22 ms·

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for b

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

wcast 2y ago
In fact, for me it is pretty hard if not impossible to remain genuine to my ability and personal touch to navigate corporate world having to swallow all those keywords and behave properly in front of interviewers. Thinking that hacking/mastering it is often the single way out.
- pc86 2y ago
  Not sure it should really be "hard if not impossible" to "behave properly."
  - harvey9 2y ago
    I took properly to mean conform to a corporate model, rather than something more like 'not childish or rude'
    - pc86 2y ago
      You're probably right :)
AnimalMuppet 2y ago
It should be. If the interview tests for what you crammed for, it doesn't test for what you'll remember a month onto the job. That's a sub-optimal strategy for the interviewer.
- windward 2y ago
  Devil's advocate: there exists a corpus of questions solvable with a small number of techniques after a few weeks of decicated study. When someone has the right brain, these questions are the barrier to a 99th percentile income. What does it say about an interviewee that doesn't bother?
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    It says they lack the social capital to know what these questions are and how to study them. Is the goal to optimize for people with family and friends already in tech that can pass on the "secret" or to maintain the fig leaf illusion of meritocracy?
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    That they're unwilling to jump through random arbitrary hoops that are unrelated to their actual work. If a potential employer considers that a negative, what does it say about the employer?
    - windward 2y ago
      Work is full of arbitrary hoops
- criddell 2y ago
  I occasionally interview people and that wouldn't really bother me. If you can learn something once you'll be able to re-learn it down the road when needed. I've found myself in that situation helping my kids with their homework. I might not be able to define L'Hôpital's rule off the top of my head, but it only takes a few minutes of reading to reload it into my brain.
TheBigSalad 2y ago
I agree but I companies like Meta/Apple/Amazon hire so much that they probably have full time statisticians just to analyze interview process and map that back to performance. So you have to assume this maps to real world success. Even if you are just testing an employee's preparation, maybe that means something.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  It's not probably. The hiring rubric gets items added/dropped based on what portions are statistically significant when compared to post-hire performance reviews. There's a lot of research in the public about "Structured Interviews".
  - swiftcoder 2y ago
    When I was an engineer at Amazon, we all just made up our own questions, or passed fun ones around the office. I assume the Bar Raisers probably had an actual rubric, but the rest of us didn't (and we all had interviewing quotas to meet)
    - TheBigSalad 2y ago
      How long ago?
      - swiftcoder 2y ago
        I left a while back, but folks still there tell me not much has changed (except they do a lot less hiring these days, so quotas aren't as big a part of the promo package)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Etherlord87 2y ago
  The "Big corporation analyzes everything thoroughly and arrives at the most optimal solution" is a ridiculous myth, and I don't think I even need to give examples. Maybe not Apple, but Amazon surely has a lot of embarrassing failures.
creativityhurts 2y ago
Interviewing went from something you had to get a job to a completely different skill and even a business.
pc86 2y ago
I struggled early in my career with interviews. Granted this was 2008-2010 era so the job market was not great, especially in a not-quite-urban non-coastal city where I was for a junior developer. But something did change when I stopped treating interviews as "convince them to like me" / "convince them to hire me" and started treating them as "find out if I want to work (in order) 1) at this company, 2) on this project, 3) with/for this person." I'm sure part of it is just experience, knowing more of the technical stuff, sure, but when you're approaching it honestly as determining whether you give a shit about the person sitting across from you or the glorified Excel spreadsheet you'll be working on it is a lot easier. It's a big part of why I hate leetcode interviews and consider them a huge red flag especially for non-Tier 1 companies. If your 90 minute interview is 80 minutes of me reversing trees and writing maze solvers then letting me ask 2 questions while you check your email and Slack on your other monitor I am not learning anything from the process and am extremely uninterested in working for you.
- mavelikara 2y ago
  What makes those questions ok for Tier-1 companies to ask, in your opinion?
  - pc86 2y ago
    I don't think it's ok, but the compensation and competition are both so high they can get away with it. A senior dev at Google in Manhattan will make more than a general practice physician in the same area. This is for a job that you can do with zero credentialing, no degree required, for half the hours and none of the liability. The competition is insane. Me being on my high horse is not going to change Facebook's hiring practices. But if I get asked to interview somewhere local where they may only be interviewing a half dozen people for a role over a few months, and I stop it early because they start throwing out LeetCode hards, that could be a non-trivial signal for them.
  - zeroq 2y ago
    Salary
  - michaelt 2y ago
swiftcoder 2y ago
> Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview. All the way back in ~2012, Amazon's own recruiters were recommending candidates cram "Cracking the Code Interview" (to the surprise of the actual interviewers, who didn't want you doing that). This is the way things have been for a long time now.
- jollyllama 2y ago
  Maybe it's time to question it. I don't think there's anything wrong with the now traditional whiteboard interview as such, but the notion that the same questions are all just as relevant to disparate teams is highly questionable. Technical questions should be based on the actual codebases or systems, IMO. I would also question the Hogwarts style approach of interviewing the candidate as a generic dev and then sorting them to the right team.
blindriver 2y ago
It hasn't been an honest exchange of what you actually know in over 20 years.
GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
When you're interviewing junior developers, you have no standard measure, they don't have enough actual experience to speak to. So before a leetcode and CTCI, you'd either have junior developers who went to a good university and were able to get an internship via that network, or they made some great open source contribution or project on the side as a student
penguin_booze 2y ago
Indeed. This has turned into a show about nothing. Recreational and competitive programming sites incentivize candidates for speed and one-upping. With such a group in the candidate set, companies rose up to the challenge of defeating them at their game by picking even harder questions. With the rise of AI, candidates don't even have to know or read the question. And eye for eye leaves the whole world blind. I don't think there are any winners in this war.

