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It absolutely is an indictment of the applicants as well. These questions get asked for a good reason. One problem I see is that these types of interviews, whi

It absolutely is an indictment of the applicants as well. These questions get asked for a good reason. One problem I see is that these types of interviews, which are essentially basic aptitude tests, might be regarded by the interviewers as far more than they really are. The idea of "preparing" for a coding interview is absurd. If the applicant feels it is neccesarry to prepare he either is completely unqualified or the testing method is bad. I am quite certain that in a 15 minute talk I could easily figure out if some applicant has the technical knowledge for a position similar to mine. And that seems to me what Interviews should be about.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago
That 15-minute talk would also give you the more important information of how easy they would be to train on all the things they do not yet know.
- lordnacho 4y ago
  Yep. I've never screwed up hiring people just by having a technical conversation. It just never goes wrong in the sense of me hiring some person who couldn't learn to do the thing I wanted. The only bad hires I've had were motivational, people who decided to do other things with their lives despite knowing how to code. With any modern tech-heavy business, there's just so much industry specific jargon that if you hadn't done whatever was on the CV that led to the interview invitation, you would get found out in a short conversation. I hear people sometimes run into some smooth talker who knows all the words and none of the actual skills. Never happened to me, and it's so far from it I can't really imagine it.
  - BeFlatXIII 4y ago
    My guess is that the smooth talkers are more of a problem in jargon-heavy interviews.
ilyt 4y ago
>One problem I see is that these types of interviews, which are essentially basic aptitude tests, might be regarded by the interviewers as far more than they really are. The idea of "preparing" for a coding interview is absurd. If the applicant feels it is neccesarry to prepare he either is completely unqualified or the testing method is bad. I think it is because it started as just simple "weed out the weeds" questions and somebody got bright idea that "the harder brain teasers they ask the better candidates will be left", not realizing they are just recruiting people that are good at trivia.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

That 15-minute talk would also give you the more important information of how easy they would be to train on all the things they do not yet know.

lordnacho 4y ago
Yep. I've never screwed up hiring people just by having a technical conversation. It just never goes wrong in the sense of me hiring some person who couldn't learn to do the thing I wanted. The only bad hires I've had were motivational, people who decided to do other things with their lives despite knowing how to code. With any modern tech-heavy business, there's just so much industry specific jargon that if you hadn't done whatever was on the CV that led to the interview invitation, you would get found out in a short conversation. I hear people sometimes run into some smooth talker who knows all the words and none of the actual skills. Never happened to me, and it's so far from it I can't really imagine it.
- BeFlatXIII 4y ago
  My guess is that the smooth talkers are more of a problem in jargon-heavy interviews.

ilyt 4y ago

>One problem I see is that these types of interviews, which are essentially basic aptitude tests, might be regarded by the interviewers as far more than they really are. The idea of "preparing" for a coding interview is absurd. If the applicant feels it is neccesarry to prepare he either is completely unqualified or the testing method is bad. I think it is because it started as just simple "weed out the weeds" questions and somebody got bright idea that "the harder brain teasers they ask the better candidates will be left", not realizing they are just recruiting people that are good at trivia.