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We've had more than a few in my company. We work in Cybersecurity for the company, so we've definitely seen them and seen the details. I don't actually think th

We've had more than a few in my company. We work in Cybersecurity for the company, so we've definitely seen them and seen the details. I don't actually think they're that hard to avoid .. but to say they're not a problem at all is not fair. I agree with you that if taken the wrong way that this is just ammunition for "return to office" efforts. A LOT of people are far worse at interviewing than they think they are. And so, a bullshit artist can get hired. Technology now allows these bullshit artists to propagate more, and do more damage than would have previously be possible. AI in the workplace is a similar problem. Can you tell the different between someone who really just leans on ChatGPT all day but is actually incompetent? Probably so, but someone who was that incompetent just wouldn't have previously been able to hang on for quite as long, or deceive so many people. [edit] It's clear that my comment was not clearly written -- when I said "A LOT of people are far worse at interviewing than they think they are," I was referring to the people holding the interviews, and not referring to candidates. I'm shocked at just how bad a lot of folks are at holding interviews, and just how misplaced their confidence in their ability seems to be.

mistrial9 2y ago
> A LOT of people are far worse at interviewing than they think they are. A LOT of interviews are one-sided bully sessions, so people don't jump through the hoops they are expected to.. especially in hazing-friendly cultures like the security and finance sectors
- everdrive 2y ago
  No disagreement there. The best way to get honest information from people is NOT to really leverage the power balance over them and try to "catch" them in an interview. People also commonly mistake "the stuff I know" for "general intelligence," and so they incorrectly think that their interview questions really tell them very much about a candidate.
lq9AJ8yrfs 2y ago
> A LOT of people are far worse at interviewing than they think they are. This works both ways right? Would it be fair to say that interview processes don't differentiate good hires from bullshit artists? Feels like framing the problem differently might make it tractable.
- the_snooze 2y ago
  >Would it be fair to say that interview processes don't differentiate good hires from bullshit artists? Anyone involved in interviewing really needs to ask themselves "what are we testing for?" In my world, we require anyone who makes it to the full in-person interview to give a technical talk on any topic they want, followed by Q&A from an audience that has a broad collective knowledge base. This has the benefits of: - Letting the candidate start the interview on strong ground of their choosing - Giving both the candidate and the team a chance to talk shop in a way that simulates the day-to-day work context - Offering an opportunity for the candidate to gauge how curious and cordial their potential future colleagues are - Making it very obvious if the candidate is BSing if they can't answer live questions about something they chose to present
  - gavinhoward 2y ago
    Actually, that sounds brilliant. The only problem is taking into account those that are not good at public speaking. Is your company hiring?
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      If I’m hiring “senior” developers, being comfortable communicating technical topics and answering questions is a requirement. My definition of “senior” is what you will see in the leveling guidelines of most well known tech companies - not “I codez real gud”.
      - Volundr 2y ago
