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How does that process handle people who have been out of work for a few years and can pass a take-home technical challenge (without a LLM) but cannot remember a

How does that process handle people who have been out of work for a few years and can pass a take-home technical challenge (without a LLM) but cannot remember a convincing level of detail on the specifics of their past work? I’ve been experiencing your style of interview a lot and running up against this obstacle, even though I genuinely did the work I’m claiming to have done. Especially people with ADHD don’t remember details as long as others, even though ADHD does not make someone a bad hire in this industry (and many successful tech workers have it). I do prefer take-home challenges to live coding interviews right now, or at least a not-rushed live coding interview with some approximate advance warning of what to expect. That gives me time to refresh my rust (no programming language pun intended) or ramp up on whichever technologies are necessary for the challenge, and then to complete the challenge well even if taking more time than someone who is currently fresh with the perfectly matched skills might need. I want the ability to show what I can do on the job after onboarding, not what I can do while struggling with long-term unemployment, immigration, financial, and family health concerns. (My fault for marrying a foreigner and trying to legally bring her into the US, apparently.) And, no, my life circumstances do not make it easy for me to follow the common suggestion of ramping up in my “spare time” without the pressures of a job or a specific interview task. That’s completely different from when I can do on the job or for a specific interview’s technical challenge.

fhd2 2y ago
I can't say I've interviewed someone to which this applies - unfortunately! Probably just doesn't get surfaced by my channels. I would definitely not expect someone out of work for a while to have any meaningful side projects. I mean, if they do, that's cool, but I bet the sheer stress of not having a job kills a lot of creativity and productivity. Haven't been there, so I can only imagine. For such a candidate, I'd probably want to offer them a time limited freelance gig rather quickly, so I can just see what they work like. For people who are already in a job, it's more important to ensure fit before they quit there, but your scenario opens the door to not putting that much pressure on the interview process.
- jkaplowitz 2y ago
  Thanks for being understanding and compassionate about the situation! I like your idea of a time limited freelance gig, though immigration obstacles do sometimes make that quite complicated (as in my current situation). It's way better than not considering that people might have a reason for a resume with gaps or other irregularities which is not being a bad employee. Beyond immigration types of obstacles, somehow recruiters and hiring managers rarely consider how many bad managers, bad executives, and bad companies there are when evaluating gaps and short tenures in an employee's resume. But equally, discussing those matters during an interview risks being seen as unprofessional and unreasonably negative. "Why did you leave this company?" "Oh, the warnings I got about the leadership from a former employee before I joined turned out to be true, and they didn't want to hear professionally presented necessary feedback about emotional safety in an emergency incident response situation, so they fired me without a single meaningful 1:1 discussion other than trying to assign blame." / "Oh, the CEO was enough of a problem that the investors eventually replaced him in a subsequent funding round despite him being the majority shareholder, but that was long after I had resigned or been fired due to that CEO's particular problems." / "Oh, they communicated in a very idiosyncratic way which didn't work for me and which I haven't seen at any company before or since." / etc. Most of that doesn't fly in an interview, but equally, even if it did, saying too much of that sounds like making up excuses for oneself even when it's 100% true. Same thing for why a job search doesn't succeed quickly. Ours is a messy and imperfect industry, and it sucks that interview candidates have to pretend otherwise to seem like they'll be reasonable employees. Meanwhile the companies and executives that act in those ways get to present whatever positive and successful image they want, and they get to praise each other for firing fast or cutting costs with attrition or layoffs.
