7 ms·

The objective arguments are sound, in my opinion. I don't care for the flippant insults like "assholery," but I'm a big boy, I can filter these out. One thing

The objective arguments are sound, in my opinion. I don't care for the flippant insults like "assholery," but I'm a big boy, I can filter these out. One thing to remember about interviewers that ask poor questions is that many such people aren't full-time professional interviewers. They are to interviewing as a marketing manager who does some Excel scripting is to programming. They are often repeating what they've heard or read or been subjected to, much as an inexperienced programmer tends to use whatever programming pattern was espoused in the last blog post he read. A terrible interviewer may still be a wonderful person to work alongside, just as someone who performs poorly under the pressure of an interview may be a fantastic programmer once hired and working on an actual project.

jiggy2011 14y ago
This. Also bear in mind that it is widely publicised that google and MS etc use these sorts of puzzles in their hiring process (whether or not this is true I have no idea). So there's a certain element of "if it's good enough for.."
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Cookingboy 14y ago
  Both Google and MS have banned such riddles from their interviews, because they have been proven to be ineffective and results in large numbers of both false-negatives and false-positives.
  - hackinthebochs 14y ago
    Source?
    - Cookingboy 14y ago
      Documented source? I don't think companies publish their interview processes. Personal sources? The guy who interviewed me at MS a couple years ago told me himself, I also currently work for Google.
      - hackinthebochs 14y ago
        I mean source that they result in a lot of false negatives and false positives. If Google kept stats on the rating engineers got during the interview and how they went on to do at the company, this would be a good starting point for objective evidence.
        badgar 14y ago
        And exactly why on Earth would any company ever created publish such detailed information?
        hackinthebochs 14y ago
        In aggregate, I don't see what harm it would cause. It would help move the industry forward.
        Firehed 14y ago
        I don't have a source for this, but as an interviewer, simply thinking about what I can get from a riddle indicates it's probably true. I have a mental checklist of about fifteen items that I try to get answered when interviewing a candidate, and asking riddles would barely if at all help me answer any of them. That's not to say they're worthless, but when I have an hour or so to interview a candidate, they're not an effective use of my time (and I imagine that most candidates would think it's a lousy use of their time, too) - I ask questions that can answer four or five items on my list, not one if I'm lucky.
  - ramayac 14y ago
    More people from RRHH should know this.
- majormajor 14y ago
  Seems like that was only true in the past. I've even had a Google interviewer tell me something along the lines of "I don't have a lot of questions picked out ahead of time cause they've told me I can't ask puzzles anymore" so hopefully that new state of things will trickle down in time.
- endtime 14y ago
  Google and Microsoft don't ask those kinds of questions. Both of them primarily ask questions related to algorithms and data structures, sometimes with a bit of software design thrown in. Source: I work for Google and have interned for Microsoft.
- varelse 14y ago
  Not anymore (previous googler)... My google interview was the best part of the whole time there to be honest. If the work had lived up to the people and problems presented in the interview, I would still be there, happy as a clam. Instead, it was a complete forced bait and switch onto a team doing something irrelevant to my skill set, which is my way of saying there are plenty of problems with Google, but this is not one of them.
  - notmyhnname 14y ago
    I've heard this a couple times now, and it worries me. I've got an on-site interview with Google soon, and my impression from the recruiter is that I would know which team I was joining at the offer stage. Can you go into some detail on what happened between your offer and joining Google that resulted in you feeling like it was a "bait and switch"? If it matters, I am not interviewing as a college hire, but as a senior engineer from another large tech company.
    - outside1234 14y ago
      A lot of people interview thinking they are going to work on Google Glasses and then get allocated to corporate IT. You don't know your role at the company until the day you start.
      - notmyhnname 14y ago
        Yes, I suppose what I'm looking for is where exactly things go awry. Again, the impression I'd gotten from my recruiter is that I'd have more or less a commitment from Google that I'd be working on a particular team at the offer stage. In particular, that I'd know which team I was going to work on when I accepted the offer. So it seems like either she's exaggerated that (in which case I would expect it to seem fairly obvious at the offer stage that you weren't yet assigned to a team), or that Google is in the habit of outright lying about team assignments, which I have a hard time buying.
        varelse 14y ago
crusso 14y ago
someone who performs poorly under the pressure of an interview may be a fantastic programmer once hired and working on an actual project Maybe. But then again if I have one spot open for the quarter then I'm probably not going to take the chance on someone who crumbles when asked how to get the duck safely across the river or whatever.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  And if a good programmer has a choice of employers (and they do), they probably aren't going to take a chance on someone whose idea of evaluating their skills is to ask how to get a duck across a river.
  - crusso 14y ago
    If that's the only thing asked during the interview then I might agree with you. It really never is, though, is it? Seriously, do you really want to work with someone who's too uptight to answer a couple of harmless riddles during the course of the interview process that includes a host of different methods for transferring information?
    - crosvenir 14y ago
      Yes, I do. Too many times I've worked with programmers that were pushovers to inane edicts from management, whereas if just a few had said, "I see what you're trying to do, can we accomplish this in a more efficient manner by ..."
  - mikecane 14y ago
    How many ducks are you dealing with in a day?
    - crusso 14y ago
      I'm way too embarrassed to say.
- radley 14y ago
groby_b 14y ago
Why, it's almost like you should have programmers program during an interview. A previous company I worked for did that. Build a small ad-hoc team of 3-4 people (with 1-2 existing employees, as knowledge repositories), and let the candidates work on a sort-of real problem for pretty much a day. Every team member occasionally came in and watched for a while, every team member looked at the repo for the end results, and the "embedded" people gave feedback on how it felt to work with the candidates. Yes, it's expensive. But so is a mishire, and it sure did work well to filter people out.

jiggy2011 14y ago

This. Also bear in mind that it is widely publicised that google and MS etc use these sorts of puzzles in their hiring process (whether or not this is true I have no idea). So there's a certain element of "if it's good enough for.."

