4 ms·

What's more likely? (1) The candidate was a criminal mastermind who somehow managed to fool everyone for 15 years. (2) The candidate was just super nervous du

by lapcat 2y ago

What's more likely? (1) The candidate was a criminal mastermind who somehow managed to fool everyone for 15 years. (2) The candidate was just super nervous during the interview and experienced a kind of test anxiety. I've personally been (2) several times.

jahewson 2y ago
This totally happens, but keeping the questions simple and the atmosphere friendly goes a long way to mitigating it. One thing my previous company did was to have a short take-home replace the live coding, then the candidates simply answered questions about it. A surprisingly large number of candidates plagiarised their submission from various blog posts online. Others were unable to answer any substantial questions about their work. All these people were senior and employed in big firms. These kinds of candidates outnumbered the obviously anxious candidates by maybe 10 to 1.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > All these people were senior and employed in big firms. Which big firms? I find it curious that a BigCo on one's résumé brings cachet, because BigCos are able to hide incompetence, even at the executive level, to a vastly greater extent than a small company. If you find someone who for example has around a decade of experience at a company of around ten people, it's going to be almost impossible for that person to have done nothing of value. > These kinds of candidates outnumbered the obviously anxious candidates by maybe 10 to 1. Anxiousness is not necessarily obvious. My stomach could be churning and my mind racing, but a stranger probably wouldn't be able to tell.
  - jahewson 2y ago
    Indeed, but then I can’t measure the true positive rate. :) I suppose we’re really talking about having an anxiety disorder that impedes the ability to deliver vs feeling anxious on the day. The former should manifest noticeably somehow, by definition. As for which companies? Basically any large enterprise except absolute top-tier tech. I wouldn’t necessarily call such people incomponent though - I’m sure they were perfectly good button-pushers within the corporate machine. Low-skill high-specificity.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      > I suppose we’re really talking about having an anxiety disorder that impedes the ability to deliver vs feeling anxious on the day. The former should manifest noticeably somehow, by definition. I'm not really sure what you mean. First, anxiety is on a continuum, so I wouldn't propose a dichotomy here. Second, lots of people have situational anxiety, which I wouldn't call a "disorder". For example, a great fear of public speaking is pretty common. Of course poor performance at some specific task, e.g., an interview or a speech, is manifestly noticeable, but the cause of that poor performance isn't necessarily manifestly noticeable. In other words, you can't necessarily tell whether it was caused by a lack of skill or competence or just temporary anxiety. Or maybe lack of sleep the night before.
wisemang 2y ago
I’ve personally seen (1) and that hire wreaked havoc in the org with his silver tongue, without being able to deliver any real value. (Not a criminal mastermind obviously. But damaging enough, was unable to implement our version of fizzbuzz and was brought on board as an “architect” anyways.)
- lapcat 2y ago
  I understand not being able to deliver any real value, but I don't understand how a new hire can wreak havoc in an org, unless the org itself is already quite dysfunctional.
  - deathanatos 2y ago
    A person is assigned work, and they need to be able to do it, without being a deadweight on their peers. At the very best, you're just dumping a SWE salary's worth of dollars into a ghost. I've never worked anywhere that didn't have plenty of work, and so that's an eng we could have had, but effectively did not. IME these people talk a lot of talk, but they don't deliver contributions. Like the simplest script could take a quarter? I don't endorse code metrics, but, e.g., 1 PR / quarter (of really simple stuff), unless that PR is blowing my socks off or had some complex amount of research or some reason behind it, is underperforming. You expect negative returns for a new employee like the first 6–12 months. This is well after that, where it's clear that they're not putting in the effort to understand the systems around them, or they lack fundamental skills (like experience writing actual code), or more often, both.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      > A person is assigned work, and they need to be able to do it, without being a deadweight on their peers. I wouldn't call this "wreaking havoc", but I think only wisemang can explain what exactly they meant by that. > You expect negative returns for a new employee like the first 6–12 months. Wow, I wouldn't expect that. In my opinion, an experienced programmer should be able to start contributing something within weeks. If they can't, then "can" them. Think about open source projects: nobody takes 6-12 months to "get up to speed" before contributing to a project. That would be ridiculous.
azemetre 2y ago
Asking someone to code, even simple problems, should be the absolute minimum standard. Why should it be unexpected to not code when applying to a software development job? I'm sure we all have stories about falling on our faces during a technical evaluation, it sucks but I wouldn't personally fault the interviewers passing on them.
- lapcat 2y ago
  > Why should it be unexpected to not code when applying to a software development job? Software developer hiring is very different from most other hiring, but it seems that many software developers don't even realize how eccentric they are, because they've never been outside their own industry.
  - azemetre 2y ago
    I suppose but until this industry adopts something like an engineering license like PE I don't think it's out of the question to ask people to code. It's the highest signal you can get from a candidate. It doesn't matter what their credentials are or what their experience is, if they're able to code you have some sort of baseline to go off of. Please note I'm not saying ask leetcode questions, I can't even solve LC. I've failed many interviews at Facebook and Amazon because of LC; but other jobs I've accepted all asked some basic coding questions.
    - lapcat 2y ago
      Professional licenses are local government requirements. If you want the government to start regulating all programming, then the shit's really going to hit the fan. ;-)
      - azemetre 2y ago
        I mean regulation isn't a bad thing, so I don't understand your comment. If anything big tech needs to not only be regulated more, they should be broken up.
Aurornis 2y ago
> (1) The candidate was a criminal mastermind who somehow managed to fool everyone for 15 years. Not "criminal mastermind", but do enough hiring and you will run into a lot of people who are convincing conversationalists but clearly haven't written much code in a very long time. In a couple cases I gave these people benefit of the doubt and gave them a backup take-home problem (super trivial, 5 minutes for experienced engineers). They always came back with a solution, but when you asked them to walk you through it they couldn't really tell you what they wrote. I understand that test anxiety is real, but having to discuss your code with others on the spot is also part of the job. If someone can't discuss even the most basic fundamentals of programming in a conversation, you can't dismiss it all as anxiety every time.
- lapcat 2y ago
  Well, interviews are mostly noise, whether they're conversations or coding. I wouldn't put much faith in them either way. Interviews are just a tiny snapshot and unlike real work in many important ways. IMO the key is really to investigate the candidates as much as possible before they even walk in the door. Nowadays, many candidates have a large public footprint. (I also think employers interview way too many people. That's mostly a waste of time, better spent focusing on a relatively small number of the top candidates.)
aidenn0 2y ago
I have seen #1 many times (in non-interview settings). - It's definitely possible to hold a tech job for 12-18 months without writing any working code and changing jobs that often isn't that big of a red flag. Also, people lie about their experience. - The pool of people applying for a job has a very low intersection with the pool of people currently working at a job. In that intersection there is a very high subset of people who believe they may lose their job soon. Therefore the people applying to a job is largely people who either are not currently working, or will shortly be out of work. See also[1] 1: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/03/thank-you-for-writing-such-heartfelt.html http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/03/thank-you-for-writing-su...
nomel 2y ago
Yes, I've also seen 2 several times. I've also requested second rounds for each time I noticed it. I'd rather the interview not be about the interview. My judgement could be wrong, but being someone who ALSO has a problem with 2, and just being nervous in general, I feel my perception of this is at least reasonable. This person had a very very niche job, at two orgs, with no work/growth outside of that very specific thing. This lack of doing anything else was a flag one of the high level managers saw.