  - fhd2 2y ago
    Well, it could be "just" naive hiring processes. It's pretty natural for people to use themselves and their immediate circles as thought guinea pigs for any process they come up with. And unfortunately, quite often, people in positions of power don't work their way up there, so it takes more effort than they are usually willing to invest to relate. Which is a shame, because doing things beyond what everybody else is doing can be a huge advantage. One of the problems I see in big corporates is that feedback cycles for bad policy can be so long, whoever caused something is far away when the effects hit. AKA nobody really cares. But to be fair, I've always tried to care, and worked with many others who do.
sbarre 2y ago
This is slightly tangential to your questions, but to address the "remembering details about your past work", I've long-encouraged the developers I mentor to keep a log/doc/diary of their work. If nothing else, it's a useful tool when doing reviews with your manager, or when you're trying to evaluate your personal growth. It comes in really handy when you're interviewing or looking for a new job. Julia Evans calls it a "brag doc": https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/ https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/ It doesn't have to be super detailed either. I tell people to write 50% about what the work was, and 50% about what the purpose/value of the work was.. That tends to be a good mix of details and context. Writing in it once a month, or once a sprint, is enough. Even if it's just a paragraph or two..
- red-iron-pine 2y ago
  one of my buddies was a navy psychologist assistant. was a corpsman (navy medic) who moved that way. dude maintained a "me wall" of achievements, commendation medals, etc. plus a file full of other crap. he mentioned he got a lot of promotions because you have a section to fill out where you describe all the shit you did over the least year, and he always came with examples...
- jkaplowitz 2y ago
  Yeah, my resume does include a summary of what I did each job, but it sounds like the brag doc idea would involves much more detail. Honestly, putting those details in writing in a way that I retrain after leaving might leave me vulnerable to claims of violating my corporate NDA. But legalities aside, yes, it would help with these kinds of interview issues - prospectively only of course, not retrospectively. Annoyingly, it's also exactly the kind of doc that's difficult for people with ADHD to create and maintain rigorously, even though people with ADHD are more likely than average to need the reminders of those details. A lot of ADHD problems are that kind of frustrating catch-22, especially when interacting with a world that is largely designed around more typical brain types.
  - sbarre 2y ago
    Got it.. I will admit to being unfamiliar with the challenges of ADHD so I apologize if my suggestion appeared to disregard said challenges. If I can ask a follow-up question: Is it the act of writing it down, or the whole recall aspect of it that is challenging? Or something else? I've personally starting using audio transcription with a voice recorder to capture ideas more easily when I'm not at my computer (I hate typing on my phone keyboard) and that has made building these kinds of diary/log/notes documents a lot easier because I can just speak my ideas into the recorder whenever it is convenient for me, instead of waiting until I'm at a computer.
apercu 2y ago
Just a suggestion, but I have done 3-5 projects a year for a long, long time, and as an executive (for almost a decade) had dozens of projects annually I was overseeing and/or contributing to. I am not a fan of LinkedIn, but I did eventually start logging at least some of the projects I do in their "projects" section. That helps me remember and revisit some of the projects, and when you go back 10 years later it's sort of joyful walk down memory lane sometimes.

