6 ms·

How to hire programmers using online coding test

19 points by saching90 13y ago

whizzkid 13y ago
I am not agreeing on this. Unless you are hiring an expert, most of developers out there earning their lives by coding can not write a simple bubble sort when you give them a console. Not because they don't have the capacity, They will either not remember the algorithm at the moment or haven't had a such situation requires similar approach at their previous work. If you really want to know if he/she knows stuff, ask him a task/question/bug and let him explain how he would solve it. if he is good, he will start telling the approach in different aspects, he would even start writing you a pseudo code to solve it. The approach taken in the article is not explaining how to HIRE programmers. It is about how to ELEMINATE them.
- RHSeeger 13y ago
  To be fair, eliminating a fair portion of candidates (assuming the test does a good job of identifying the ones you wouldn't hire) isn't a bad thing. Time is a valuable resource.
  - whizzkid 13y ago
    always write tests while programming :) you did not cover the whole task! // Your code if "Time is a valuable resource." Don't waste employers' time end // Refactor // Adds candidates' time to the case // Decreases listOfCandidates() loading time. if "Time is a valuable resource" Publish a well-detailed job position end
liranz 13y ago
This looks interesting, though I don't agree with the "most candidates cannot write code to simple algorithm" thesis. I interview A LOT. Almost 100% of the candidates I receive cover the basic programming abilities. The real problem is that they don't know how to THINK. I talk with them 20 min on the phone when they have to present a problem they had and how they solved it. Then I try to find out what they find interesting. Giving a mini project is a good idea, but it does not scale well, and still requires a lot of resources top candidates will just not be willing to invest.
- lrem 13y ago
  A simple programming task adds 20 minutes to the burden of the interviewee, costs you next to nothing and weeds out the folk who don't actually know how to program. If someone fails to print prime numbers below 100 in 20 minutes, there is something wrong with his skills.
  - penguat 13y ago
    And is this a buyer or a seller's market? If it's a buyer's market then you can give the interviewee as many tests as you like. If it's a seller's market... you'd better have something really good going for you!
    - VBprogrammer 13y ago
      That would seem premised on the idea that it is better to have someone barely capable in the position than to go without. In my own personal experience I'd rather be short handed than work with someone incompetent.
      - VLM 13y ago
        Your outlook is only correct if jerking applicants around with meaningless trivia questions and irrelevant tests actually, somehow, probably accidentally, results in the selection of world class developers. If there were 20 plumbers and only 10 plumber jobs, I could get away with jerking them around forcing them to do crossword puzzles before hiring them to fix my toilet. That doesn't mean the selection pressure would magically result in the guy most likely to fix my leaky toilet; much more likely it would result in the guy best at doing crossword puzzles. Unfortunately I now have a concrete deliverable of a leaky toilet to fix, and the best crossword puzzle solver in the market trying to fix it. That isn't going to end well. Especially when the best leaky toilet fixer in the world knows he can refuse the crossword puzzle test and get a job via his rep or connections so he never even applies. So its not just a random selection of applicants, but a random selection of an inferior population.
013 13y ago
> Error establishing a database connection
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- gregors 13y ago
  it must be a bug in the bubblesort!
ebbv 13y ago
The site has been crushed under the HN traffic (and wherever else this link is propagating today.) So I can only state my opinion on the title which is; this is a terrible basis on which to decide who to hire. I would never hire anyone without having an actual conversation with them. Whether I can get along with the person, if they will be a good fit for our team is the most important criteria. Test taking is not an important skill for any job I'd be hiring for.
- nandemo 13y ago
  Please consider refraining to comment on a story if you haven't read it. It just adds noise. Case in point, the article does not recommend hiring without talking to the candidate.
  - ebbv 13y ago
    I usually don't, but in this case the title irked me and sounded like they were advocating just that. Otherwise, what was the point of the blog post (since coding tests are completely standard in the industry)? Now that it's recovered I see that it was just to shill the author's particular coding test. Yawn.
7Figures2Commas 13y ago
I always find it funny that half the people/companies advocating these approaches can't even keep a simple WordPress blog up when faced with a bit of traffic. Surely there must be an algorithm for that?
- coldcode 13y ago
  I guess they didn't pass that test.
- aetimmes 13y ago
  There's no equivalent "online coding test" for admins, unfortunately.
  - 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
    Do you mean to tell me that the guy who created a bubble sort algorithm on a whiteboard during his interview can't set up and manage a WordPress blog that scales reasonably well, and that I need to hire a dedicated systems administrator?
  - twic 13y ago
