4 ms·

Well said. The musical instrument analogy is apt. Your violin playing has to remain exceptional if you want to have a position of authority at the top of the v

Well said. The musical instrument analogy is apt. Your violin playing has to remain exceptional if you want to have a position of authority at the top of the violin playing pyramid. You maintain that by playing the violin a lot. When I ask you to implement and discuss an advent of code style solution in 50 minutes it is because there is an expectation you are an exceptional violin player and I simply want to enjoy listening to you play. We choose the members of our ensemble based on many criteria and one of those is a rather binary proficient / not proficient violin playing test. (As a senior member of the ensemble you will be expected to also show expression in your playing, be self aware of that expression, have an understanding of music theory at a large scale, an ability to communicate clearly and with confidence so that you can coach others in their playing, etc.) I’ve been a violin professional for 25 years. I find myself doing just as much violin review as I do violin playing. If a junior dev, sorry, violinist is having trouble with a piece then the best way to show them is to play a few bars myself to show them an abstract example of how their playing could be different and better. Who will listen to my advice if I’m ham fistedly scratching out a fiddle dirge, when doing so?

AlotOfReading 3y ago
It's probably worth talking about how radically different the typical orchestral audition process actually is though. You'll typically be told a large list of excerpts to practice weeks ahead of time. Some places may have you submit recorded samples ahead of time for screening, others you just show up. The day of, you'll be given a definitive list of "problems" and 30m+ to warm up/practice those problems before each of the rounds. Sight reading the way coding challenges are done is sometimes listed as a requirement, but extremely rare in practice according to my orchestral neighbors.
- gorgoiler 3y ago
  The analogy was a bit hokey but this added a lot more to it, as a concept. Thank you. For coding interviews I do require that my recruiter tells the candidate pretty much exactly the way the day will pan out. If a candidate ever arrived and was surprised to be given a leetcode (lite!) challenge then something would have gone horribly wrong. An interview without signal is a waste of everyone’s time.
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    The point I was trying to highlight is that "instrumental interviews" rely on the interviewee having seen and practiced the exact problems being tested before ever entering the interview room. It's a fundamentally different thing being tested from coding interviews, where the candidate won't even know the "genre" they're being tested on, let alone have spent time with the questions beforehand.

AlotOfReading 3y ago

It's probably worth talking about how radically different the typical orchestral audition process actually is though. You'll typically be told a large list of excerpts to practice weeks ahead of time. Some places may have you submit recorded samples ahead of time for screening, others you just show up. The day of, you'll be given a definitive list of "problems" and 30m+ to warm up/practice those problems before each of the rounds. Sight reading the way coding challenges are done is sometimes listed as a requirement, but extremely rare in practice according to my orchestral neighbors.

gorgoiler 3y ago
The analogy was a bit hokey but this added a lot more to it, as a concept. Thank you. For coding interviews I do require that my recruiter tells the candidate pretty much exactly the way the day will pan out. If a candidate ever arrived and was surprised to be given a leetcode (lite!) challenge then something would have gone horribly wrong. An interview without signal is a waste of everyone’s time.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  The point I was trying to highlight is that "instrumental interviews" rely on the interviewee having seen and practiced the exact problems being tested before ever entering the interview room. It's a fundamentally different thing being tested from coding interviews, where the candidate won't even know the "genre" they're being tested on, let alone have spent time with the questions beforehand.