by lapcat 2y ago

jahewson 2y ago

This totally happens, but keeping the questions simple and the atmosphere friendly goes a long way to mitigating it. One thing my previous company did was to have a short take-home replace the live coding, then the candidates simply answered questions about it. A surprisingly large number of candidates plagiarised their submission from various blog posts online. Others were unable to answer any substantial questions about their work. All these people were senior and employed in big firms. These kinds of candidates outnumbered the obviously anxious candidates by maybe 10 to 1.

lapcat 2y ago
> All these people were senior and employed in big firms. Which big firms? I find it curious that a BigCo on one's résumé brings cachet, because BigCos are able to hide incompetence, even at the executive level, to a vastly greater extent than a small company. If you find someone who for example has around a decade of experience at a company of around ten people, it's going to be almost impossible for that person to have done nothing of value. > These kinds of candidates outnumbered the obviously anxious candidates by maybe 10 to 1. Anxiousness is not necessarily obvious. My stomach could be churning and my mind racing, but a stranger probably wouldn't be able to tell.
- jahewson 2y ago
  Indeed, but then I can’t measure the true positive rate. :) I suppose we’re really talking about having an anxiety disorder that impedes the ability to deliver vs feeling anxious on the day. The former should manifest noticeably somehow, by definition. As for which companies? Basically any large enterprise except absolute top-tier tech. I wouldn’t necessarily call such people incomponent though - I’m sure they were perfectly good button-pushers within the corporate machine. Low-skill high-specificity.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > I suppose we’re really talking about having an anxiety disorder that impedes the ability to deliver vs feeling anxious on the day. The former should manifest noticeably somehow, by definition. I'm not really sure what you mean. First, anxiety is on a continuum, so I wouldn't propose a dichotomy here. Second, lots of people have situational anxiety, which I wouldn't call a "disorder". For example, a great fear of public speaking is pretty common. Of course poor performance at some specific task, e.g., an interview or a speech, is manifestly noticeable, but the cause of that poor performance isn't necessarily manifestly noticeable. In other words, you can't necessarily tell whether it was caused by a lack of skill or competence or just temporary anxiety. Or maybe lack of sleep the night before.