    Where i work, we give prospective sysadmins the same simple programming problems as programmers. Our infrastructure is run with automation - Puppet, plus lots of juicy devopsy madness written in Ruby - so our sysadmins do need to have at least rudimentary programming ability. If they pass that, we don't give them any more programming tests. We give them a hands-on sysadmin assault course problem, where they have to SSH into an EC2 box that has been carefully broken by our devious chief sysadmin, find out what's wrong, and fix it. They do it in a tmux session, with some kind of audio link (Skype, Hangout, etc), so one of our guys can watch and talk to them as they do it. I've listened to several people running through it, and it sounds terrifying.
- arikrak 13y ago
  I hosted my WP blog for free on OpenShift and (with free Cloudflare) it was able to handle Reddit/HN traffic spikes without a problem. Not sure why everyone doesn't do something similar.
pramodliv1 13y ago
Obligatory google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://recruiterguide.hackerearth.com/how-to-hire-a-programmer-using-online-coding-test/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
- mathattack 13y ago
  There's certainly an irony on the link to a programming test not working.
scrabble 13y ago
It's not a candidate's problem that they can't code? I think the candidate has a level of responsibility here. Really they shouldn't be applying for a development position if they can't code.
VLM 13y ago
Two hilarious observations about stereotypical business programming culture: Before hiring, tech fit decisions are made by elaborate pretend tests and painfully detailed technical discussion upon people who supposedly needed to gain years of experience in a specific field. After hiring, tech fit decisions are made by a PHB glancing at the cover of PC magazine and saying "make it so, number one" and the existing staff starts googling furiously and supplies something workable in a week or two even if they never heard of the technology the day before. At 2pm "Work at home, are you crazy? Without my direct supervision hovering over your shoulder I'd appear unnecessary and you can't be trusted to accomplish anything at home and nothing can ever be accomplished individually, things can only be done by a team where a sociopath will take all credit for the teams effort" or, uh, usually a little more carefully phrased but this is what they actually mean. But at 2am the tone changes "well of course you can work at home at 2am to fix any emergency all by yourself in a completely undocumented system you've never heard of before and we trust you'll always be available 24x365 and never out of town or drunk"
clueless123 13y ago
I understand the frustration of sifting through hundreds of "fake" resumes where candidates can't code a fiz-buzz, but from the other end it is a total waste of my time spending 20 minutes of my time solving these coding challenges every time I want to know more about a prospective position. If would be nice if the recruiter agencies (who are actually getting paid to do a job), would hire people qualified to understand if a candiadate is or not up to par for the job from a quick email or phone call.
- saching90 13y ago
  I believe a well written 'Job Post' also plays a pivotal role in attracting the right kind of talent.
zby 13y ago
There is another copmany that has been doing this for years: http://codility.com/ http://codility.com/ (I am an investor there).
eshvk 13y ago
Excellent. I love when things like this get more visibility. Now, let me go make notes on my book of all the red flags of why I should stop talking to a company. As a candidate, I understand the system is incredibly broken. Maybe one way out is to have recruiters who have a technical background. I have seen that happen with exactly one company where the lead recruiter had a BS from MIT. She was awesome and a genuine pleasure to talk to. Also, she had enough of a understanding of the company stack that the interview acted like a semi-filter.
robalfonso 13y ago
I don't use standard tests when hiring (read: to weed out candidates) I'm in the process of hiring again as the team is growing and this has struck a chord with me. I tend to see a resume, if it looks at all decent I will do a interview. Some would say do a call or give them a test to weed out etc. I've done enough interviewing to know that 1) people almost always are different than what their resume portrays for better or worse. 2) body language is 90% of our communication so why waste time on the phone. 3) If its so important to get someone I deem as a good fit I want to meet them. 4) I "waste" a lot of time interviewing, but I get better at it each time and I've found people who would otherwise never have gotten into see me that were spectacular hires. Also I have lots of friends who hire and sometimes someone is great but not for me, the favor has paid off when its returned. The bottom line is people are unique in many ways. Why try to push them into a standard mold or discard them if they don't fit. P.S With regard to testing I usually tailor a test of 5-6 questions AFTER the interview so I can evaluate anything I am not sure of after speaking to the potential hire. I also let them do it at home with their tools. I don't care to see if someone can work with me hovering over them, because I have not intention of doing so on a day-to-day basis.
dblumenfeld 13y ago
A nice attempt at something that http://codility.com http://codility.com has been doing well for ages (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039140). Nice UI, still I like Codility programming problems much better.

