4 ms·

chuckle back when I worked at Intel, a question we'd ask candidates for a C++ programming position was, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your understa

by rhelz 2y ago

chuckle back when I worked at Intel, a question we'd ask candidates for a C++ programming position was, "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your understanding of C++?" Anybody who gave an answer of 5 or above was an immediate no-hire :-) Because nobody is more than a 4 out of 10 on knowledge of C++.

digitalsushi 2y ago
how did you hire interns then? what a terrible scale! if i was wet behind the ears and giving myself an 8 cause of what i dont know i dont know, it's your job to hire me and teach me how wrong i am!
- rhelz 2y ago
  OP here. This is probably the most down-voted and dumped-on post I've made on HN. Answer: We hired interns the same way. Is that really so bad though? How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on C++: 1 being you know C, and 10 being you are Bjarne Stroustrup or Bruce Eckle. Personally, I started out as a 4 back in 1996, and have monotonically fallen ever since.
pton_xd 2y ago
> Anybody who gave an answer of 5 or above was an immediate no-hire :-) Because nobody is more than a 4 out of 10 on knowledge of C++. You'd definitely hire programmers with the same sense of humor I suppose. I do agree that asking to rate one's knowledge of C++ is an obvious trap question. Any reasonably seasoned person would probably laugh and respond with another question, "... which part?" But yeah they'd have to share your sense of humor.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  > You'd definitely hire programmers with the same sense of humor I suppose. There are many ways to structure interviewers to hire clones of yourself.
- rhelz 2y ago
  How would you rate yourself on a scale, from 1 to 10, on C++ knowledge? 1 being you know C, 10 being you are Bjarne Stroustrup or Bruce Eckle? Personally, I was a 4 back in 1996, and have monotonically fallen since then.
scottlamb 2y ago
I wouldn't be so absolute about it, but I certainly empathize. Any time a candidate told me they were an expert in C++, it didn't go well. I think that suggests they are either wildly overestimating their abilities or are too interested in being "clever" and using weird corners of the language that aren't necessary/beneficial for the problem and that no one else will understand. Probably both.
racional 2y ago
Then it's a straight-up hazing question. And not only that -- it betrays the mathematical (and everyday practical) ignorance of the people who apparently think of themselves as wily and clever for asking it. It doesn't matter how weird and fuggly that particular language is. The only obvious, intuitive and reasonable way to approach the "How do you rate yourself?" question is always in relative terms, compared to the pool of candidates applying for the job (or perhaps compared to other engineers at the company). Which either way means a fricken bell curve, obviously and by definition. For which 5 is the median, and the only acceptable answers are "7,8,9". But instead someone on your time decided they had to be cute and turn it into a "Guess the punchline to the snarky joke question I came up with this morning" question. This is Intel's idea of culture, apparently.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  There is a lot of cultural baggage in rating scales. For example, if you were a high-achieving kid in a Finnish school and the scale goes up to 10, you intuitively assume that 8 means bad, 9 means ok, and 10 means good. Which means that you should rate yourself 9 in everything you are comfortable using and 10 in things you are good at. On the other hand, if the scale is from 1 to 5, it implies a bell curve with a low standard deviation. Especially if the scale is measured in stars. So if you took an Uber to the interview and nothing unusual happened, the driver should obviously get a three-star rating. At one point, I would have interpreted a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of an RPG I was playing at the time. 5 meant a beginner who had been focusing on that thing, 6-7 was basic competence, and 9-10 was an expert, but not a particularly unusual one.
- drewcoo 2y ago
  > Then it's a straight-up hazing question. Hazing is an initiation rite. This is a barrier to entry. They turned away anyone who wasn't deemed humble enough. They were assholes but that's not hazing.
  - racional 2y ago
    You're weirdly (and inaccurately) splitting hairs here. Per the Oxford Learner's dictionary: The practice of playing tricks on somebody, or giving them very unpleasant things to do, sometimes as a condition for entering a fraternity or sorority. So it can also be a "barrier to entry". The fact that Intel isn't technically a fraternity or sorority but is basically acting like one (in regard to this team's interview process) is but a small side detail here. We also have, from Wiktionary: To oppress or harass by forcing to do hard and unnecessary work. Like requiring them to discern and accommodate the interviewer's oblique sense of humor as a condition for entry, for example.