Kinda sad that it has come to this. Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview.

wcast 2y ago

In fact, for me it is pretty hard if not impossible to remain genuine to my ability and personal touch to navigate corporate world having to swallow all those keywords and behave properly in front of interviewers. Thinking that hacking/mastering it is often the single way out.

pc86 2y ago
Not sure it should really be "hard if not impossible" to "behave properly."
- harvey9 2y ago
  I took properly to mean conform to a corporate model, rather than something more like 'not childish or rude'
  - pc86 2y ago
    You're probably right :)

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

It should be. If the interview tests for what you crammed for, it doesn't test for what you'll remember a month onto the job. That's a sub-optimal strategy for the interviewer.

windward 2y ago
Devil's advocate: there exists a corpus of questions solvable with a small number of techniques after a few weeks of decicated study. When someone has the right brain, these questions are the barrier to a 99th percentile income. What does it say about an interviewee that doesn't bother?
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  It says they lack the social capital to know what these questions are and how to study them. Is the goal to optimize for people with family and friends already in tech that can pass on the "secret" or to maintain the fig leaf illusion of meritocracy?
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  That they're unwilling to jump through random arbitrary hoops that are unrelated to their actual work. If a potential employer considers that a negative, what does it say about the employer?
  - windward 2y ago
    Work is full of arbitrary hoops
criddell 2y ago
I occasionally interview people and that wouldn't really bother me. If you can learn something once you'll be able to re-learn it down the road when needed. I've found myself in that situation helping my kids with their homework. I might not be able to define L'Hôpital's rule off the top of my head, but it only takes a few minutes of reading to reload it into my brain.