wisemang 2y ago

I’ve personally seen (1) and that hire wreaked havoc in the org with his silver tongue, without being able to deliver any real value. (Not a criminal mastermind obviously. But damaging enough, was unable to implement our version of fizzbuzz and was brought on board as an “architect” anyways.)

lapcat 2y ago
I understand not being able to deliver any real value, but I don't understand how a new hire can wreak havoc in an org, unless the org itself is already quite dysfunctional.
- deathanatos 2y ago
  A person is assigned work, and they need to be able to do it, without being a deadweight on their peers. At the very best, you're just dumping a SWE salary's worth of dollars into a ghost. I've never worked anywhere that didn't have plenty of work, and so that's an eng we could have had, but effectively did not. IME these people talk a lot of talk, but they don't deliver contributions. Like the simplest script could take a quarter? I don't endorse code metrics, but, e.g., 1 PR / quarter (of really simple stuff), unless that PR is blowing my socks off or had some complex amount of research or some reason behind it, is underperforming. You expect negative returns for a new employee like the first 6–12 months. This is well after that, where it's clear that they're not putting in the effort to understand the systems around them, or they lack fundamental skills (like experience writing actual code), or more often, both.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > A person is assigned work, and they need to be able to do it, without being a deadweight on their peers. I wouldn't call this "wreaking havoc", but I think only wisemang can explain what exactly they meant by that. > You expect negative returns for a new employee like the first 6–12 months. Wow, I wouldn't expect that. In my opinion, an experienced programmer should be able to start contributing something within weeks. If they can't, then "can" them. Think about open source projects: nobody takes 6-12 months to "get up to speed" before contributing to a project. That would be ridiculous.

azemetre 2y ago

Asking someone to code, even simple problems, should be the absolute minimum standard. Why should it be unexpected to not code when applying to a software development job? I'm sure we all have stories about falling on our faces during a technical evaluation, it sucks but I wouldn't personally fault the interviewers passing on them.

lapcat 2y ago
> Why should it be unexpected to not code when applying to a software development job? Software developer hiring is very different from most other hiring, but it seems that many software developers don't even realize how eccentric they are, because they've never been outside their own industry.
- azemetre 2y ago
  I suppose but until this industry adopts something like an engineering license like PE I don't think it's out of the question to ask people to code. It's the highest signal you can get from a candidate. It doesn't matter what their credentials are or what their experience is, if they're able to code you have some sort of baseline to go off of. Please note I'm not saying ask leetcode questions, I can't even solve LC. I've failed many interviews at Facebook and Amazon because of LC; but other jobs I've accepted all asked some basic coding questions.
  - lapcat 2y ago
    Professional licenses are local government requirements. If you want the government to start regulating all programming, then the shit's really going to hit the fan. ;-)
    - azemetre 2y ago
      I mean regulation isn't a bad thing, so I don't understand your comment. If anything big tech needs to not only be regulated more, they should be broken up.

Aurornis 2y ago

> (1) The candidate was a criminal mastermind who somehow managed to fool everyone for 15 years. Not "criminal mastermind", but do enough hiring and you will run into a lot of people who are convincing conversationalists but clearly haven't written much code in a very long time. In a couple cases I gave these people benefit of the doubt and gave them a backup take-home problem (super trivial, 5 minutes for experienced engineers). They always came back with a solution, but when you asked them to walk you through it they couldn't really tell you what they wrote. I understand that test anxiety is real, but having to discuss your code with others on the spot is also part of the job. If someone can't discuss even the most basic fundamentals of programming in a conversation, you can't dismiss it all as anxiety every time.

lapcat 2y ago
Well, interviews are mostly noise, whether they're conversations or coding. I wouldn't put much faith in them either way. Interviews are just a tiny snapshot and unlike real work in many important ways. IMO the key is really to investigate the candidates as much as possible before they even walk in the door. Nowadays, many candidates have a large public footprint. (I also think employers interview way too many people. That's mostly a waste of time, better spent focusing on a relatively small number of the top candidates.)

aidenn0 2y ago

I have seen #1 many times (in non-interview settings). - It's definitely possible to hold a tech job for 12-18 months without writing any working code and changing jobs that often isn't that big of a red flag. Also, people lie about their experience. - The pool of people applying for a job has a very low intersection with the pool of people currently working at a job. In that intersection there is a very high subset of people who believe they may lose their job soon. Therefore the people applying to a job is largely people who either are not currently working, or will shortly be out of work. See also[1] 1: http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/03/thank-you-for-writing-such-heartfelt.html http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/03/thank-you-for-writing-su...

nomel 2y ago

Yes, I've also seen 2 several times. I've also requested second rounds for each time I noticed it. I'd rather the interview not be about the interview. My judgement could be wrong, but being someone who ALSO has a problem with 2, and just being nervous in general, I feel my perception of this is at least reasonable. This person had a very very niche job, at two orgs, with no work/growth outside of that very specific thing. This lack of doing anything else was a flag one of the high level managers saw.