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Interesting. So if I asked you to open up coderpad.io and write a python function to reverse a string, you'd just absolutely refuse? What would you do otherwi
by dekhn 3y ago
Interesting. So if I asked you to open up coderpad.io and write a python function to reverse a string, you'd just absolutely refuse? What would you do otherwise to show me that you're a programmer?
- mihaitodor 3y agoI’d refuse, but If the conversation goes in that direction, then I’d probably end the conversation right there, since it’s pretty clear that’s not the kind of role I want to interview for. I managed to accumulate a bit of online presence over the years and I expect my future employer to a) look me up prior to the interview and b) have a direct interest in my Open Source work.
- dekhn 3y agoSure, I'd look you up and scan your github pages. I've dealt with people who set up fake githubs (copying from various places on the web to make it look like they did real work). Can't help you if you only want to interview people who are interested in your open source work... that sounds very limiting.
- blitzar 3y agoI've dealt with people whos whole CV was fake. One of the points of the interview is to sniff this out. Diving into a github and then asking questions about it, in the same way as you would ask about stuff on a CV seems like a massive win for the skilled interviewer.
- allarm 3y agoNormally when I’m interviewing people I don’t go much further than asking about the topics they covered in their resume. If they lied in the resume, it’s an instant no-go. And if their resume is on your desk already, that means that their skill set covers most of the requirements for this position already. Simple enough.
- dekhn 3y agoWell, hold on. I see a resume that says "Worked on a complex ML problem, training a model that did blah-and-blah". Sounds great, right? Then when you poke further you find out the person just took an online class that involved git cloning a repo and running scikit-learn on some toy examples without even understanding any of it. Resume inflation is a big thing.
- allarm 3y agoI think you misunderstood, I didn’t mean that the resume alone is enough to pass the interview.
- blitzar 3y agoThis might be too cynical ... but those that engage in resume inflation and all the other games get the interviews and get the jobs and become the interviewer. Thus git cloning a repo and running scikit-learn on some toy examples without even understanding any of it == Worked on a complex ML problem. As for the CV that says took an online class that involved git cloning a repo and running scikit-learn on some toy examples is a CV you should discard as they probably just went for a cup of coffee and looked at the clouds for an hour.
- allarm 3y agoIn my experience it’s super easy to see that the resume or github or a home project is fake. If not immediately then in like first 10 minutes of the interview. I don’t think that “people lie” is a valid reason to generalize. If anything, that’s the interviewers who are limiting themselves, not the other way around.
- mihaitodor 3y agoThis guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude will drive people like myself away instantly and that's fine. So far, I had plenty of options to pick from and, for me at least, culture match is highly important.
- dekhn 3y agoOh, I understand. However, the problem is that many companies are inundated with low-quality, puffed up resumes, and it's truly hard to find people that are actually qualified, especially if they're not doing any work to make themselves available. I would add that I don't think you should think of it as "guilty-until-proven-innocent"; it's just the reality that you are competing with large numbers of amoral people who will lie to get a job. This is much less about culture match than you think.
- michaelt 3y ago> What would you do otherwise to show me that you're a programmer? Pretty much every other job in every other industry seems to do OK with education, experience and references. If I want to hire a guy to tile my bathroom I don't need him to slap some tiles onto a whiteboard to get the job - some photos of the last few jobs he's done would be just fine. Is the programming profession really so full of inept frauds? Is our industry so unable to regulate university education that qualifications are so worthless?
- dekhn 3y agoIs the bathroom tiling really a fair comparison? The main reason I hire the way I do is I learned that there are people who have resumes that look like mine (with 30+ years of coding) but they don't actually know how to do any coding, even just "please write out a simple class in python that does nothing". I go out of my way to give every candidate a fair shake and I'm not looking for some fast, set-in-stone rules. Nor am I looking for you to solve any really hard problems. Still it's been depressing just how many coders I interview who can't even explain how a hash table works.
- codr7 3y agoTry again?
- stcroixx 3y agoI would definitely leave. Maybe for an intern that would be acceptable, otherwise red flag.
- dekhn 3y agoHow can you expect to interview for a job without doing a basic coding interview?
- dpe82 3y agoMaybe by presenting your education and past experiences by discussing the design and interpersonal challenges you worked through? IMO quizzing someone on whether they can solve an artificially tricky algorithm problem on the spot does not correlate very strongly the actual day-to-day work we do as software engineers. At best it's a measure of... whether someone can solve a tricky algorithm problem on the spot. It looks like engineering but it's not really what we do.
- dekhn 3y agoIf you read my comments you'll see I'm not advocating tricky algorithm problems. We're talking fizzbuzz-level verification, I'd say about 50% of applicants that I interview can't do fizzbuzz. Do you want me to make it easier? how about reverse a string?
- dpe82 3y agoAh yeah, agreed, a bare minimum "yeah ok you can code" is perfectly reasonable.