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I once had a SW interview with a job that had a 2-hour long personality test. No tech questions. Just random questions to test my personality. It started ou

I once had a SW interview with a job that had a 2-hour long personality test. No tech questions. Just random questions to test my personality. It started out simple, like 'what was the last book you read' to more in-depth situations that had nothing to do with the job. The manager interviewing me (who admit he basically just started managing a month prior) told me he just read a 'great book on management' and wanted to 'try this out'. I passed the first interview, but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I declined the second interview. I ended up choosing the job that had no whiteboard interview or personality test. It was just a simple conversation with the tech lead about my previous experience and if I had the experience to work on their current system. It was the best job I ever had and they are still my client almost 5 years later.

ejb999 3y ago
Yep - companies will continue to use these bizarre hiring criteria/tests unless or until enough people refuse to participate; but as long as their is a line of people behind you willing to do 'whatever' for the chance at the job, not much will change.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Unfortunately companies have found a loophole: They just say "we couldn't find anyone who is acceptable for the role locally so instead we'll hire overseas for a fraction of the cost, darn" Almost like the unnecessarily complex hiring processes are built that way on purpose.
  - neuromanser 3y ago
    Rest assured that a company that'll have domestic candidates jump through ill-advised hoops subjects the off-shore ones to the same bullshit.
    - shitlord 3y ago
      In this thought experiment the domestic candidates aren't putting up with it, which is the only reason why the offshore ones are even candidates.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    "we'll hire overseas for a fraction of the cost, darn" The ones at a fraction of the cost aren't very good. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
      Maybe, maybe not. I've worked with great offshore teams and terrible ones, I think the great ones were more expensive but still less than a local salary. But the theoretical hiring manager here doesn't care anyways. All they want is to come under budget so they can max their bonus for being so cleverly frugal.
    - zooq_ai 3y ago
      That's a naive argument. Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population. And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well
      - Clubber 3y ago
        >That's a naive argument. No, it's an experienced one. >Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population. That is only a fraction of what it takes to produce good software developers. You have to include quality of the educational systems, living conditions and all that. Any offshore developer worth their salt gets paid market rates or near market rates. >And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well It's not their nationality, it's the price they are charging for. I bet you can't find a quality US worker for $30K a year either.
      - jakupovic 3y ago
        I work with IDC folks a lot and just like you said there is no difference in quality but the time difference and being US centric makes a difference. The US side makes the decisions and the ither sides has to follow. I personally try to give as much independence as possible but it's just how it is based on where the money comes from.
- mihaaly 3y ago
  I did my part: refused a job because of these kind of mandatory weird tests.
intelVISA 3y ago
Every job/client I've acquired has been a 10-15min informal chat with a stakeholder and a technical peer, and then an offer. I don't really see the value in going through hiring gauntlets and opt out of any process that looks like it might waste time like that.
- Maro 3y ago
  Interviews are for weeding out poor candidates; what you have left are the good ones. Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats.
  - CogitoCogito 3y ago
    > Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats. You do realize you’re replying to a comment showing it _is_ possible right?
    - plugin-baby 3y ago
      The previous comment doesn’t show that - it just shows that there are companies without arduous interview processes.
      - CogitoCogito 3y ago
        It _does_ show that. It’s obvious that /u/intelVISA is presenting this as a success story. If /u/intelVISA decides the candidates were good enough then they were good enough. Who else is there to judge but the one making the hiring decisions? Who are you to second guess someone else’s hiring decisions knowing nothing of the role, the pay, the performance, or really _anything_ at all?
    - recursive 3y ago
      I don't realize that. We know that there was a short chat, and that it resulted in filling a position. We don't know whether it's an effective way to filter out poor candidates. Have you done it? What's your success rate?
georgel 3y ago
This has been my experience as well. The more hoops a company made me jump through the less they were offering to begin with, and the culture was not great. My last gig was great in that aspect. My client found my LinkedIn, we had a quick 15 minute call to discuss the project and I was working for them the next day.
- frfl 3y ago
  Imagine the tens of thousands of dollars saved if you had a 15 minute (okay 15 is a bit short unless someone vouches for you or you're a well known open source contributor etc, maybe 1 hour or 1.5 hour, hell even 2 hour) technical conversation and the other engineer is like, yeah this person's worth bringing onboard. Might not work in all cases, but really, if you're trying to sniff out a pretender vs someone who can write software, would not having a heavily technical conversation about details, challenges and other things not make it clearly evident after 15-30-45 minutes if this person is who you need? Rest of the time can be spent napkin designing something or peer programming to check off those to be sure. I had a interview in 2021 where I had to do a 1.5 hour timed exercise, that apparently isn't sufficient, so their interview pipeline has 3x1hour additional live coding sessions with engineers. Over 4 hours of coding just to prove I can write code up to their standards. Then another 3+ hours of behavioral interviews, meeting the team. Multiply that by the ~5 candidates you interview per position multiplied by each position you hire for in a given year.