TheBigSalad 2y ago

I agree but I companies like Meta/Apple/Amazon hire so much that they probably have full time statisticians just to analyze interview process and map that back to performance. So you have to assume this maps to real world success. Even if you are just testing an employee's preparation, maybe that means something.

lesuorac 2y ago
It's not probably. The hiring rubric gets items added/dropped based on what portions are statistically significant when compared to post-hire performance reviews. There's a lot of research in the public about "Structured Interviews".
- swiftcoder 2y ago
  When I was an engineer at Amazon, we all just made up our own questions, or passed fun ones around the office. I assume the Bar Raisers probably had an actual rubric, but the rest of us didn't (and we all had interviewing quotas to meet)
  - TheBigSalad 2y ago
    How long ago?
    - swiftcoder 2y ago
      I left a while back, but folks still there tell me not much has changed (except they do a lot less hiring these days, so quotas aren't as big a part of the promo package)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Etherlord87 2y ago
The "Big corporation analyzes everything thoroughly and arrives at the most optimal solution" is a ridiculous myth, and I don't think I even need to give examples. Maybe not Apple, but Amazon surely has a lot of embarrassing failures.

creativityhurts 2y ago

Interviewing went from something you had to get a job to a completely different skill and even a business.

pc86 2y ago

I struggled early in my career with interviews. Granted this was 2008-2010 era so the job market was not great, especially in a not-quite-urban non-coastal city where I was for a junior developer. But something did change when I stopped treating interviews as "convince them to like me" / "convince them to hire me" and started treating them as "find out if I want to work (in order) 1) at this company, 2) on this project, 3) with/for this person." I'm sure part of it is just experience, knowing more of the technical stuff, sure, but when you're approaching it honestly as determining whether you give a shit about the person sitting across from you or the glorified Excel spreadsheet you'll be working on it is a lot easier. It's a big part of why I hate leetcode interviews and consider them a huge red flag especially for non-Tier 1 companies. If your 90 minute interview is 80 minutes of me reversing trees and writing maze solvers then letting me ask 2 questions while you check your email and Slack on your other monitor I am not learning anything from the process and am extremely uninterested in working for you.

mavelikara 2y ago
What makes those questions ok for Tier-1 companies to ask, in your opinion?
- pc86 2y ago
  I don't think it's ok, but the compensation and competition are both so high they can get away with it. A senior dev at Google in Manhattan will make more than a general practice physician in the same area. This is for a job that you can do with zero credentialing, no degree required, for half the hours and none of the liability. The competition is insane. Me being on my high horse is not going to change Facebook's hiring practices. But if I get asked to interview somewhere local where they may only be interviewing a half dozen people for a role over a few months, and I stop it early because they start throwing out LeetCode hards, that could be a non-trivial signal for them.
- zeroq 2y ago
  Salary
- michaelt 2y ago

swiftcoder 2y ago

> Maybe I'm naive but I think an interview should be an honest exchange of what you actually know, not what you crammed for before the interview. All the way back in ~2012, Amazon's own recruiters were recommending candidates cram "Cracking the Code Interview" (to the surprise of the actual interviewers, who didn't want you doing that). This is the way things have been for a long time now.

jollyllama 2y ago
Maybe it's time to question it. I don't think there's anything wrong with the now traditional whiteboard interview as such, but the notion that the same questions are all just as relevant to disparate teams is highly questionable. Technical questions should be based on the actual codebases or systems, IMO. I would also question the Hogwarts style approach of interviewing the candidate as a generic dev and then sorting them to the right team.

blindriver 2y ago

It hasn't been an honest exchange of what you actually know in over 20 years.

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago

When you're interviewing junior developers, you have no standard measure, they don't have enough actual experience to speak to. So before a leetcode and CTCI, you'd either have junior developers who went to a good university and were able to get an internship via that network, or they made some great open source contribution or project on the side as a student

penguin_booze 2y ago

Indeed. This has turned into a show about nothing. Recreational and competitive programming sites incentivize candidates for speed and one-upping. With such a group in the candidate set, companies rose up to the challenge of defeating them at their game by picking even harder questions. With the rise of AI, candidates don't even have to know or read the question. And eye for eye leaves the whole world blind. I don't think there are any winners in this war.