4 ms·

Hiring is a inherently broken process. Being on the giving end of the hiring process however, I'm not sure yet if I'm perpetuating a broken system or truly help

by Xorlev 13y ago

Hiring is a inherently broken process. Being on the giving end of the hiring process however, I'm not sure yet if I'm perpetuating a broken system or truly helping solve the issue. I generally ask an algorithms question not because I care about the algorithm its self (spoiler: it's not even about datastructures), but about how the candidate comes up with test cases and error conditions. Truthfully, my 'algorithms' question is more gauging their effectiveness at QAing their own code. In general though, I call those sorts of problems CS trivia. At best, they act as a proxy gauge of skill. The theory is, any 'good' programmer can fall back on their experience and solve problems on the fly. Some candidates keep their cool and methodically solve the problem. Others would need time in the best of cases. To conclude, I think it's just generally the lack of available skill to interview and general risk-aversity. Hiring a bad employee is an expensive mistake, and in a startup, it could be one that kills the company.

artagnon 13y ago
In general, standardized testing based on CS trivia is a good gauge of how well the candidate has prepared for the interview. To put it bluntly, it tests how many piss boring problems the candidate is willing to put herself through to get into your company. If the problem is uninteresting and tedious, it's likely that your candidate simply doesn't _want_ to solve the problem; to accurately judge whether she is _able_ to solve a problem would require giving her a problem she feels like solving in the first place. Yes, some candidates do get nervous and break; you might want to filter out such candidates on the basis that they can't handle "pressure". What I don't understand is how you minimize risk: picking a rotten candidate who has prepared thoroughly for the specific interview, and leaving out good engineers is an expensive mistake. At best, it probably works heuristically for freshers because she's likely to retain atleast some amount of the toy exercises she was made to do as part of her coursework. I've personally seen too many cases of "gamification" of the standardized testing process, and am disappointed that companies haven't been able to come up with a better system. For the record: this is not sour grapes. I have no desire to work on the proprietary codebase of any company, and am quite happy just doing what I want (contributing to real open source projects). My comment is just a general remark on the state of affairs.
- jabbernotty 13y ago
  There are many different kinds of pressure. I don't always handle 'interview pressure' well (depends on the job and interview), but in most positions that is unlikely to tell you anything about my performance during the actual job. Unless you are hiring me to do short-term placements at clients.
  - artagnon 13y ago
    Which is precisely why I put that word in quotes :)

by Xorlev 13y ago

artagnon 13y ago

In general, standardized testing based on CS trivia is a good gauge of how well the candidate has prepared for the interview. To put it bluntly, it tests how many piss boring problems the candidate is willing to put herself through to get into your company. If the problem is uninteresting and tedious, it's likely that your candidate simply doesn't _want_ to solve the problem; to accurately judge whether she is _able_ to solve a problem would require giving her a problem she feels like solving in the first place. Yes, some candidates do get nervous and break; you might want to filter out such candidates on the basis that they can't handle "pressure". What I don't understand is how you minimize risk: picking a rotten candidate who has prepared thoroughly for the specific interview, and leaving out good engineers is an expensive mistake. At best, it probably works heuristically for freshers because she's likely to retain atleast some amount of the toy exercises she was made to do as part of her coursework. I've personally seen too many cases of "gamification" of the standardized testing process, and am disappointed that companies haven't been able to come up with a better system. For the record: this is not sour grapes. I have no desire to work on the proprietary codebase of any company, and am quite happy just doing what I want (contributing to real open source projects). My comment is just a general remark on the state of affairs.

jabbernotty 13y ago
There are many different kinds of pressure. I don't always handle 'interview pressure' well (depends on the job and interview), but in most positions that is unlikely to tell you anything about my performance during the actual job. Unless you are hiring me to do short-term placements at clients.
- artagnon 13y ago
  Which is precisely why I put that word in quotes :)