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It’s a way to filter out more experienced candidates because they want cheap and young. Even a Meta recruiter admits to me that Leetcode has nothing to do wit

It’s a way to filter out more experienced candidates because they want cheap and young. Even a Meta recruiter admits to me that Leetcode has nothing to do with the job, it’s just a company requirement that no one questions.

deleted 4y ago
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ahtihn 4y ago
Why do they pay more than anyone else if they want cheap? They could easily pay 30% less and still fill their positions if they just lowered the bar to get hired.
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  If they are paying 30% less then they will be competing against late stage startups. They have a cash cow to help tilt the lever to their advantage. However that 30% is unlikely to make older workers works more because they have other family obligations. Priorities change in your 30s.
ascar 4y ago
Your logic doesn't add up. Sure, these tests are not an ideal proxy for job performance and indeed they shifted more and more from general intelligence assessment to algorithm coding assessment. Solving the algorithm is only part of the equation though. Writing readable code, explaining your thought process and decisions and communicating well with the interviewer are also vital points of the assessment. Is it a perfect or even good proxy for job performance? I dunno. Do we have a better one within a 40 minute interview? Not really. Past experience is unfortunately also a weak indicator, starting with the question if what's in the CV is an accurate reflection of the truth. There is also an interesting cultural aspect to lying on your CV. Every approach comes with its own unique set of problems and as long as the position is sought after people will prepare and try to game the system. The opinion of a recruiter on the matter isn't really the most relevant either. Especially Google should have quite some data on their various approaches and correlation to job performance and seems to use it. E.g. the trick questions were abandoned as they didn't show a correlation to job performance.
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  > these tests are not an ideal proxy for job performance > Past experience is unfortunately also a weak indicator If past experience of doing the actual job is bad indicator and these test are not a good proxy, then according to your logic, experience is worthless and we should all optimize for these tests. And this is exactly what is happening in the industry. Younger professionals spent hours memorizing Leetcode because they just graduate to pass the test. Older professionals having years of experience and family obligations don't. > Writing readable code, explaining your thought process and decisions and communicating well with the interviewer are also vital points of the assessment. Maybe to you, but I have seen many candidates get an automatic fail if they can't solve 2 questions in 50 minutes. The key metric being 2. > Especially Google should have quite some data on their various approaches and correlation to job performance and seems to use it. Source? > Every approach comes with its own unique set of problems and as long as the position is sought after people will prepare and try to game the system. Agree
  - zeroonetwothree 4y ago
    The questions I see don’t use any tricky DS/algo that needs memorising. They are all solved by some loops and a simple data structure like an array or dictionary. If you can’t use those comfortably then you probably aren’t actually going to do well at the job. I don’t practice at all for interviews and have had no problem passing, I get an offer maybe 70% of the time. If anything companies are desperate for experienced hires and give them really softball interviews. If you are a new grad you get grilled hard but if you are going for staff+ then you get asked some generic soft questions and a fizz buzz (Have 15 years experience)
    - nowherebeen 4y ago
      > The questions I see don’t use any tricky DS/algo that needs memorising. That's kind of anecdotal. If it was that easy, everyone would pass. My experience has been entirely on the interviewer. The younger the interviewer, the more they have to prove by giving dynamic programming or direct acyclic graph questions. I am not denying your experience, but it just isn't universally true.
distrill 4y ago
it's not a company requirement that no one questions. it's an industry requirement that literally everyone questions all the time.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ahtihn 4y ago

Why do they pay more than anyone else if they want cheap? They could easily pay 30% less and still fill their positions if they just lowered the bar to get hired.

nowherebeen 4y ago
If they are paying 30% less then they will be competing against late stage startups. They have a cash cow to help tilt the lever to their advantage. However that 30% is unlikely to make older workers works more because they have other family obligations. Priorities change in your 30s.

ascar 4y ago

Your logic doesn't add up. Sure, these tests are not an ideal proxy for job performance and indeed they shifted more and more from general intelligence assessment to algorithm coding assessment. Solving the algorithm is only part of the equation though. Writing readable code, explaining your thought process and decisions and communicating well with the interviewer are also vital points of the assessment. Is it a perfect or even good proxy for job performance? I dunno. Do we have a better one within a 40 minute interview? Not really. Past experience is unfortunately also a weak indicator, starting with the question if what's in the CV is an accurate reflection of the truth. There is also an interesting cultural aspect to lying on your CV. Every approach comes with its own unique set of problems and as long as the position is sought after people will prepare and try to game the system. The opinion of a recruiter on the matter isn't really the most relevant either. Especially Google should have quite some data on their various approaches and correlation to job performance and seems to use it. E.g. the trick questions were abandoned as they didn't show a correlation to job performance.

nowherebeen 4y ago
> these tests are not an ideal proxy for job performance > Past experience is unfortunately also a weak indicator If past experience of doing the actual job is bad indicator and these test are not a good proxy, then according to your logic, experience is worthless and we should all optimize for these tests. And this is exactly what is happening in the industry. Younger professionals spent hours memorizing Leetcode because they just graduate to pass the test. Older professionals having years of experience and family obligations don't. > Writing readable code, explaining your thought process and decisions and communicating well with the interviewer are also vital points of the assessment. Maybe to you, but I have seen many candidates get an automatic fail if they can't solve 2 questions in 50 minutes. The key metric being 2. > Especially Google should have quite some data on their various approaches and correlation to job performance and seems to use it. Source? > Every approach comes with its own unique set of problems and as long as the position is sought after people will prepare and try to game the system. Agree
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  The questions I see don’t use any tricky DS/algo that needs memorising. They are all solved by some loops and a simple data structure like an array or dictionary. If you can’t use those comfortably then you probably aren’t actually going to do well at the job. I don’t practice at all for interviews and have had no problem passing, I get an offer maybe 70% of the time. If anything companies are desperate for experienced hires and give them really softball interviews. If you are a new grad you get grilled hard but if you are going for staff+ then you get asked some generic soft questions and a fizz buzz (Have 15 years experience)
  - nowherebeen 4y ago
    > The questions I see don’t use any tricky DS/algo that needs memorising. That's kind of anecdotal. If it was that easy, everyone would pass. My experience has been entirely on the interviewer. The younger the interviewer, the more they have to prove by giving dynamic programming or direct acyclic graph questions. I am not denying your experience, but it just isn't universally true.

distrill 4y ago

it's not a company requirement that no one questions. it's an industry requirement that literally everyone questions all the time.