  - UncleOxidant 3y ago
    Indeed, while it might not work in all cases you'd probably save enough time/money to make up for those cases where it didn't work out. I've often seen jobs posted that stay open for 6 months or more because some hiring manager and their team can't make up their minds on who to hire. Meanwhile, the project they want to bring someone in to work on languishes, or people who are already stretched thin burn out and go elsewhere. There's such an emphasis now on hiring the perfect candidate that it's the enemy of actually getting things done.
    - zahllos 3y ago
foofie 3y ago
> I passed the first interview, but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I declined the second interview. Last year I interviewed for MongoDB. They proudly boasted that their hiring process consisted of a 7 interview marathon. I asked if that wasn't too many interviews, and the interviewer boasted that they already managed to streamline their process down from 12 interviews. They also proceeded to point out that all FANGs follow the same process, except they really don't. I respectfully dropped from the hiring process there and then. The extremes to which they take their cargo cult mentality is out of this world.
- ohthatsnotright 3y ago
  > The extremes to which they take their cargo cult mentality is out of this world. Nah, just "webscale" like everything else Mongo.
- spondylosaurus 3y ago
  Ha, I had a phone interview with MDB for a (contract!) technical writing gig, and they told me the next steps include (1) a one-hour critical thinking test, whatever that means, and (2) a one-hour writing interview. Not a take-home writing assignment, which would be pretty standard, but a live writing interview via Zoom screen share. Very unusual, but I don't have too many other things on the horizon right now, so I'll see where it goes...
  - smcin 3y ago
    Doing the writing assignment live and on-screen is simply to verify you didn't cheat/impersonate/get help/use AI/plagiarize.
    - testless 3y ago
      Contract implies they hire a service, thus should not care how it was created, right?
      - 3y ago
awo34oaw4u 3y ago
I got asked "what was the last book you read" in a SW startup interview once. I told them and then the interviewers started arguing amongst themselves about whether or not they liked the book, based on what I had told them about it, instead of asking me what I thought about it and what I learned from it. That was one of about thirty red flags. I left without completing the interview.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > That was one of about thirty red flags. I left without completing the interview. It sounds like an extremely effective question;)
- neilv 3y ago
  In imagination-land, it could've been a higher echelon of test. Despite the dynamic in which you were the one being tag-teamed in an interview, would your catalyst presence bring the interview back on track, with subtle grace? At the end of a series of "bad interview loop" tests, you learn that they secretly weren't interviewing you to be a coder, and now you are the next chosen-one CEO of Lego.
  - lukas099 3y ago
    "Sorry, you failed to walk out on us. We don't think you're right for the team."
  - htrp 3y ago
    > Despite the dynamic in which you were the one being tag-teamed in an interview, would your catalyst presence bring the interview back on track, with subtle grace? Said no company ever....
  - drewcoo 3y ago
    In my experience, tag-team or tribunal-style interviews are themselves a red flag. Usually it's a sign that the company doesn't know how to interview or whose opinions to trust, so they're just throwing everyone into the meeting. And any company being so openly dishonest as to set up fake arguments for candidates react to . . . if discovered, that's the mother of all red flags. This is not the case with new interviewers shadowing a single interviewer. That's actually a positive sign, that they know some of their people have skills and are actively trying to train their staff.
pimlottc 3y ago
Good lord, I can’t think of anything I would want to be on a 5 hour remote session for.
dookahku 3y ago
Canonical made me do a personality test. From what I understand, Canonical culture isn't great, either. The whole process sounds a lot like what you are talking about -- just hoops to winnow out people for the sake of winnowing.
- jaymzjulian 3y ago
  [dead]
- zen928 3y ago
  After that personality test, they ask you to complete a timed IQ test. After that, you'll reach a behavioral interview after which you get assigned a "take home" technical assessment, which then after submitting you can schedule to have technical interviews (potentially multiple). You can fail at any step along the way. It was one of the more laughably ridiculous interviewing processes I've seen, and thankfully the only one I've seen recently that was so egregious.
- Macha 3y ago
  Having seen Canonical's personality test, while it's impossible to verify without their marking methodology, it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too)
  - Alupis 3y ago
    > it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too) Please elaborate...
    - shermantanktop 3y ago
      You'll probably get better answers to questions about polo, golf, opera, and croquet on Martha's Vineyard than you will in South Compton.
      - Alupis 3y ago
UncleOxidant 3y ago
> I ended up choosing the job that had no whiteboard interview or personality test. It was just a simple conversation with the tech lead about my previous experience and if I had the experience to work on their current system I miss interviews like this. We need to compile a list of companies that still do this. In fact, getting on that list could really help a company's recruiting efforts - which in turn could influence other companies to adopt this interview style.
- PsylentKnight 3y ago
  https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards
- nomel 3y ago
