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Whiteboard tests are not a good way to evaluate people. It doesn’t tell you if they’re going to be a leader. It doesn’t tell you if they’re going to take an ini

by water9 3y ago

Whiteboard tests are not a good way to evaluate people. It doesn’t tell you if they’re going to be a leader. It doesn’t tell you if they’re going to take an initiative. It doesn’t tell you if they’re going to be a person that complains all the time. It doesn’t tell you if they’re going to be able to solve problems they haven’t seen before which by nature will be all problems they encounter. Whiteboarding interviews are a good way to make the applicant feel bad about themselves so you can lowball them in salary, however

danielvaughn 3y ago
I agree, but the same can be said of any other interview technique. There's no rock solid, reliable way to determine in 30-60 minutes whether a candidate is going to be a good hire. I'm not in favor of whiteboards, but I'm also not necessarily in favor of anything else.
- kekebo 3y ago
  I'm told that in the early days of the German branch of takeaway.com they would conduct interviews late and invite the interviewee to their after work beer and only hire the person if they thought they would enjoy future beers with them. Obviously only useful to somewhat determine personality but in my experience that is often a better predictor for a good hire than tech skills.
  - recursive 3y ago
    > often a better predictor for a good hire than tech skills On the other hand, the inability to write a nested for loop is a reliable predictor for a bad hire.
  - nradov 3y ago
    That is an unprofessional, abusive way to treat job applicants. It's going to filter out those who don't drink or who have evening family obligations. Any hiring manager who engages in these shenanigans should be ashamed of themselves. And in the USA at least, they could potentially be exposing the company to legal jeopardy.
  - danielvaughn 3y ago
    I think the biggest issue with this is that you leave yourself open to bias. The person you're most likely to enjoy food/drinks with is the person you're most likely to be friends with. You'll end up with teams hiring via popularity, and possibly excluding those from other cultures or who have different personality traits.
akomtu 3y ago
Are you hiring a captain for an extraterrestrial mission or an average programmer who will sit 8 hours a day in a cubicle, working on jira tickets?
- cratermoon 3y ago
  And if you're hiring for the latter, don't give the candidate the impression you're looking for the former. It's very insulting to think you're being hired to take initiative and provide leadership for the team to solve problems and then be told you aren't clicking on the right Jira buttons to make the metrics look good.
  - recursive 3y ago
    At some point the candidate is going to need to write some code. If you haven't been involved in hiring, you might not know how little proficiency it's possible to have in actually writing code, while having a beautiful looking resume. Clicking buttons in jira alone isn't going to go very far.
    - cratermoon 3y ago
      I've been on both sides of interviewing, so much so that I can almost tell just be looking at subtle things on a resume or in interviewing whether or the person has real programming skill. In my early days, I hired some real stinkers, and learned from those errors. I've worked with people who wrote code that made The Daily WTF[1] (I know, because I submitted it) I know how to reject candidates that check the boxes that HR screens but can't code. I've consulted (mercifully briefly) at organizations where programmers whose primary skillset was using copy/paste but were able to jump through all the Jira (technically Azure DevOps: same shit, different name) hoops were given ownership of key parts of a system. What were you saying about proficiency? 1. https://thedailywtf.com/ https://thedailywtf.com/ I'd link the actual post but it was over a decade ago and
      - recursive 3y ago
fl7305 3y ago
Some people have good resumes and can present themselves well. But they can't write very basic code, no matter how much handholding they get. How do you make sure you don't hire these people?
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
  You don't need leetcode challenges to weed out people who are lying or totally incompetent. I simple whiteboard test such as reversing a list will do the trick!
  - water9 3y ago
    list.reverse() Hey ChatGPT how to reverse a list? Why are you hiring the guy if the job is that easy? Just because someone can do leetcode questions doesn’t mean that they can design a system or even design an API. That actually requires creativity not memorization.
    - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
      I wouldn't recommend hiring someone (except perhaps for an entry level job) based on ANY kind of whiteboard test. For a senior person it's their experience that counts, which is why the interview should be around what's on their resume. The list reverse (or anything similar - count word occurrences in a list) doesn't qualify someone for the job, but is a good way to quickly tell if someone is lying about their experience, which unfortunately some do, especially for low paying contractor jobs. For stuff this simple I'd expect people to just write it down in 30 sec once they've asked any clarifying questions (such as can I use list.reverse() - no).
      - water9 3y ago
        I completely agree with you, but it seems like even for senior or staff software positions they still whiteboard interview you. Here’s the problem though: most software development is done alone and most software engineers are introverts. They do not like to be put on the spot and be the center of attention. When you ask them to do things under pressure (which basically means your company is always having fires to put out - management problem) they can’t think straight because half their mind is focused on how you’re judging them because the interview matters to them much more than it matters to you. You’re not giving them a fair test.
whynotmaybe 3y ago
My strategy was always the same, ask technical questions and go deeper with each question until the applicants says something like "I don't know but I would do xyz to find out." But I always warn first that there's no problem if they don't know the answer so they know first-hand they can say I don't know. Very easy to detect bullshitter that will invent stuff or those on the first level of dunningkruger. And the best moment of my life was when I interviewed someone who had all the answers and the explanation of why it was working this way. I told hr that we had to hire him in a higher position than me!
- water9 3y ago
  I like the strategy, and I do something similar. You really just need to ask them about their experience and listen to them talk. The people that know what they’re doing will gladly go into too much detail whereas the impostors will say a lot of jargon, but not explain how things work
scotty79 3y ago
It tells you if they lied hard on their resume, which is often sufficient.

