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As mentioned in the article, after Google examined the data, they found that technical interviews were worthless at determining employee quality. Instead, they

As mentioned in the article, after Google examined the data, they found that technical interviews were worthless at determining employee quality. Instead, they say, "what works well are structured behavioral interviews." This seems pretty damning for the technical interview. Would you just say that Google was doing technical interviews wrong?

tptacek 13y ago
No, what Google said was that brain-teasers were useless. Which is of course something many people have been saying for years.
mechanical_fish 13y ago
No, I read tptacek as agreeing with this person at Google. [1] That person is trying to develop a better interview formalism that works and is repeatable. So is tptacek, albeit probably in a slightly different direction. What neither the Googlers nor Ptacek are saying is that the solution to the screening problem is to ask candidates to accept a deal that most full-time employees, and most clueful contractors too, would reject out of hand. If your screening strategy would reject any sizable percentage of people who are currently successfully working for someone else, your screening strategy is bogus. Unless your express goal is to hire promising juniors who don't know their own value. Which does feel like the goal of many hiring managers: As market rates get bid up, they're desperately looking for people who are just clueful enough to succeed, yet just clueless enough not to ask for money in return. ---- [1] I do not presume that any single person speaks for all of Google. In particular, I would be surprised if that giant company of folks who were all hired via brainteaser interviews has actually entirely stopped using brainteaser interviews. Fixing interviewing culture is hard.
michaelt 13y ago
It's funny - when I hear people in the press discussing technical interviews [1] I hear questions like this: "How many golf balls could you fit into a school bus?" When I attend technical interviews I hear questions like this: "How would you implement an arbitrary-precision decimal number class, like Java's BigDecimal? Can you write out the add function on that whiteboard?" When Google's Laszlo Bock [2] says "On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time. How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don’t predict anything." it seems fairly clear to me the idea he's dismissing is brainteasers, not whiteboard coding. That's consistent with other reports [3,4] from a few years ago saying brain teasers were not used. The author of the TechCrunch article seems to interpret Bock as saying whiteboard coding is an ineffective practice. I'm not convinced the Bock interview said that. [1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204552304577112522982505222.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020455230457711... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-... [3] http://www.technologywoman.com/2010/05/17/debunking-the-google-interview-myth/ http://www.technologywoman.com/2010/05/17/debunking-the-goog... [4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/us-news-blog/2012/oct/03/google-interview-brain-teaser-myth http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/us-news-blog/2012/oct/0...
- dyno12345 13y ago
  I'm suspicious of whiteboard coding as well. Why not give the person a computer and 20 minutes? Why make it less realistic by taking all reference material, editor and ability to test-run the program?
  - raverbashing 13y ago
    This It's the same stupid behaviour with "scrum post-its" when there are tools available. Yes, you can't interview a surgeon by giving him a scalpel and a patient, but this is not the case with software development interviews
brown9-2 13y ago
Has Google abandoned whiteboard coding interviews for developers? Unless the answer is yes, I think you might be misreading what Bock said.
- dmoy 13y ago
  Google has not abandoned whiteboard coding interviews for developers. From within the last year: http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/hangout-on-air-tech-interviewing.html http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/hangout-on-air...

tptacek 13y ago

No, what Google said was that brain-teasers were useless. Which is of course something many people have been saying for years.

mechanical_fish 13y ago

No, I read tptacek as agreeing with this person at Google. [1] That person is trying to develop a better interview formalism that works and is repeatable. So is tptacek, albeit probably in a slightly different direction. What neither the Googlers nor Ptacek are saying is that the solution to the screening problem is to ask candidates to accept a deal that most full-time employees, and most clueful contractors too, would reject out of hand. If your screening strategy would reject any sizable percentage of people who are currently successfully working for someone else, your screening strategy is bogus. Unless your express goal is to hire promising juniors who don't know their own value. Which does feel like the goal of many hiring managers: As market rates get bid up, they're desperately looking for people who are just clueful enough to succeed, yet just clueless enough not to ask for money in return. ---- [1] I do not presume that any single person speaks for all of Google. In particular, I would be surprised if that giant company of folks who were all hired via brainteaser interviews has actually entirely stopped using brainteaser interviews. Fixing interviewing culture is hard.

michaelt 13y ago

It's funny - when I hear people in the press discussing technical interviews [1] I hear questions like this: "How many golf balls could you fit into a school bus?" When I attend technical interviews I hear questions like this: "How would you implement an arbitrary-precision decimal number class, like Java's BigDecimal? Can you write out the add function on that whiteboard?" When Google's Laszlo Bock [2] says "On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time. How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don’t predict anything." it seems fairly clear to me the idea he's dismissing is brainteasers, not whiteboard coding. That's consistent with other reports [3,4] from a few years ago saying brain teasers were not used. The author of the TechCrunch article seems to interpret Bock as saying whiteboard coding is an ineffective practice. I'm not convinced the Bock interview said that. [1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204552304577112522982505222.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020455230457711... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-... [3] http://www.technologywoman.com/2010/05/17/debunking-the-google-interview-myth/ http://www.technologywoman.com/2010/05/17/debunking-the-goog... [4] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/us-news-blog/2012/oct/03/google-interview-brain-teaser-myth http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/us-news-blog/2012/oct/0...

dyno12345 13y ago
I'm suspicious of whiteboard coding as well. Why not give the person a computer and 20 minutes? Why make it less realistic by taking all reference material, editor and ability to test-run the program?
- raverbashing 13y ago
  This It's the same stupid behaviour with "scrum post-its" when there are tools available. Yes, you can't interview a surgeon by giving him a scalpel and a patient, but this is not the case with software development interviews

brown9-2 13y ago

Has Google abandoned whiteboard coding interviews for developers? Unless the answer is yes, I think you might be misreading what Bock said.

dmoy 13y ago
Google has not abandoned whiteboard coding interviews for developers. From within the last year: http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/hangout-on-air-tech-interviewing.html http://www.google.com/about/jobs/lifeatgoogle/hangout-on-air...