  I think they're gone because, within the limited time of an interview, it's hard to prove competence with chatting, for yourself, and especially in a way that can be communicated to others in the panel. Most places I've worked, firing is a bad bad thing. It means everyone involved with the hire failed, and morale is hurt by everyone that sees the person let go. When I first started interviewing, this was the method I used. It turns out that most people have fanfic for resumes. "Designed a system" or "worked with a system" actually means "played an insignificant part in the design of a system" or "minimally modified some existing code". Getting to a point where this is obvious can take a significant portion of a 45 minute interview, and almost always comes from digging into the nitty gritty of the details, very close to code. Then, worried, you have them try to write some basic code as time runs out, and they completely flop, with that, and whatever small thing triggered your suspicion, being the only useful evidence you can point to for why you're saying no, even though others are saying yes. So, I flipped it. I go for real evidence first, which gives me objective, repeatable, results, then any remaining time is left to talk and go into depth. I give them an easy work related problem, requiring realistic syntax. I've had people that were fantastic with communicating their ideas, and even pseudocode, but didn't know the syntax of a function or simple for loop, in the language of their choice. Take home code/screens can't be trusted, without basically goin through it line by line. Heck, video interviews can barely be trusted these days. I've many had people obviously, and not so obviously, copy paste the top google search result. I've even had people double team an interview, with the second person listening and typing the results on a second screen. That said, I completely agree. My dream interview, either side, is just getting nerdy for an hour and a half with someone. But, especially for less senior roles, I can see why it's not popular, especially if you're stuck with short interviews, or are not the hiring manager, where you don't have to objectively justify things. Interviews are, unfortunately, a fairly adversarial interaction.
doublebind 3y ago
Two years ago, I had a similar experience with Chainlink. I underwent hours of interviews and completed an extensive work assignment, only to be offered the job _after a personality test_. Simultaneously, I interviewed at a startup. There, I spent about an hour discussing my experience and providing feedback on their current system with the person who would become my manager. I chose the startup, and it has been the best job decision I've ever made. Personality tests can disclose a lot of personal information. It's unclear where this data might end up or who might have access to it. I detest this practice and consider it a major red flag. (edit: typos)
- Beijinger 3y ago
  This reminds me when I tried incredibly hard to get a tiny scholarship to study abroad in country X and got rejected. In fact, there were several rounds and I didn't even make the first one. My Prof. told me to go to country Y and I hesitated because of the immense administrative burden to apply again and since I was de facto not qualified for a postgraduate scholarship. But application was easy, I got it, and they stuffed me with money. I always remember the words of my Professor: "Don't you know that everything where you have to invest a lot (I assume effort, time, money, energy) nothing ever comes out? So if your IT job requires a letter of recommendation from the pope and even if you are able to get the letter, you are unlikely to get the job. :-)
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    Corollary experience: the more effort/time/money/energy you expend in a successful transaction, the more likely it is they'll impose a shitty condition at the end of it, expecting you to be too invested to challenge it.
    - shermantanktop 3y ago
      Weaponizing the sunk cost fallacy, once again. Just like a time-share condo pitch.
  - namaria 3y ago
al2o3cr 3y ago
Just random questions to test my personality. "You're not turning the tortoise over, Billy. Why is that?" :P
- kmac_ 3y ago
  Short whiteboard interviews have become LeetCode/take-home assignment/one vs whole-team-from-every-department interview marathons. So instead of those funny pictures, we'll have Rorschach tests followed by polygraphs soon.
- Angostura 3y ago
  "why are you calling me Billy" — Leon
- justinclift 3y ago
  Because I'm hungry. ;)
bonestamp2 3y ago
> the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team I had a similar experience with Cisco. The recruiter, who seemed pretty inexperienced, said she wouldn't reveal the compensation range until after the 5-hour interview. I declined the 5-hour interview day and that was the last time I even considered a job that didn't post the compensation range up front.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
That was the way that I interviewed. I never gave a coding test in my life. I never made a technical error, but I think that I did hire a couple of folks, over the years, that didn't integrate into the team that well. Not sure the personality test would have made a difference. Sometimes, the only way that you can tell how someone will do, is start working with them.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  the first time I saw a pressure-interview for high skill coders was on campus at Apple, and the interviewing team was from Microsoft HQ. The project was audio-related and required excellent coding skills and knowledge of digital sound and associated mathematics. This was in the early 1990s IIR. After complete astonishment at the focus on "performance coding" also known as obey my commands now.. by tech-bros from MSFT, the immediate thought was "this is a new style of engineering management that emphasizes the authority of the interviewer over talent and skill fitting"
  - ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
    Well, when I was younger, I would have been more responsive to that. Not anymore. I've been shipping (as opposed to "writing") software, for my entire adult life. That means start-to-finish, and continuing support, afterwards. In the last dozen years, I've had over 20 apps in the Apple App Store (but I deprecate them, so it's probably only five or six, now), done alone. I can do the stuff, and I can prove it. I have a gigantic library of code, out there, along with a great deal of blog posts, teaching courses, and whatnot. If someone wants to find out about me, they could get a really good idea, in about fifteen minutes of searching. I make it a point, to be public about my work (if possible -the app I just released is not open-source). But it surprises me, that they are more interested in 50-line academic exercises. I've actually been told that "I probably faked" my portfolio.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