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Cookingboy 14y ago
Both Google and MS have banned such riddles from their interviews, because they have been proven to be ineffective and results in large numbers of both false-negatives and false-positives.
- hackinthebochs 14y ago
  Source?
  - Cookingboy 14y ago
    Documented source? I don't think companies publish their interview processes. Personal sources? The guy who interviewed me at MS a couple years ago told me himself, I also currently work for Google.
    - hackinthebochs 14y ago
      I mean source that they result in a lot of false negatives and false positives. If Google kept stats on the rating engineers got during the interview and how they went on to do at the company, this would be a good starting point for objective evidence.
      - badgar 14y ago
        And exactly why on Earth would any company ever created publish such detailed information?
        hackinthebochs 14y ago
        In aggregate, I don't see what harm it would cause. It would help move the industry forward.
      - Firehed 14y ago
        I don't have a source for this, but as an interviewer, simply thinking about what I can get from a riddle indicates it's probably true. I have a mental checklist of about fifteen items that I try to get answered when interviewing a candidate, and asking riddles would barely if at all help me answer any of them. That's not to say they're worthless, but when I have an hour or so to interview a candidate, they're not an effective use of my time (and I imagine that most candidates would think it's a lousy use of their time, too) - I ask questions that can answer four or five items on my list, not one if I'm lucky.
- ramayac 14y ago
  More people from RRHH should know this.
majormajor 14y ago
Seems like that was only true in the past. I've even had a Google interviewer tell me something along the lines of "I don't have a lot of questions picked out ahead of time cause they've told me I can't ask puzzles anymore" so hopefully that new state of things will trickle down in time.
endtime 14y ago
Google and Microsoft don't ask those kinds of questions. Both of them primarily ask questions related to algorithms and data structures, sometimes with a bit of software design thrown in. Source: I work for Google and have interned for Microsoft.
varelse 14y ago
Not anymore (previous googler)... My google interview was the best part of the whole time there to be honest. If the work had lived up to the people and problems presented in the interview, I would still be there, happy as a clam. Instead, it was a complete forced bait and switch onto a team doing something irrelevant to my skill set, which is my way of saying there are plenty of problems with Google, but this is not one of them.
- notmyhnname 14y ago
  I've heard this a couple times now, and it worries me. I've got an on-site interview with Google soon, and my impression from the recruiter is that I would know which team I was joining at the offer stage. Can you go into some detail on what happened between your offer and joining Google that resulted in you feeling like it was a "bait and switch"? If it matters, I am not interviewing as a college hire, but as a senior engineer from another large tech company.
  - outside1234 14y ago
    A lot of people interview thinking they are going to work on Google Glasses and then get allocated to corporate IT. You don't know your role at the company until the day you start.
    - notmyhnname 14y ago
      Yes, I suppose what I'm looking for is where exactly things go awry. Again, the impression I'd gotten from my recruiter is that I'd have more or less a commitment from Google that I'd be working on a particular team at the offer stage. In particular, that I'd know which team I was going to work on when I accepted the offer. So it seems like either she's exaggerated that (in which case I would expect it to seem fairly obvious at the offer stage that you weren't yet assigned to a team), or that Google is in the habit of outright lying about team assignments, which I have a hard time buying.
      - varelse 14y ago

crusso 14y ago

someone who performs poorly under the pressure of an interview may be a fantastic programmer once hired and working on an actual project Maybe. But then again if I have one spot open for the quarter then I'm probably not going to take the chance on someone who crumbles when asked how to get the duck safely across the river or whatever.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
And if a good programmer has a choice of employers (and they do), they probably aren't going to take a chance on someone whose idea of evaluating their skills is to ask how to get a duck across a river.
- crusso 14y ago
  If that's the only thing asked during the interview then I might agree with you. It really never is, though, is it? Seriously, do you really want to work with someone who's too uptight to answer a couple of harmless riddles during the course of the interview process that includes a host of different methods for transferring information?
  - crosvenir 14y ago
    Yes, I do. Too many times I've worked with programmers that were pushovers to inane edicts from management, whereas if just a few had said, "I see what you're trying to do, can we accomplish this in a more efficient manner by ..."
- mikecane 14y ago
  How many ducks are you dealing with in a day?
  - crusso 14y ago
    I'm way too embarrassed to say.
radley 14y ago

groby_b 14y ago

Why, it's almost like you should have programmers program during an interview. A previous company I worked for did that. Build a small ad-hoc team of 3-4 people (with 1-2 existing employees, as knowledge repositories), and let the candidates work on a sort-of real problem for pretty much a day. Every team member occasionally came in and watched for a while, every team member looked at the repo for the end results, and the "embedded" people gave feedback on how it felt to work with the candidates. Yes, it's expensive. But so is a mishire, and it sure did work well to filter people out.