ahead." I spend the minimum time needed, which winds up being more like 14hrs. I have to register for the platform, come up with a fictitious company, and then design and build a real demo site using the service – turning over the source code and live demo at the end. The scoring rubric is how creative the use of the platform is, and how much value the search service adds to my fake company. 5. 2hr written email correspondence test. I'm given 3 fake emails from "customers," each asking about specifics of the platform, e.g. "where can I find X and Y on the admin?" and "please define concepts Z and A for me." 6. 30m presentation of take home to 10 employees of the SaaS company, followed by 30m Q&A with the team. I'm only made aware of this after turning in my take home. Building and rehearsing the presentation takes around 3hrs. 7. 3hr on-site 8. Day after on-site: 15m wrap-up discussion w/HR 9. 15m wrap-up discussion w/engineering manager Through all of this, every decision maker expressed extreme satisfaction with my performance, and the engineering manager repeatedly told me how smart and well-spoken I was. A week later, I get, as an email: "our team has decided to pass on your candidacy." They adamantly refuse to give me more feedback (though admitting: position still open, no other candidates in final stages), and don't refer me to other roles.

itronitron 4y ago
Yeah, 4 and 5 are things they should train you on after you start. Also, I don't know why anyone would ever need to write their own hashmap, and if you have a hashmap then you don't need binary search :\ . I agree with TrackerFF that someone likely vetoed the group consensus, also potentially a funding issue.
TrackerFF 4y ago

hahamrfunnyguy 4y ago

It's fair to ask people to do work, but they should be paid for it if it goes beyond an hour or so. I've turned down opportunities with a ridiculous recruiting process, I couldn't imagine what it would be like when you actually worked for them! When I was managing the software division of an IT services company, we would send all candidates a fizz-buzz type programming assessment that should only take 5-10 minutes to complete. After that, we would do a 15 minute phone screen then had someone come in for a 1-2 hour long interview with some live programming. The point of the exercises in the interview was to see someone's thought process, not if they could actually "complete" the exercises. At that point, we'd have a pretty good idea of where a candidate's skill were at and we could start the process of extending an offer if the team agreed they were a good fit. There were a few occasions where the candidates had no experience with any of the tech we were using, but were obviously capable developers. We'd usually make an offer at the lower end of the salary range for that position with a raise being guaranteed in 10 weeks if they met the requirements. There was the expectation that they'd do a bit learning outside of work hours if needed. Everyone who was given that offer accepted it and was given the raise.

endemic 4y ago
> There were a few occasions where the candidates had no experience with any of the tech we were using, but were obviously capable developers. We'd usually make an offer at the lower end of the salary range for that position with a raise being guaranteed in 10 weeks if they met the requirements. This is great. Makes sense for the business, and the results spoke for themselves.
uvnq 4y ago
> then had someone come in for a 1-2 hour long interview with some live programming. The point of the exercises in the interview was to see someone's thought process, not if they could actually "complete" the exercises. I don't know much about industry and interviews yet. Do you think this is the case for most interviews? That they care about your thought process, not just if you can complete the problem? Is it necessary to learn/memorize all algorithms and data structures, or is it better to practice and focus on improving my problem solving skills and thought process?

TrackerFF 4y ago

I'm actually all for take-home projects, because I excel at them - and I have the time. But I fully understand that others don't have the time, or don't want to risk being ghosted after submitting work. Ideally, if we're stuck with whiteboarding and take-homes, candidates should get to choose. But with that said, ref. the article...25 pages? Who comes up with that kind of work? My take-home projects have been like 2-3 pages max, and took maybe 2-3 hour to finish from beginning to end.

dkersten 4y ago

I've just been through a job search. While I didn't have to do any take home projects, one company I interviewed at had multiple hours of different interviews (coding, design, etc). I thought I did pretty well (everyone seemed happy with my answers) and I feel like I'm very well suited to the job I interviewed for, given the projects I've worked on previously, but ultimately I didn't get an offer. That could be for any number of reasons, of course, but the feedback they gave is that I didn't manage to "fully complete" the design interview. This is a little baffling to me because the role I was interviewing for doesn't sound like it requires people to design full, complete distributed services within one hour in a high pressure interview situation. I know I can design complex systems, because I've successfully done so multiple times in the past, and I work well enough under pressure, but that I would miss something in a mere hour of an interview is almost a given. My best designs come when I can sleep on it and take a little time. Besides, some of the greatest engineers I know don't do well in artificial interview situations. On the other hand, I also interviewed at another company for a very similar role, yet this time it was a 90 minute chat about stuff I'd worked on in the past. They do normally do an hour long coding task, but they let me skip it because they could see from my experience and the person who referred me vouched for my ability to write code. At the end of the 90 minutes, I was basically told they liked me and hoped I would join and that they'd give me an offer the next day. I happily accepted this offer. During this time a Google recruiter also contacted me but when he said that their process typically takes months I declined right away. I can't think of any time in my career where I'd care to spend months to maybe get a job at Google.

corobo 4y ago

Have you ever looked at a job at Canonical (Ubuntu)? I think that's the most jaw dropping interview process I've ever seen Effectively you write an autobiography and they might read it. I gave up after a couple of hours realising it was such a dumb waste of time to be writing about high school.. I left over half my lifetime ago lmao. It was like squeezing blood out of a stone trying to remember anything from that time. Don't even bother applying if you have ADHD or anything with similar symptoms, you're not what they're after. https://twitter.com/dmsimard/status/1505262381609406467 https://twitter.com/dmsimard/status/1505262381609406467

voidfunc 4y ago

I prefer the take home project interviews because im not great at on-demand recall of algorithms for a whiteboard session

beej71 4y ago

I tell candidates to bring some code--any code--they wrote and are particularly proud of. Then in the interview, I have them teach me how it works, tell me about potential improvements, and describe rationale. In my experience, this has been a quick and effective measure, both technical and behavioral. I find it immoral to ask candidates to put in hours of uncompensated work they wouldn't have normally done. And I don't think it gives good data. Once we hired a dev with zero experience with the platform, language, libraries, or tooling. It was clear from the interview they had skills, though. After two weeks, they were producing good code. After a month, great code. Absolute win. And they never would have been picked by a "spend 16 hours making us a demo project" company.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

Something the article doesn't bother to try and explain, why has interviewing become so difficult? Is the market oversaturated with low quality candidates? Or has the recruiter been integrated internally into companies such that the role has become more bureaucratic?