Personality tests are stupid but I don't know if I'd be willing to join a company that didn't do any-kind of whiteboarding/live coding exercise. I've interviewed way too many people who can't write a for loop. Fizzbuzz is supposed to be a joke not something people legitimately fail but it happens all the time.
- kemayo 3y ago
  I'm fine with a coding test, and okay with whiteboarding / live-coding so long as people are accepting of it just being roughing-out the code rather than expecting to produce something polished... but 5 hours of it? That's ridiculious unless you're paying people for the interview.
- awskinda 3y ago
  [dead]
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  It's still such a weird contrast where I hear of talented, very experienced engineers who will still be ghosted by 90% of jobs, but then there's also experiences like this. Like, how is this sub-fizzbuzz programmer getting interviews but someone with 10+ years experience gets trapped in the HR filter?
  - tylerchurch 3y ago
    When I encountered sub-fizzbuzz programmers I think the job postings were all for junior developers. So the bar was already low-ish, you just had to have the right keywords on your resume and get past HR. So probably a different pool than the 10+ year people.
  - apwheele 3y ago
    My area (data science) there is a problem with resume embellishment and HR/tech-recruiters not having a clue (I presume similar across different tech areas). It has gotten to the point where people straight up lie about tech experience on resumes, so the HR filter may be worse than random (it filters for liars, not legit related experience).
dmix 3y ago
> but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I've never understood why large companies do such long gruelling interviews. I always assumed it's because big companies get lots of low quality applicants at high volume but thats just a huge investment for both sides. From my limited experience hiring you can spot the talented ones pretty quickly and the real test comes a few months down the road when you're working together and you see their output and ability to learn and adapt quickly to the team. Work background and experience is usually plenty of information. Not sure what some toy tests in a remote call is going to tell you other than their ability to manage nerves and operate under public pressure.
- usrusr 3y ago
  Bad experience with too much undetected nepotism might be a reason they decided to start looking for slightly more objective procedures. When those then still get gamed, perhaps even harder, that turns into a slippery slope and in the end you get those systems where only those who memorize the entire secret dance routine ever get a position.
  - dmix 3y ago
    Or maybe it's like OP said, the HR guy read a book on hiring and now has a 2hr test because he thinks it will help. While the dev team is struggling to hire good people. The thing I dislike, but not surprised about, is how so many dev teams will engage in this circus. The dev management guy is definitely okaying the 5th toy test thing. Which can probably be summarized by the stereotype of which devs seek management, if they are devs at all. Anyway, I doubt FedEx is doing interesting programming work anyway. They'll get the quality and output they deserve.
    - bglazer 3y ago
      Having worked at FedEx, I can say that there’s actually a decent amount of interesting work to be done. First, the website gets a ton of traffic. Granted, it’s not google scale but it’s still significant enough to be interesting. The more interesting bits are behind the scenes. The operations research challenges are enormous, routing millions of packages across thousands of trucks and airplanes. The sorting hubs are highly automated and frankly terrifying in their scale and speed. I worked in fraud detection and infosec, and I can’t say much detailed about that. Suffice it to say that stealing packages is a sufficiently good motivation for criminals to develop some interesting strategies. All that to say that it’s deeply disappointing that fedex is using dumb shit like this to screen talent.
varispeed 3y ago
I had an interview where I had to sit with one of the developers working at the company and I had to do one of the tickets while being supervised. I have created a bug fix for the issue they had. I saw the developer has committed my code into their repo. Then there was a white board session when I had to present my take on the problem they have described and outline possible ways of resolving it. I saw few team members had lightbulb moments. In the end the whole exercise took whole day. I didn't get the job. I've been thinking if I should have sent them an invoice for that day...
philsnow 3y ago
> what was the last book you read Do they really want to be asking this? People's reading habits are highly personal. There are lots of questions you can't legally / shouldn't ask during an interview, and this is pretty borderline.
WalterBright 3y ago
> what was the last book you read "How To Become the CEO of the Company You Work For"
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  “Well, the last one was 'How to Parent', but before that was 'The Bible', and before that was 'HR law for dummies', why?”
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
I basically refuse to work for any company that chooses to employ IQ or personality tests. I once walked into an interview and they presented me with a wunderlich test (the test they give NFL quarterbacks). It's not technically an IQ test but you can back into IQ ranges using the results. For the math part I made sure I got the wrong answer on everything then in the in-person interview that happened immediately after I made sure to tell them I was very bad at math (my degree is in CS & Math). I don't want to work in a place where they think these sorts of tests tell them anything useful.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  The Wonderlic test only seems to work for the NFL because people study for it. I had to take it once for a hedge fund - if your mental math is good it's no big deal, but it definitely helps to practice.
ravenstine 3y ago
> The manager interviewing me (who admit he basically just started managing a month prior) told me he just read a 'great book on management' and wanted to 'try this out'. Did he happen to have pointy hair?
elektrontamer 3y ago
I'm one of those freaks that actually enjoys long technical interviews, especially the hard ones. Maybe I should get a life.