by water9 3y ago

danielvaughn 3y ago

I agree, but the same can be said of any other interview technique. There's no rock solid, reliable way to determine in 30-60 minutes whether a candidate is going to be a good hire. I'm not in favor of whiteboards, but I'm also not necessarily in favor of anything else.

kekebo 3y ago
I'm told that in the early days of the German branch of takeaway.com they would conduct interviews late and invite the interviewee to their after work beer and only hire the person if they thought they would enjoy future beers with them. Obviously only useful to somewhat determine personality but in my experience that is often a better predictor for a good hire than tech skills.
- recursive 3y ago
  > often a better predictor for a good hire than tech skills On the other hand, the inability to write a nested for loop is a reliable predictor for a bad hire.
- nradov 3y ago
  That is an unprofessional, abusive way to treat job applicants. It's going to filter out those who don't drink or who have evening family obligations. Any hiring manager who engages in these shenanigans should be ashamed of themselves. And in the USA at least, they could potentially be exposing the company to legal jeopardy.
- danielvaughn 3y ago
  I think the biggest issue with this is that you leave yourself open to bias. The person you're most likely to enjoy food/drinks with is the person you're most likely to be friends with. You'll end up with teams hiring via popularity, and possibly excluding those from other cultures or who have different personality traits.

akomtu 3y ago

Are you hiring a captain for an extraterrestrial mission or an average programmer who will sit 8 hours a day in a cubicle, working on jira tickets?

cratermoon 3y ago
And if you're hiring for the latter, don't give the candidate the impression you're looking for the former. It's very insulting to think you're being hired to take initiative and provide leadership for the team to solve problems and then be told you aren't clicking on the right Jira buttons to make the metrics look good.
- recursive 3y ago
  At some point the candidate is going to need to write some code. If you haven't been involved in hiring, you might not know how little proficiency it's possible to have in actually writing code, while having a beautiful looking resume. Clicking buttons in jira alone isn't going to go very far.
  - cratermoon 3y ago
    I've been on both sides of interviewing, so much so that I can almost tell just be looking at subtle things on a resume or in interviewing whether or the person has real programming skill. In my early days, I hired some real stinkers, and learned from those errors. I've worked with people who wrote code that made The Daily WTF[1] (I know, because I submitted it) I know how to reject candidates that check the boxes that HR screens but can't code. I've consulted (mercifully briefly) at organizations where programmers whose primary skillset was using copy/paste but were able to jump through all the Jira (technically Azure DevOps: same shit, different name) hoops were given ownership of key parts of a system. What were you saying about proficiency? 1. https://thedailywtf.com/ https://thedailywtf.com/ I'd link the actual post but it was over a decade ago and
    - recursive 3y ago

fl7305 3y ago

Some people have good resumes and can present themselves well. But they can't write very basic code, no matter how much handholding they get. How do you make sure you don't hire these people?

HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
You don't need leetcode challenges to weed out people who are lying or totally incompetent. I simple whiteboard test such as reversing a list will do the trick!
- water9 3y ago
  list.reverse() Hey ChatGPT how to reverse a list? Why are you hiring the guy if the job is that easy? Just because someone can do leetcode questions doesn’t mean that they can design a system or even design an API. That actually requires creativity not memorization.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
    I wouldn't recommend hiring someone (except perhaps for an entry level job) based on ANY kind of whiteboard test. For a senior person it's their experience that counts, which is why the interview should be around what's on their resume. The list reverse (or anything similar - count word occurrences in a list) doesn't qualify someone for the job, but is a good way to quickly tell if someone is lying about their experience, which unfortunately some do, especially for low paying contractor jobs. For stuff this simple I'd expect people to just write it down in 30 sec once they've asked any clarifying questions (such as can I use list.reverse() - no).
    - water9 3y ago
      I completely agree with you, but it seems like even for senior or staff software positions they still whiteboard interview you. Here’s the problem though: most software development is done alone and most software engineers are introverts. They do not like to be put on the spot and be the center of attention. When you ask them to do things under pressure (which basically means your company is always having fires to put out - management problem) they can’t think straight because half their mind is focused on how you’re judging them because the interview matters to them much more than it matters to you. You’re not giving them a fair test.

whynotmaybe 3y ago

My strategy was always the same, ask technical questions and go deeper with each question until the applicants says something like "I don't know but I would do xyz to find out." But I always warn first that there's no problem if they don't know the answer so they know first-hand they can say I don't know. Very easy to detect bullshitter that will invent stuff or those on the first level of dunningkruger. And the best moment of my life was when I interviewed someone who had all the answers and the explanation of why it was working this way. I told hr that we had to hire him in a higher position than me!

water9 3y ago
I like the strategy, and I do something similar. You really just need to ask them about their experience and listen to them talk. The people that know what they’re doing will gladly go into too much detail whereas the impostors will say a lot of jargon, but not explain how things work

scotty79 3y ago

It tells you if they lied hard on their resume, which is often sufficient.