fhd2 2y ago

I can't say I've interviewed someone to which this applies - unfortunately! Probably just doesn't get surfaced by my channels. I would definitely not expect someone out of work for a while to have any meaningful side projects. I mean, if they do, that's cool, but I bet the sheer stress of not having a job kills a lot of creativity and productivity. Haven't been there, so I can only imagine. For such a candidate, I'd probably want to offer them a time limited freelance gig rather quickly, so I can just see what they work like. For people who are already in a job, it's more important to ensure fit before they quit there, but your scenario opens the door to not putting that much pressure on the interview process.

jkaplowitz 2y ago
Thanks for being understanding and compassionate about the situation! I like your idea of a time limited freelance gig, though immigration obstacles do sometimes make that quite complicated (as in my current situation). It's way better than not considering that people might have a reason for a resume with gaps or other irregularities which is not being a bad employee. Beyond immigration types of obstacles, somehow recruiters and hiring managers rarely consider how many bad managers, bad executives, and bad companies there are when evaluating gaps and short tenures in an employee's resume. But equally, discussing those matters during an interview risks being seen as unprofessional and unreasonably negative. "Why did you leave this company?" "Oh, the warnings I got about the leadership from a former employee before I joined turned out to be true, and they didn't want to hear professionally presented necessary feedback about emotional safety in an emergency incident response situation, so they fired me without a single meaningful 1:1 discussion other than trying to assign blame." / "Oh, the CEO was enough of a problem that the investors eventually replaced him in a subsequent funding round despite him being the majority shareholder, but that was long after I had resigned or been fired due to that CEO's particular problems." / "Oh, they communicated in a very idiosyncratic way which didn't work for me and which I haven't seen at any company before or since." / etc. Most of that doesn't fly in an interview, but equally, even if it did, saying too much of that sounds like making up excuses for oneself even when it's 100% true. Same thing for why a job search doesn't succeed quickly. Ours is a messy and imperfect industry, and it sucks that interview candidates have to pretend otherwise to seem like they'll be reasonable employees. Meanwhile the companies and executives that act in those ways get to present whatever positive and successful image they want, and they get to praise each other for firing fast or cutting costs with attrition or layoffs.
- fhd2 2y ago
  Well, it could be "just" naive hiring processes. It's pretty natural for people to use themselves and their immediate circles as thought guinea pigs for any process they come up with. And unfortunately, quite often, people in positions of power don't work their way up there, so it takes more effort than they are usually willing to invest to relate. Which is a shame, because doing things beyond what everybody else is doing can be a huge advantage. One of the problems I see in big corporates is that feedback cycles for bad policy can be so long, whoever caused something is far away when the effects hit. AKA nobody really cares. But to be fair, I've always tried to care, and worked with many others who do.

sbarre 2y ago

This is slightly tangential to your questions, but to address the "remembering details about your past work", I've long-encouraged the developers I mentor to keep a log/doc/diary of their work. If nothing else, it's a useful tool when doing reviews with your manager, or when you're trying to evaluate your personal growth. It comes in really handy when you're interviewing or looking for a new job. Julia Evans calls it a "brag doc": https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/ https://jvns.ca/blog/brag-documents/ It doesn't have to be super detailed either. I tell people to write 50% about what the work was, and 50% about what the purpose/value of the work was.. That tends to be a good mix of details and context. Writing in it once a month, or once a sprint, is enough. Even if it's just a paragraph or two..

red-iron-pine 2y ago
one of my buddies was a navy psychologist assistant. was a corpsman (navy medic) who moved that way. dude maintained a "me wall" of achievements, commendation medals, etc. plus a file full of other crap. he mentioned he got a lot of promotions because you have a section to fill out where you describe all the shit you did over the least year, and he always came with examples...
jkaplowitz 2y ago
Yeah, my resume does include a summary of what I did each job, but it sounds like the brag doc idea would involves much more detail. Honestly, putting those details in writing in a way that I retrain after leaving might leave me vulnerable to claims of violating my corporate NDA. But legalities aside, yes, it would help with these kinds of interview issues - prospectively only of course, not retrospectively. Annoyingly, it's also exactly the kind of doc that's difficult for people with ADHD to create and maintain rigorously, even though people with ADHD are more likely than average to need the reminders of those details. A lot of ADHD problems are that kind of frustrating catch-22, especially when interacting with a world that is largely designed around more typical brain types.
- sbarre 2y ago
  Got it.. I will admit to being unfamiliar with the challenges of ADHD so I apologize if my suggestion appeared to disregard said challenges. If I can ask a follow-up question: Is it the act of writing it down, or the whole recall aspect of it that is challenging? Or something else? I've personally starting using audio transcription with a voice recorder to capture ideas more easily when I'm not at my computer (I hate typing on my phone keyboard) and that has made building these kinds of diary/log/notes documents a lot easier because I can just speak my ideas into the recorder whenever it is convenient for me, instead of waiting until I'm at a computer.

apercu 2y ago

Just a suggestion, but I have done 3-5 projects a year for a long, long time, and as an executive (for almost a decade) had dozens of projects annually I was overseeing and/or contributing to. I am not a fan of LinkedIn, but I did eventually start logging at least some of the projects I do in their "projects" section. That helps me remember and revisit some of the projects, and when you go back 10 years later it's sort of joyful walk down memory lane sometimes.