ejb999 3y ago

Yep - companies will continue to use these bizarre hiring criteria/tests unless or until enough people refuse to participate; but as long as their is a line of people behind you willing to do 'whatever' for the chance at the job, not much will change.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
Unfortunately companies have found a loophole: They just say "we couldn't find anyone who is acceptable for the role locally so instead we'll hire overseas for a fraction of the cost, darn" Almost like the unnecessarily complex hiring processes are built that way on purpose.
- neuromanser 3y ago
  Rest assured that a company that'll have domestic candidates jump through ill-advised hoops subjects the off-shore ones to the same bullshit.
  - shitlord 3y ago
    In this thought experiment the domestic candidates aren't putting up with it, which is the only reason why the offshore ones are even candidates.
- Clubber 3y ago
  "we'll hire overseas for a fraction of the cost, darn" The ones at a fraction of the cost aren't very good. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago
    Maybe, maybe not. I've worked with great offshore teams and terrible ones, I think the great ones were more expensive but still less than a local salary. But the theoretical hiring manager here doesn't care anyways. All they want is to come under budget so they can max their bonus for being so cleverly frugal.
  - zooq_ai 3y ago
    That's a naive argument. Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population. And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well
    - Clubber 3y ago
      >That's a naive argument. No, it's an experienced one. >Intelligence / Competence more or less has the same distribution curve. With the access of knowledge now widely available, A country with 1.5B people will always have more competent people than countries that have 50 Million in population. That is only a fraction of what it takes to produce good software developers. You have to include quality of the educational systems, living conditions and all that. Any offshore developer worth their salt gets paid market rates or near market rates. >And these countries have cheap labor. US has always poo-pooed Japanese, Chinese and Indian workers as low quality. That's only because you didn't filter well It's not their nationality, it's the price they are charging for. I bet you can't find a quality US worker for $30K a year either.
    - jakupovic 3y ago
      I work with IDC folks a lot and just like you said there is no difference in quality but the time difference and being US centric makes a difference. The US side makes the decisions and the ither sides has to follow. I personally try to give as much independence as possible but it's just how it is based on where the money comes from.
mihaaly 3y ago
I did my part: refused a job because of these kind of mandatory weird tests.

intelVISA 3y ago

Every job/client I've acquired has been a 10-15min informal chat with a stakeholder and a technical peer, and then an offer. I don't really see the value in going through hiring gauntlets and opt out of any process that looks like it might waste time like that.

Maro 3y ago
Interviews are for weeding out poor candidates; what you have left are the good ones. Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats.
- CogitoCogito 3y ago
  > Weeding out poor candidates is not possible with 10-15 minutes informal chats. You do realize you’re replying to a comment showing it _is_ possible right?
  - plugin-baby 3y ago
    The previous comment doesn’t show that - it just shows that there are companies without arduous interview processes.
    - CogitoCogito 3y ago
      It _does_ show that. It’s obvious that /u/intelVISA is presenting this as a success story. If /u/intelVISA decides the candidates were good enough then they were good enough. Who else is there to judge but the one making the hiring decisions? Who are you to second guess someone else’s hiring decisions knowing nothing of the role, the pay, the performance, or really _anything_ at all?
  - recursive 3y ago
    I don't realize that. We know that there was a short chat, and that it resulted in filling a position. We don't know whether it's an effective way to filter out poor candidates. Have you done it? What's your success rate?

georgel 3y ago

This has been my experience as well. The more hoops a company made me jump through the less they were offering to begin with, and the culture was not great. My last gig was great in that aspect. My client found my LinkedIn, we had a quick 15 minute call to discuss the project and I was working for them the next day.

frfl 3y ago
Imagine the tens of thousands of dollars saved if you had a 15 minute (okay 15 is a bit short unless someone vouches for you or you're a well known open source contributor etc, maybe 1 hour or 1.5 hour, hell even 2 hour) technical conversation and the other engineer is like, yeah this person's worth bringing onboard. Might not work in all cases, but really, if you're trying to sniff out a pretender vs someone who can write software, would not having a heavily technical conversation about details, challenges and other things not make it clearly evident after 15-30-45 minutes if this person is who you need? Rest of the time can be spent napkin designing something or peer programming to check off those to be sure. I had a interview in 2021 where I had to do a 1.5 hour timed exercise, that apparently isn't sufficient, so their interview pipeline has 3x1hour additional live coding sessions with engineers. Over 4 hours of coding just to prove I can write code up to their standards. Then another 3+ hours of behavioral interviews, meeting the team. Multiply that by the ~5 candidates you interview per position multiplied by each position you hire for in a given year.
- UncleOxidant 3y ago
  Indeed, while it might not work in all cases you'd probably save enough time/money to make up for those cases where it didn't work out. I've often seen jobs posted that stay open for 6 months or more because some hiring manager and their team can't make up their minds on who to hire. Meanwhile, the project they want to bring someone in to work on languishes, or people who are already stretched thin burn out and go elsewhere. There's such an emphasis now on hiring the perfect candidate that it's the enemy of actually getting things done.
  - zahllos 3y ago

foofie 3y ago

> I passed the first interview, but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I declined the second interview. Last year I interviewed for MongoDB. They proudly boasted that their hiring process consisted of a 7 interview marathon. I asked if that wasn't too many interviews, and the interviewer boasted that they already managed to streamline their process down from 12 interviews. They also proceeded to point out that all FANGs follow the same process, except they really don't. I respectfully dropped from the hiring process there and then. The extremes to which they take their cargo cult mentality is out of this world.

