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I took their quiz without thinking once from a throwaway account because I was afraid of taking it from a real account and also because I had no context about w

I took their quiz without thinking once from a throwaway account because I was afraid of taking it from a real account and also because I had no context about what would be in it, which made it seem high risk. That made me realize it wasn't as scary a thing as I was afraid it might be, but also kind of summerizes what I don't love about it. Later, I think I took the quiz from a real email. I think could have scheduled an in-person or something. But I was always afraid to: just like with the quiz, it felt like another layer of high risk, where being slightly off on one thing would kind of potentially blacklist you forever. (Which sort of sounds absurd to me now, but young me was like "what if it matters?" and "it'd be humiliating to not make it through.") I work for a company that's been invested in by reputable venture firms so I don't think I'm bottom of the barrel as an engineer or anything. But the above anecdotes are to illustrate that I always found that the platform push my deeply ingrained risk aversion buttons. Which is interesting to think about. With job interviews it's extremely annoying to prove you bona fides over and over, with every interview or application. But having the opportunity to do so only once seems even worse. Edit: that said, I think doing a professional exam after college wouldn't have seemed risky in the same way as a ~12 question quiz and a couple interviews being so potentially determinitive.

fallingknife 2y ago
I went through their process for frontend like 6 years ago and got to the in person interview and it was the most inane BS I have ever wasted time on. A bunch of questions like listing "best practices for X and tell me about <buzzword tech thing>.
throwaway81523 2y ago
I did the online interview and then the in-person one and those worked out ok. But, I think Triplebyte was only viable because the huge engineering shortage at the time made that high-touch and expensive process worth pursuing. Its purpose was to find talented people who otherwise would fall through the cracks. Now there are unemployed engineers with impressive resumes everywhere, so there is less demand for a deep-digging recruiting operation like Triplebyte.
rachofsunshine 2y ago
Oooh, this lets me tell a great anecdote that didn't have a place in the post. So it turns out you were not alone. Getting people who did well on the quiz - whose parameters were trained on interview performance, by the way, so "did well on the quiz" was synonymous with "had a good shot at the interview" - to sign up for interviews was a major problem for a while. The solution? We told them the first booking was just a "practice" interview. And then if they did well, surprise, it was a real interview all along. (If they didn't, we'd let them try again, though it almost never changed the outcome.) IIRC this like doubled booking rates overnight. I don't really plan to do this at Otherbranch (partly because being aggressively upfront about things is a founding value, even when it comes to white lies of that sort), but it's a fun story that I don't think was actually unethical. There's a lot I could (do [1]) say about the psychology of interviewing, and it's something I'd love to write more about down the line. Mental health - especially around anxiety and depression - is my #1 personal cause and job hunting touches so concretely on so much of it. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1daumg4/i_dont_feel_qualified_to_apply_to_any_jobs/l7mxoso/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1daumg4/...
- gwbas1c 2y ago
  > *The solution? We told them the first booking was just a "practice" interview. And then if they did well, surprise, it was a real interview all along. (If they didn't, we'd let them try again, though it almost never changed the outcome.) Honestly, saying it's a "practice" interview, and then saying "Oh, you did so well we're just going to let you skip the real one" isn't lying. Some people might need to believe there's a safety net in order to join. Other people might really need practice.
- bsder 2y ago
  Rumplesnitz
- rkachowski 2y ago
  this is some straight up Ender's Game shit
  - 2y ago
webel0 2y ago
I would love to learn if TripleByte's data was sold off somewhere? I also had this concern (which was probably a bit overblown). One of the main scenarios I was concerned about was a case where the firm was sold off for parts.

fallingknife 2y ago

I went through their process for frontend like 6 years ago and got to the in person interview and it was the most inane BS I have ever wasted time on. A bunch of questions like listing "best practices for X and tell me about <buzzword tech thing>.

throwaway81523 2y ago

I did the online interview and then the in-person one and those worked out ok. But, I think Triplebyte was only viable because the huge engineering shortage at the time made that high-touch and expensive process worth pursuing. Its purpose was to find talented people who otherwise would fall through the cracks. Now there are unemployed engineers with impressive resumes everywhere, so there is less demand for a deep-digging recruiting operation like Triplebyte.

rachofsunshine 2y ago

Oooh, this lets me tell a great anecdote that didn't have a place in the post. So it turns out you were not alone. Getting people who did well on the quiz - whose parameters were trained on interview performance, by the way, so "did well on the quiz" was synonymous with "had a good shot at the interview" - to sign up for interviews was a major problem for a while. The solution? We told them the first booking was just a "practice" interview. And then if they did well, surprise, it was a real interview all along. (If they didn't, we'd let them try again, though it almost never changed the outcome.) IIRC this like doubled booking rates overnight. I don't really plan to do this at Otherbranch (partly because being aggressively upfront about things is a founding value, even when it comes to white lies of that sort), but it's a fun story that I don't think was actually unethical. There's a lot I could (do [1]) say about the psychology of interviewing, and it's something I'd love to write more about down the line. Mental health - especially around anxiety and depression - is my #1 personal cause and job hunting touches so concretely on so much of it. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1daumg4/i_dont_feel_qualified_to_apply_to_any_jobs/l7mxoso/ https://old.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1daumg4/...

gwbas1c 2y ago
> *The solution? We told them the first booking was just a "practice" interview. And then if they did well, surprise, it was a real interview all along. (If they didn't, we'd let them try again, though it almost never changed the outcome.) Honestly, saying it's a "practice" interview, and then saying "Oh, you did so well we're just going to let you skip the real one" isn't lying. Some people might need to believe there's a safety net in order to join. Other people might really need practice.
bsder 2y ago
Rumplesnitz
rkachowski 2y ago
this is some straight up Ender's Game shit
- 2y ago

webel0 2y ago

I would love to learn if TripleByte's data was sold off somewhere? I also had this concern (which was probably a bit overblown). One of the main scenarios I was concerned about was a case where the firm was sold off for parts.