        > If I’m hiring “senior” developers, being comfortable communicating technical topics and answering questions is a requirement. While I agree completely, I also know plenty of people who fit this description, but would probably aren't the folks you ask to give a power point on a technical topic. TBH I've done my time in management and done my fair share of presentations, but I would HATE this to the point that I might well opt out. There's a reason I'm not in management anymore, and a presentation like described is a far cry from working with stakeholders and engineers to define and document technical requirements. Or even presenting those to a group with shared context. I might well take the fact that you've made it a part of the interview process to be an indication that this is a regular job requirement as opposed to something I have to do here and there.
anovikov 2y ago
Just spent a day coding in C using intrinsics with the help of ChatGPT - trying to get it to produce results - purely as an experiment, and i can say someone who'd copy-paste from it without understanding things, will never pass an interview with me and i'm by far not the toughest guy to get through.
throwanem 2y ago
There's not much incentive for the median industry engineer to develop meaningful skill as a panelist.
- everdrive 2y ago
  I think that's fine, but I would expect people to have a realistic appraisal of their skillset (or lack of skillset) -- it's the self knowledge gap and false confidence which is the problem.
  - throwanem 2y ago
    Sure, but who's in the picture to provide the quality of feedback that allows for that kind of realistic self-appraisal to develop? I've had candidates I knew 15 minutes into the session I would sell a panel on "no hire" for, still say I was the best interview they've ever done in their life. This is not so much because I'm actually good at it, but going by the substantive content of that and much other feedback I've received especially in the last four years, I earn these rave reviews instead mainly because: - I'm not afraid to admit where a candidate knows more than I do, and - when someone seems so nervous it may be confounding their performance, I gently remind them that I've been through this before, it's hard on everyone and I don't hold that against people, and it's okay if they need to take a deep breath and recenter. It's systemic, and it isn't even about being able to derive a reliable signal from the interaction. The problem is way more fundamental, in the same sense that you don't fix "Lord of the Flies" by reminding everyone regularly to be polite and not swear. I mean, as I've just discussed, I can't even trust the good feedback I get from candidates, because any signal on actual improvements I could make is totally swamped by the noise of people practically ready to lick a hand in exchange for not being treated like something you'd scrape off a boot heel. Which is also not something I hold against anyone on an individual level. The system that so consistently produces such outcomes is another matter. I used to think it was shameful people so rarely bother to represent their company in a good light, in the one formal occasion when most engineers ever actually do so. But in retrospect, I think I was the one who was wrong: the median level of representation in this area is more or less exactly accurate to what is deserved.
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
>I'm shocked at just how bad a lot of folks are at holding interviews, and just how misplaced their confidence in their ability seems to be. Age old question, who will judge the judge?
- d0mine 2y ago
  You ask the 3rd person to be present/to review the interview later. It is not perfect but it may provide a necessary perspective.
giancarlostoro 2y ago
> I'm shocked at just how bad a lot of folks are at holding interviews, and just how misplaced their confidence in their ability seems to be. They've all drunk the leetcode / cs question koolaid, instead of just talking about projects, and how they would solve some things, and checking their personality (this is like 70% of the weight for me for new team members) if nobody likes you because of your attitude / personality, you'll bring down the team with your personality.
patrakov 2y ago
> Can you tell the different between someone who really just leans on ChatGPT all day but is actually incompetent? More relevant question: even if you can easily tell the difference, can you convince the person who makes the hiring decisions that your colleague is incompetent and only relays words to/from ChatGPT?

