30 ms·

Interns are supposed to be slow, unproductive, and need lots of hand holding! They’re fucking students for fucks sake.

by ok_dad 4y ago

lanstin 4y ago
To be cynical, there are no dumb questions, only dumb people. Some people ask the same question over and over, and others have different questions, rather rapidly getting to very interesting questions.
- bluGill 4y ago
  There are many dumb questions. Asking me about ancient Chinese history for example. (this is a particularly dumb question to ask in the context of this thread where it is an off topic question asked to someone who knows very little about the topic)
  - lanstin 4y ago
    Wouldn't this be a natural case of "check Wikipedia"?
  - george574 4y ago
    [dead]
Shacklz 4y ago
An intern's productivity sort of lies in "how fast they learn". Can they pick up things by just being pointed into the right directions or do they need everything spoon-fed, in small doses, with repetition, to then still get it wrong? At least in our place, we do not really expect them to be productive in the usual sense, but they definitely have ample opportunity to give us a feeling of their place on the bell curve. (as an anecdote: We currently have some 17 year old apprentice which puts some of our seniors to absolute shame, myself included. The amount of motivation, learning hunger, quick thinking and ability to ask the right questions is really astounding, especially given that he essentially just started and has next-to-no education in our area to speak of as of yet)
nullspace 4y ago
Really? Not the parent poster, but have observed the same thing. All interns need handholding but some need 10x more than others. And yeah, they often end up doing another internship or so at a faang.
gedy 4y ago
We had some awesome interns, very interested in learning and working! I'm talking about those who weren't and surprised Google (and Facebook) hired them soon after.
- Jensson 4y ago
  So how is your interview process better than theirs, since you keep getting these lousy people? I saw many worthless people in the places I worked at before Google, then at Google I didn't see anyone close to that bad, so to me their process seems to work. They were very open about their data around hiring and scoring hires as well, and that data was very clear that the interview they arrived at was the best interview, they tried and experimented a lot and arrived at it. Alternatively maybe those people were just unmotivated to work for you and spent their internship preparing for Google.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Curiosity and motivation do not require experience.

Interns are supposed to be slow, unproductive, and need lots of hand holding! They’re fucking students for fucks sake.

by ok_dad 4y ago

Interns are supposed to be slow, unproductive, and need lots of hand holding! They’re fucking students for fucks sake.

To be cynical, there are no dumb questions, only dumb people. Some people ask the same question over and over, and others have different questions, rather rapidly getting to very interesting questions.

bluGill 4y ago
There are many dumb questions. Asking me about ancient Chinese history for example. (this is a particularly dumb question to ask in the context of this thread where it is an off topic question asked to someone who knows very little about the topic)
- lanstin 4y ago
  Wouldn't this be a natural case of "check Wikipedia"?
- george574 4y ago
  [dead]

Shacklz 4y ago

An intern's productivity sort of lies in "how fast they learn". Can they pick up things by just being pointed into the right directions or do they need everything spoon-fed, in small doses, with repetition, to then still get it wrong? At least in our place, we do not really expect them to be productive in the usual sense, but they definitely have ample opportunity to give us a feeling of their place on the bell curve. (as an anecdote: We currently have some 17 year old apprentice which puts some of our seniors to absolute shame, myself included. The amount of motivation, learning hunger, quick thinking and ability to ask the right questions is really astounding, especially given that he essentially just started and has next-to-no education in our area to speak of as of yet)

nullspace 4y ago

Really? Not the parent poster, but have observed the same thing. All interns need handholding but some need 10x more than others. And yeah, they often end up doing another internship or so at a faang.

gedy 4y ago

We had some awesome interns, very interested in learning and working! I'm talking about those who weren't and surprised Google (and Facebook) hired them soon after.

Jensson 4y ago
So how is your interview process better than theirs, since you keep getting these lousy people? I saw many worthless people in the places I worked at before Google, then at Google I didn't see anyone close to that bad, so to me their process seems to work. They were very open about their data around hiring and scoring hires as well, and that data was very clear that the interview they arrived at was the best interview, they tried and experimented a lot and arrived at it. Alternatively maybe those people were just unmotivated to work for you and spent their internship preparing for Google.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago

Curiosity and motivation do not require experience.