19 points by saching90 13y ago

I am not agreeing on this. Unless you are hiring an expert, most of developers out there earning their lives by coding can not write a simple bubble sort when you give them a console. Not because they don't have the capacity, They will either not remember the algorithm at the moment or haven't had a such situation requires similar approach at their previous work. If you really want to know if he/she knows stuff, ask him a task/question/bug and let him explain how he would solve it. if he is good, he will start telling the approach in different aspects, he would even start writing you a pseudo code to solve it. The approach taken in the article is not explaining how to HIRE programmers. It is about how to ELEMINATE them.

RHSeeger 13y ago
To be fair, eliminating a fair portion of candidates (assuming the test does a good job of identifying the ones you wouldn't hire) isn't a bad thing. Time is a valuable resource.
- whizzkid 13y ago
  always write tests while programming :) you did not cover the whole task! // Your code if "Time is a valuable resource." Don't waste employers' time end // Refactor // Adds candidates' time to the case // Decreases listOfCandidates() loading time. if "Time is a valuable resource" Publish a well-detailed job position end

liranz 13y ago

This looks interesting, though I don't agree with the "most candidates cannot write code to simple algorithm" thesis. I interview A LOT. Almost 100% of the candidates I receive cover the basic programming abilities. The real problem is that they don't know how to THINK. I talk with them 20 min on the phone when they have to present a problem they had and how they solved it. Then I try to find out what they find interesting. Giving a mini project is a good idea, but it does not scale well, and still requires a lot of resources top candidates will just not be willing to invest.

lrem 13y ago
A simple programming task adds 20 minutes to the burden of the interviewee, costs you next to nothing and weeds out the folk who don't actually know how to program. If someone fails to print prime numbers below 100 in 20 minutes, there is something wrong with his skills.
- penguat 13y ago
  And is this a buyer or a seller's market? If it's a buyer's market then you can give the interviewee as many tests as you like. If it's a seller's market... you'd better have something really good going for you!
  - VBprogrammer 13y ago
    That would seem premised on the idea that it is better to have someone barely capable in the position than to go without. In my own personal experience I'd rather be short handed than work with someone incompetent.
    - VLM 13y ago
      Your outlook is only correct if jerking applicants around with meaningless trivia questions and irrelevant tests actually, somehow, probably accidentally, results in the selection of world class developers. If there were 20 plumbers and only 10 plumber jobs, I could get away with jerking them around forcing them to do crossword puzzles before hiring them to fix my toilet. That doesn't mean the selection pressure would magically result in the guy most likely to fix my leaky toilet; much more likely it would result in the guy best at doing crossword puzzles. Unfortunately I now have a concrete deliverable of a leaky toilet to fix, and the best crossword puzzle solver in the market trying to fix it. That isn't going to end well. Especially when the best leaky toilet fixer in the world knows he can refuse the crossword puzzle test and get a job via his rep or connections so he never even applies. So its not just a random selection of applicants, but a random selection of an inferior population.

013 13y ago

> Error establishing a database connection

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
gregors 13y ago
it must be a bug in the bubblesort!

ebbv 13y ago

The site has been crushed under the HN traffic (and wherever else this link is propagating today.) So I can only state my opinion on the title which is; this is a terrible basis on which to decide who to hire. I would never hire anyone without having an actual conversation with them. Whether I can get along with the person, if they will be a good fit for our team is the most important criteria. Test taking is not an important skill for any job I'd be hiring for.

nandemo 13y ago
Please consider refraining to comment on a story if you haven't read it. It just adds noise. Case in point, the article does not recommend hiring without talking to the candidate.
- ebbv 13y ago
  I usually don't, but in this case the title irked me and sounded like they were advocating just that. Otherwise, what was the point of the blog post (since coding tests are completely standard in the industry)? Now that it's recovered I see that it was just to shill the author's particular coding test. Yawn.