mistrial9 2y ago

> A LOT of people are far worse at interviewing than they think they are. A LOT of interviews are one-sided bully sessions, so people don't jump through the hoops they are expected to.. especially in hazing-friendly cultures like the security and finance sectors

everdrive 2y ago
No disagreement there. The best way to get honest information from people is NOT to really leverage the power balance over them and try to "catch" them in an interview. People also commonly mistake "the stuff I know" for "general intelligence," and so they incorrectly think that their interview questions really tell them very much about a candidate.

lq9AJ8yrfs 2y ago

> A LOT of people are far worse at interviewing than they think they are. This works both ways right? Would it be fair to say that interview processes don't differentiate good hires from bullshit artists? Feels like framing the problem differently might make it tractable.

the_snooze 2y ago
>Would it be fair to say that interview processes don't differentiate good hires from bullshit artists? Anyone involved in interviewing really needs to ask themselves "what are we testing for?" In my world, we require anyone who makes it to the full in-person interview to give a technical talk on any topic they want, followed by Q&A from an audience that has a broad collective knowledge base. This has the benefits of: - Letting the candidate start the interview on strong ground of their choosing - Giving both the candidate and the team a chance to talk shop in a way that simulates the day-to-day work context - Offering an opportunity for the candidate to gauge how curious and cordial their potential future colleagues are - Making it very obvious if the candidate is BSing if they can't answer live questions about something they chose to present
- gavinhoward 2y ago
  Actually, that sounds brilliant. The only problem is taking into account those that are not good at public speaking. Is your company hiring?
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    If I’m hiring “senior” developers, being comfortable communicating technical topics and answering questions is a requirement. My definition of “senior” is what you will see in the leveling guidelines of most well known tech companies - not “I codez real gud”.
    - Volundr 2y ago
      > If I’m hiring “senior” developers, being comfortable communicating technical topics and answering questions is a requirement. While I agree completely, I also know plenty of people who fit this description, but would probably aren't the folks you ask to give a power point on a technical topic. TBH I've done my time in management and done my fair share of presentations, but I would HATE this to the point that I might well opt out. There's a reason I'm not in management anymore, and a presentation like described is a far cry from working with stakeholders and engineers to define and document technical requirements. Or even presenting those to a group with shared context. I might well take the fact that you've made it a part of the interview process to be an indication that this is a regular job requirement as opposed to something I have to do here and there.

anovikov 2y ago

Just spent a day coding in C using intrinsics with the help of ChatGPT - trying to get it to produce results - purely as an experiment, and i can say someone who'd copy-paste from it without understanding things, will never pass an interview with me and i'm by far not the toughest guy to get through.

throwanem 2y ago

There's not much incentive for the median industry engineer to develop meaningful skill as a panelist.

everdrive 2y ago
I think that's fine, but I would expect people to have a realistic appraisal of their skillset (or lack of skillset) -- it's the self knowledge gap and false confidence which is the problem.
- throwanem 2y ago
  Sure, but who's in the picture to provide the quality of feedback that allows for that kind of realistic self-appraisal to develop? I've had candidates I knew 15 minutes into the session I would sell a panel on "no hire" for, still say I was the best interview they've ever done in their life. This is not so much because I'm actually good at it, but going by the substantive content of that and much other feedback I've received especially in the last four years, I earn these rave reviews instead mainly because: - I'm not afraid to admit where a candidate knows more than I do, and - when someone seems so nervous it may be confounding their performance, I gently remind them that I've been through this before, it's hard on everyone and I don't hold that against people, and it's okay if they need to take a deep breath and recenter. It's systemic, and it isn't even about being able to derive a reliable signal from the interaction. The problem is way more fundamental, in the same sense that you don't fix "Lord of the Flies" by reminding everyone regularly to be polite and not swear. I mean, as I've just discussed, I can't even trust the good feedback I get from candidates, because any signal on actual improvements I could make is totally swamped by the noise of people practically ready to lick a hand in exchange for not being treated like something you'd scrape off a boot heel. Which is also not something I hold against anyone on an individual level. The system that so consistently produces such outcomes is another matter. I used to think it was shameful people so rarely bother to represent their company in a good light, in the one formal occasion when most engineers ever actually do so. But in retrospect, I think I was the one who was wrong: the median level of representation in this area is more or less exactly accurate to what is deserved.

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago

>I'm shocked at just how bad a lot of folks are at holding interviews, and just how misplaced their confidence in their ability seems to be. Age old question, who will judge the judge?

d0mine 2y ago
You ask the 3rd person to be present/to review the interview later. It is not perfect but it may provide a necessary perspective.

giancarlostoro 2y ago

> I'm shocked at just how bad a lot of folks are at holding interviews, and just how misplaced their confidence in their ability seems to be. They've all drunk the leetcode / cs question koolaid, instead of just talking about projects, and how they would solve some things, and checking their personality (this is like 70% of the weight for me for new team members) if nobody likes you because of your attitude / personality, you'll bring down the team with your personality.

patrakov 2y ago

> Can you tell the different between someone who really just leans on ChatGPT all day but is actually incompetent? More relevant question: even if you can easily tell the difference, can you convince the person who makes the hiring decisions that your colleague is incompetent and only relays words to/from ChatGPT?