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> jumping through the arbitrary flaming hoops they set up to keep people out. Amen. Having HR set up some bullshit criteria and resume robot to presort your c

> jumping through the arbitrary flaming hoops they set up to keep people out. Amen. Having HR set up some bullshit criteria and resume robot to presort your candidates, then subject the ones who fall through that sieve to stupid gotcha programming questions is an amazing way to develop the attitude that it’s “hard to find good programmers”

sfn42 3y ago
The only part of this process that I don't have a problem with is the technical interview/test. I hear people complain about this type of stuff all the time but based on the tests and challenges I've received they're reasonable. I've never been asked by a potential employer to do anything I didn't consider trivial or close to trivial. I've done some quizzes with easy questions (though the recruiters were very impressed that I aced them, apparently most don't come close), I've done a technical interview where I implemented a simple vehicle registry based on stubs and tests, just basic C# programming (I didn't even know C# when I did it, I knew Java) with basic data structures. A friend of mine had one where they were asked to implement a very simple frontend that gets some data from SpaceXs graphql api and display it in a table. All of these are completely reasonable expectations for a competent developer. I could easily complete all of them as a fresh graduate with no work experience. I understand not everyone is this reasonable, what I'm saying is that I think these kinds of simple exercises are a reasonable way to eliminate candidates who actually don't know basic shit you would expect them to know. There are a lot of them, even with degrees. It's pretty much just bias. I'm biased towards these tests because to me they're trivial so it benefits me that I get an easy way to stand out. I also wouldn't want to hire anyone who can't do simple basic programming tasks, so I sympathize with the employers in that regard. On the other hand you have people who are mad because the tests reveal their incompetence.
- fnimick 3y ago
  The problem is when the tests let in "too many people" for big companies, they end up ramping them up to be unnecessarily hard to compensate. Then small companies feel that they need to copy what successful big cos do, so they end up with insane leetcode problems and then complain that they can't get any good candidates because they're all failing at the arbitrary barrier specifically designed to cut out 99% of the applicant pool. When I hear "technical test", I don't think "reasonable implementation", I think of the interview I was in where I was asked a moderately difficult graph question, I reasoned my way to the solution from scratch, then got cut from the process with the explicit feedback that I should have recognized Djikstra's algorithm and had it memorized rather than needing to derive the correct solution myself (!!!) (that still blows my mind, apparently being able to understand the problem and derive the correct solution is worse than memorizing it)
  - sfn42 3y ago
    Yeah, that's idiotic.
  - kcplate 3y ago
    > I reasoned my way to the solution from scratch, then got cut from the process with the explicit feedback that I should have recognized Djikstra's algorithm and had it memorized rather than needing to derive the correct solution myself Your mistake was that you thought they wanted someone with creative problem solving skills…when what they really wanted was a parrot.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    Yea, I've "failed" technical interviews because my solution was not the one the interviewer was looking for. Sometimes I wonder if the interviewers lack the skill to evaluate a solution on its own merits, and are just pattern matching with the solution they want. It's not a class exam, I'm not required to demonstrate I learned the material and can regurgitate it, I'm (supposedly) being hired for my ability to solve problems.

sfn42 3y ago

The only part of this process that I don't have a problem with is the technical interview/test. I hear people complain about this type of stuff all the time but based on the tests and challenges I've received they're reasonable. I've never been asked by a potential employer to do anything I didn't consider trivial or close to trivial. I've done some quizzes with easy questions (though the recruiters were very impressed that I aced them, apparently most don't come close), I've done a technical interview where I implemented a simple vehicle registry based on stubs and tests, just basic C# programming (I didn't even know C# when I did it, I knew Java) with basic data structures. A friend of mine had one where they were asked to implement a very simple frontend that gets some data from SpaceXs graphql api and display it in a table. All of these are completely reasonable expectations for a competent developer. I could easily complete all of them as a fresh graduate with no work experience. I understand not everyone is this reasonable, what I'm saying is that I think these kinds of simple exercises are a reasonable way to eliminate candidates who actually don't know basic shit you would expect them to know. There are a lot of them, even with degrees. It's pretty much just bias. I'm biased towards these tests because to me they're trivial so it benefits me that I get an easy way to stand out. I also wouldn't want to hire anyone who can't do simple basic programming tasks, so I sympathize with the employers in that regard. On the other hand you have people who are mad because the tests reveal their incompetence.

fnimick 3y ago
The problem is when the tests let in "too many people" for big companies, they end up ramping them up to be unnecessarily hard to compensate. Then small companies feel that they need to copy what successful big cos do, so they end up with insane leetcode problems and then complain that they can't get any good candidates because they're all failing at the arbitrary barrier specifically designed to cut out 99% of the applicant pool. When I hear "technical test", I don't think "reasonable implementation", I think of the interview I was in where I was asked a moderately difficult graph question, I reasoned my way to the solution from scratch, then got cut from the process with the explicit feedback that I should have recognized Djikstra's algorithm and had it memorized rather than needing to derive the correct solution myself (!!!) (that still blows my mind, apparently being able to understand the problem and derive the correct solution is worse than memorizing it)
- sfn42 3y ago
  Yeah, that's idiotic.
- kcplate 3y ago
  > I reasoned my way to the solution from scratch, then got cut from the process with the explicit feedback that I should have recognized Djikstra's algorithm and had it memorized rather than needing to derive the correct solution myself Your mistake was that you thought they wanted someone with creative problem solving skills…when what they really wanted was a parrot.
- cratermoon 3y ago
  Yea, I've "failed" technical interviews because my solution was not the one the interviewer was looking for. Sometimes I wonder if the interviewers lack the skill to evaluate a solution on its own merits, and are just pattern matching with the solution they want. It's not a class exam, I'm not required to demonstrate I learned the material and can regurgitate it, I'm (supposedly) being hired for my ability to solve problems.