7Figures2Commas 13y ago

I always find it funny that half the people/companies advocating these approaches can't even keep a simple WordPress blog up when faced with a bit of traffic. Surely there must be an algorithm for that?

coldcode 13y ago
I guess they didn't pass that test.
aetimmes 13y ago
There's no equivalent "online coding test" for admins, unfortunately.
- 7Figures2Commas 13y ago
  Do you mean to tell me that the guy who created a bubble sort algorithm on a whiteboard during his interview can't set up and manage a WordPress blog that scales reasonably well, and that I need to hire a dedicated systems administrator?
- twic 13y ago
  Where i work, we give prospective sysadmins the same simple programming problems as programmers. Our infrastructure is run with automation - Puppet, plus lots of juicy devopsy madness written in Ruby - so our sysadmins do need to have at least rudimentary programming ability. If they pass that, we don't give them any more programming tests. We give them a hands-on sysadmin assault course problem, where they have to SSH into an EC2 box that has been carefully broken by our devious chief sysadmin, find out what's wrong, and fix it. They do it in a tmux session, with some kind of audio link (Skype, Hangout, etc), so one of our guys can watch and talk to them as they do it. I've listened to several people running through it, and it sounds terrifying.
arikrak 13y ago
I hosted my WP blog for free on OpenShift and (with free Cloudflare) it was able to handle Reddit/HN traffic spikes without a problem. Not sure why everyone doesn't do something similar.

pramodliv1 13y ago

Obligatory google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://recruiterguide.hackerearth.com/how-to-hire-a-programmer-using-online-coding-test/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

mathattack 13y ago
There's certainly an irony on the link to a programming test not working.

scrabble 13y ago

It's not a candidate's problem that they can't code? I think the candidate has a level of responsibility here. Really they shouldn't be applying for a development position if they can't code.

VLM 13y ago

Two hilarious observations about stereotypical business programming culture: Before hiring, tech fit decisions are made by elaborate pretend tests and painfully detailed technical discussion upon people who supposedly needed to gain years of experience in a specific field. After hiring, tech fit decisions are made by a PHB glancing at the cover of PC magazine and saying "make it so, number one" and the existing staff starts googling furiously and supplies something workable in a week or two even if they never heard of the technology the day before. At 2pm "Work at home, are you crazy? Without my direct supervision hovering over your shoulder I'd appear unnecessary and you can't be trusted to accomplish anything at home and nothing can ever be accomplished individually, things can only be done by a team where a sociopath will take all credit for the teams effort" or, uh, usually a little more carefully phrased but this is what they actually mean. But at 2am the tone changes "well of course you can work at home at 2am to fix any emergency all by yourself in a completely undocumented system you've never heard of before and we trust you'll always be available 24x365 and never out of town or drunk"

clueless123 13y ago

I understand the frustration of sifting through hundreds of "fake" resumes where candidates can't code a fiz-buzz, but from the other end it is a total waste of my time spending 20 minutes of my time solving these coding challenges every time I want to know more about a prospective position. If would be nice if the recruiter agencies (who are actually getting paid to do a job), would hire people qualified to understand if a candiadate is or not up to par for the job from a quick email or phone call.

saching90 13y ago
I believe a well written 'Job Post' also plays a pivotal role in attracting the right kind of talent.

zby 13y ago

There is another copmany that has been doing this for years: http://codility.com/ http://codility.com/ (I am an investor there).

eshvk 13y ago

Excellent. I love when things like this get more visibility. Now, let me go make notes on my book of all the red flags of why I should stop talking to a company. As a candidate, I understand the system is incredibly broken. Maybe one way out is to have recruiters who have a technical background. I have seen that happen with exactly one company where the lead recruiter had a BS from MIT. She was awesome and a genuine pleasure to talk to. Also, she had enough of a understanding of the company stack that the interview acted like a semi-filter.

robalfonso 13y ago

I don't use standard tests when hiring (read: to weed out candidates) I'm in the process of hiring again as the team is growing and this has struck a chord with me. I tend to see a resume, if it looks at all decent I will do a interview. Some would say do a call or give them a test to weed out etc. I've done enough interviewing to know that 1) people almost always are different than what their resume portrays for better or worse. 2) body language is 90% of our communication so why waste time on the phone. 3) If its so important to get someone I deem as a good fit I want to meet them. 4) I "waste" a lot of time interviewing, but I get better at it each time and I've found people who would otherwise never have gotten into see me that were spectacular hires. Also I have lots of friends who hire and sometimes someone is great but not for me, the favor has paid off when its returned. The bottom line is people are unique in many ways. Why try to push them into a standard mold or discard them if they don't fit. P.S With regard to testing I usually tailor a test of 5-6 questions AFTER the interview so I can evaluate anything I am not sure of after speaking to the potential hire. I also let them do it at home with their tools. I don't care to see if someone can work with me hovering over them, because I have not intention of doing so on a day-to-day basis.

dblumenfeld 13y ago

A nice attempt at something that http://codility.com http://codility.com has been doing well for ages (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039140). Nice UI, still I like Codility programming problems much better.