ohthatsnotright 3y ago
> The extremes to which they take their cargo cult mentality is out of this world. Nah, just "webscale" like everything else Mongo.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Ha, I had a phone interview with MDB for a (contract!) technical writing gig, and they told me the next steps include (1) a one-hour critical thinking test, whatever that means, and (2) a one-hour writing interview. Not a take-home writing assignment, which would be pretty standard, but a live writing interview via Zoom screen share. Very unusual, but I don't have too many other things on the horizon right now, so I'll see where it goes...
- smcin 3y ago
  Doing the writing assignment live and on-screen is simply to verify you didn't cheat/impersonate/get help/use AI/plagiarize.
  - testless 3y ago
    Contract implies they hire a service, thus should not care how it was created, right?
    - 3y ago

awo34oaw4u 3y ago

I got asked "what was the last book you read" in a SW startup interview once. I told them and then the interviewers started arguing amongst themselves about whether or not they liked the book, based on what I had told them about it, instead of asking me what I thought about it and what I learned from it. That was one of about thirty red flags. I left without completing the interview.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> That was one of about thirty red flags. I left without completing the interview. It sounds like an extremely effective question;)
neilv 3y ago
In imagination-land, it could've been a higher echelon of test. Despite the dynamic in which you were the one being tag-teamed in an interview, would your catalyst presence bring the interview back on track, with subtle grace? At the end of a series of "bad interview loop" tests, you learn that they secretly weren't interviewing you to be a coder, and now you are the next chosen-one CEO of Lego.
- lukas099 3y ago
  "Sorry, you failed to walk out on us. We don't think you're right for the team."
- htrp 3y ago
  > Despite the dynamic in which you were the one being tag-teamed in an interview, would your catalyst presence bring the interview back on track, with subtle grace? Said no company ever....
- drewcoo 3y ago
  In my experience, tag-team or tribunal-style interviews are themselves a red flag. Usually it's a sign that the company doesn't know how to interview or whose opinions to trust, so they're just throwing everyone into the meeting. And any company being so openly dishonest as to set up fake arguments for candidates react to . . . if discovered, that's the mother of all red flags. This is not the case with new interviewers shadowing a single interviewer. That's actually a positive sign, that they know some of their people have skills and are actively trying to train their staff.

pimlottc 3y ago

Good lord, I can’t think of anything I would want to be on a 5 hour remote session for.

dookahku 3y ago

Canonical made me do a personality test. From what I understand, Canonical culture isn't great, either. The whole process sounds a lot like what you are talking about -- just hoops to winnow out people for the sake of winnowing.

jaymzjulian 3y ago
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zen928 3y ago
After that personality test, they ask you to complete a timed IQ test. After that, you'll reach a behavioral interview after which you get assigned a "take home" technical assessment, which then after submitting you can schedule to have technical interviews (potentially multiple). You can fail at any step along the way. It was one of the more laughably ridiculous interviewing processes I've seen, and thankfully the only one I've seen recently that was so egregious.
Macha 3y ago
Having seen Canonical's personality test, while it's impossible to verify without their marking methodology, it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too)
- Alupis 3y ago
  > it feels explicitly classist (which in the US probably means it produces racist outcomes too) Please elaborate...
  - shermantanktop 3y ago
    You'll probably get better answers to questions about polo, golf, opera, and croquet on Martha's Vineyard than you will in South Compton.
    - Alupis 3y ago

UncleOxidant 3y ago

> I ended up choosing the job that had no whiteboard interview or personality test. It was just a simple conversation with the tech lead about my previous experience and if I had the experience to work on their current system I miss interviews like this. We need to compile a list of companies that still do this. In fact, getting on that list could really help a company's recruiting efforts - which in turn could influence other companies to adopt this interview style.