by rhelz 2y ago

digitalsushi 2y ago

how did you hire interns then? what a terrible scale! if i was wet behind the ears and giving myself an 8 cause of what i dont know i dont know, it's your job to hire me and teach me how wrong i am!

rhelz 2y ago
OP here. This is probably the most down-voted and dumped-on post I've made on HN. Answer: We hired interns the same way. Is that really so bad though? How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on C++: 1 being you know C, and 10 being you are Bjarne Stroustrup or Bruce Eckle. Personally, I started out as a 4 back in 1996, and have monotonically fallen ever since.

pton_xd 2y ago

> Anybody who gave an answer of 5 or above was an immediate no-hire :-) Because nobody is more than a 4 out of 10 on knowledge of C++. You'd definitely hire programmers with the same sense of humor I suppose. I do agree that asking to rate one's knowledge of C++ is an obvious trap question. Any reasonably seasoned person would probably laugh and respond with another question, "... which part?" But yeah they'd have to share your sense of humor.

drewcoo 2y ago
> You'd definitely hire programmers with the same sense of humor I suppose. There are many ways to structure interviewers to hire clones of yourself.
rhelz 2y ago
How would you rate yourself on a scale, from 1 to 10, on C++ knowledge? 1 being you know C, 10 being you are Bjarne Stroustrup or Bruce Eckle? Personally, I was a 4 back in 1996, and have monotonically fallen since then.

scottlamb 2y ago

I wouldn't be so absolute about it, but I certainly empathize. Any time a candidate told me they were an expert in C++, it didn't go well. I think that suggests they are either wildly overestimating their abilities or are too interested in being "clever" and using weird corners of the language that aren't necessary/beneficial for the problem and that no one else will understand. Probably both.

racional 2y ago

Then it's a straight-up hazing question. And not only that -- it betrays the mathematical (and everyday practical) ignorance of the people who apparently think of themselves as wily and clever for asking it. It doesn't matter how weird and fuggly that particular language is. The only obvious, intuitive and reasonable way to approach the "How do you rate yourself?" question is always in relative terms, compared to the pool of candidates applying for the job (or perhaps compared to other engineers at the company). Which either way means a fricken bell curve, obviously and by definition. For which 5 is the median, and the only acceptable answers are "7,8,9". But instead someone on your time decided they had to be cute and turn it into a "Guess the punchline to the snarky joke question I came up with this morning" question. This is Intel's idea of culture, apparently.

jltsiren 2y ago
There is a lot of cultural baggage in rating scales. For example, if you were a high-achieving kid in a Finnish school and the scale goes up to 10, you intuitively assume that 8 means bad, 9 means ok, and 10 means good. Which means that you should rate yourself 9 in everything you are comfortable using and 10 in things you are good at. On the other hand, if the scale is from 1 to 5, it implies a bell curve with a low standard deviation. Especially if the scale is measured in stars. So if you took an Uber to the interview and nothing unusual happened, the driver should obviously get a three-star rating. At one point, I would have interpreted a scale from 1 to 10 in terms of an RPG I was playing at the time. 5 meant a beginner who had been focusing on that thing, 6-7 was basic competence, and 9-10 was an expert, but not a particularly unusual one.
drewcoo 2y ago
> Then it's a straight-up hazing question. Hazing is an initiation rite. This is a barrier to entry. They turned away anyone who wasn't deemed humble enough. They were assholes but that's not hazing.
- racional 2y ago
  You're weirdly (and inaccurately) splitting hairs here. Per the Oxford Learner's dictionary: The practice of playing tricks on somebody, or giving them very unpleasant things to do, sometimes as a condition for entering a fraternity or sorority. So it can also be a "barrier to entry". The fact that Intel isn't technically a fraternity or sorority but is basically acting like one (in regard to this team's interview process) is but a small side detail here. We also have, from Wiktionary: To oppress or harass by forcing to do hard and unnecessary work. Like requiring them to discern and accommodate the interviewer's oblique sense of humor as a condition for entry, for example.