PsylentKnight 3y ago
https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards
nomel 3y ago
I think they're gone because, within the limited time of an interview, it's hard to prove competence with chatting, for yourself, and especially in a way that can be communicated to others in the panel. Most places I've worked, firing is a bad bad thing. It means everyone involved with the hire failed, and morale is hurt by everyone that sees the person let go. When I first started interviewing, this was the method I used. It turns out that most people have fanfic for resumes. "Designed a system" or "worked with a system" actually means "played an insignificant part in the design of a system" or "minimally modified some existing code". Getting to a point where this is obvious can take a significant portion of a 45 minute interview, and almost always comes from digging into the nitty gritty of the details, very close to code. Then, worried, you have them try to write some basic code as time runs out, and they completely flop, with that, and whatever small thing triggered your suspicion, being the only useful evidence you can point to for why you're saying no, even though others are saying yes. So, I flipped it. I go for real evidence first, which gives me objective, repeatable, results, then any remaining time is left to talk and go into depth. I give them an easy work related problem, requiring realistic syntax. I've had people that were fantastic with communicating their ideas, and even pseudocode, but didn't know the syntax of a function or simple for loop, in the language of their choice. Take home code/screens can't be trusted, without basically goin through it line by line. Heck, video interviews can barely be trusted these days. I've many had people obviously, and not so obviously, copy paste the top google search result. I've even had people double team an interview, with the second person listening and typing the results on a second screen. That said, I completely agree. My dream interview, either side, is just getting nerdy for an hour and a half with someone. But, especially for less senior roles, I can see why it's not popular, especially if you're stuck with short interviews, or are not the hiring manager, where you don't have to objectively justify things. Interviews are, unfortunately, a fairly adversarial interaction.

doublebind 3y ago

Two years ago, I had a similar experience with Chainlink. I underwent hours of interviews and completed an extensive work assignment, only to be offered the job _after a personality test_. Simultaneously, I interviewed at a startup. There, I spent about an hour discussing my experience and providing feedback on their current system with the person who would become my manager. I chose the startup, and it has been the best job decision I've ever made. Personality tests can disclose a lot of personal information. It's unclear where this data might end up or who might have access to it. I detest this practice and consider it a major red flag. (edit: typos)

Beijinger 3y ago
This reminds me when I tried incredibly hard to get a tiny scholarship to study abroad in country X and got rejected. In fact, there were several rounds and I didn't even make the first one. My Prof. told me to go to country Y and I hesitated because of the immense administrative burden to apply again and since I was de facto not qualified for a postgraduate scholarship. But application was easy, I got it, and they stuffed me with money. I always remember the words of my Professor: "Don't you know that everything where you have to invest a lot (I assume effort, time, money, energy) nothing ever comes out? So if your IT job requires a letter of recommendation from the pope and even if you are able to get the letter, you are unlikely to get the job. :-)
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Corollary experience: the more effort/time/money/energy you expend in a successful transaction, the more likely it is they'll impose a shitty condition at the end of it, expecting you to be too invested to challenge it.
  - shermantanktop 3y ago
    Weaponizing the sunk cost fallacy, once again. Just like a time-share condo pitch.
- namaria 3y ago

al2o3cr 3y ago

Just random questions to test my personality. "You're not turning the tortoise over, Billy. Why is that?" :P

kmac_ 3y ago
Short whiteboard interviews have become LeetCode/take-home assignment/one vs whole-team-from-every-department interview marathons. So instead of those funny pictures, we'll have Rorschach tests followed by polygraphs soon.
Angostura 3y ago
"why are you calling me Billy" — Leon
justinclift 3y ago
Because I'm hungry. ;)

bonestamp2 3y ago

> the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team I had a similar experience with Cisco. The recruiter, who seemed pretty inexperienced, said she wouldn't reveal the compensation range until after the 5-hour interview. I declined the 5-hour interview day and that was the last time I even considered a job that didn't post the compensation range up front.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

That was the way that I interviewed. I never gave a coding test in my life. I never made a technical error, but I think that I did hire a couple of folks, over the years, that didn't integrate into the team that well. Not sure the personality test would have made a difference. Sometimes, the only way that you can tell how someone will do, is start working with them.

mistrial9 3y ago
the first time I saw a pressure-interview for high skill coders was on campus at Apple, and the interviewing team was from Microsoft HQ. The project was audio-related and required excellent coding skills and knowledge of digital sound and associated mathematics. This was in the early 1990s IIR. After complete astonishment at the focus on "performance coding" also known as obey my commands now.. by tech-bros from MSFT, the immediate thought was "this is a new style of engineering management that emphasizes the authority of the interviewer over talent and skill fitting"
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
  Well, when I was younger, I would have been more responsive to that. Not anymore. I've been shipping (as opposed to "writing") software, for my entire adult life. That means start-to-finish, and continuing support, afterwards. In the last dozen years, I've had over 20 apps in the Apple App Store (but I deprecate them, so it's probably only five or six, now), done alone. I can do the stuff, and I can prove it. I have a gigantic library of code, out there, along with a great deal of blog posts, teaching courses, and whatnot. If someone wants to find out about me, they could get a really good idea, in about fifteen minutes of searching. I make it a point, to be public about my work (if possible -the app I just released is not open-source). But it surprises me, that they are more interested in 50-line academic exercises. I've actually been told that "I probably faked" my portfolio.

tick_tock_tick 3y ago

Personality tests are stupid but I don't know if I'd be willing to join a company that didn't do any-kind of whiteboarding/live coding exercise. I've interviewed way too many people who can't write a for loop. Fizzbuzz is supposed to be a joke not something people legitimately fail but it happens all the time.

kemayo 3y ago
I'm fine with a coding test, and okay with whiteboarding / live-coding so long as people are accepting of it just being roughing-out the code rather than expecting to produce something polished... but 5 hours of it? That's ridiculious unless you're paying people for the interview.
awskinda 3y ago
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johnnyanmac 3y ago
It's still such a weird contrast where I hear of talented, very experienced engineers who will still be ghosted by 90% of jobs, but then there's also experiences like this. Like, how is this sub-fizzbuzz programmer getting interviews but someone with 10+ years experience gets trapped in the HR filter?
- tylerchurch 3y ago
  When I encountered sub-fizzbuzz programmers I think the job postings were all for junior developers. So the bar was already low-ish, you just had to have the right keywords on your resume and get past HR. So probably a different pool than the 10+ year people.
- apwheele 3y ago
  My area (data science) there is a problem with resume embellishment and HR/tech-recruiters not having a clue (I presume similar across different tech areas). It has gotten to the point where people straight up lie about tech experience on resumes, so the HR filter may be worse than random (it filters for liars, not legit related experience).

dmix 3y ago

> but the second was going to be a 5-hour remote codeshare/whiteboard interview with the team. I've never understood why large companies do such long gruelling interviews. I always assumed it's because big companies get lots of low quality applicants at high volume but thats just a huge investment for both sides. From my limited experience hiring you can spot the talented ones pretty quickly and the real test comes a few months down the road when you're working together and you see their output and ability to learn and adapt quickly to the team. Work background and experience is usually plenty of information. Not sure what some toy tests in a remote call is going to tell you other than their ability to manage nerves and operate under public pressure.

usrusr 3y ago
Bad experience with too much undetected nepotism might be a reason they decided to start looking for slightly more objective procedures. When those then still get gamed, perhaps even harder, that turns into a slippery slope and in the end you get those systems where only those who memorize the entire secret dance routine ever get a position.
- dmix 3y ago
  Or maybe it's like OP said, the HR guy read a book on hiring and now has a 2hr test because he thinks it will help. While the dev team is struggling to hire good people. The thing I dislike, but not surprised about, is how so many dev teams will engage in this circus. The dev management guy is definitely okaying the 5th toy test thing. Which can probably be summarized by the stereotype of which devs seek management, if they are devs at all. Anyway, I doubt FedEx is doing interesting programming work anyway. They'll get the quality and output they deserve.
  - bglazer 3y ago
    Having worked at FedEx, I can say that there’s actually a decent amount of interesting work to be done. First, the website gets a ton of traffic. Granted, it’s not google scale but it’s still significant enough to be interesting. The more interesting bits are behind the scenes. The operations research challenges are enormous, routing millions of packages across thousands of trucks and airplanes. The sorting hubs are highly automated and frankly terrifying in their scale and speed. I worked in fraud detection and infosec, and I can’t say much detailed about that. Suffice it to say that stealing packages is a sufficiently good motivation for criminals to develop some interesting strategies. All that to say that it’s deeply disappointing that fedex is using dumb shit like this to screen talent.

varispeed 3y ago

I had an interview where I had to sit with one of the developers working at the company and I had to do one of the tickets while being supervised. I have created a bug fix for the issue they had. I saw the developer has committed my code into their repo. Then there was a white board session when I had to present my take on the problem they have described and outline possible ways of resolving it. I saw few team members had lightbulb moments. In the end the whole exercise took whole day. I didn't get the job. I've been thinking if I should have sent them an invoice for that day...

philsnow 3y ago

> what was the last book you read Do they really want to be asking this? People's reading habits are highly personal. There are lots of questions you can't legally / shouldn't ask during an interview, and this is pretty borderline.

WalterBright 3y ago

> what was the last book you read "How To Become the CEO of the Company You Work For"

ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
“Well, the last one was 'How to Parent', but before that was 'The Bible', and before that was 'HR law for dummies', why?”

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

I basically refuse to work for any company that chooses to employ IQ or personality tests. I once walked into an interview and they presented me with a wunderlich test (the test they give NFL quarterbacks). It's not technically an IQ test but you can back into IQ ranges using the results. For the math part I made sure I got the wrong answer on everything then in the in-person interview that happened immediately after I made sure to tell them I was very bad at math (my degree is in CS & Math). I don't want to work in a place where they think these sorts of tests tell them anything useful.

pclmulqdq 3y ago
The Wonderlic test only seems to work for the NFL because people study for it. I had to take it once for a hedge fund - if your mental math is good it's no big deal, but it definitely helps to practice.

ravenstine 3y ago

> The manager interviewing me (who admit he basically just started managing a month prior) told me he just read a 'great book on management' and wanted to 'try this out'. Did he happen to have pointy hair?

elektrontamer 3y ago

I'm one of those freaks that actually enjoys long technical interviews, especially the hard ones. Maybe I should get a life.