6 ms·

My primary criteria when interviewing junior candidates are: 1) Do you have basic problem solving skills? 2) Can you communicate clearly? 3) Do I want to sit

My primary criteria when interviewing junior candidates are: 1) Do you have basic problem solving skills? 2) Can you communicate clearly? 3) Do I want to sit next to you for the next 6 months or longer? If you don't know Ruby, I can teach you. If you don't know Elasticsearch, I can teach you. What I can't and don't have time to teach you is how to solve a problem on your own without me holding your hand, and I especially don't have time to waste trying to communicate poorly with you. And obviously, I want to work with someone who is pleasant and interesting. I don't wanna sit next to someone for 40 hours a week who stinks or is rude or can't carry a conversation. If you meet those three criteria, you've beaten 90% of candidates that walk through the door. The last 10% is what gets you the job. (Obviously, if you DO know Ruby or Elasticsearch, that's a huge plus... but it's not one of the bare minimum requirements.)

tptacek 12y ago
Criteria #3 is toxic. It's one of those things people adopt with the best intentions, but (a) is often at odds with the best interests of the firm and (b) provides an enormous amount of cover for prejudices and, more perniciously, cognitive biases. When you're interviewing a candidate, assume your brain is trying to trip you up (it is!). Build a hiring process that treats your intuition as an adversary and eliminates cover for biases.
- jawns 12y ago
  I largely agree with B but I'm not so sure about A -- particularly since hiring someone whom you don't want to be around is likely to affect your performance, which is likely also at odds with the best interests of the firm.
  - jebblue 12y ago
    Unless that person does a better job at helping the firm make money in which case you might be the one "at odds with the best interests of the firm".
- Peroni 12y ago
  Criteria #3 is toxic. Nonsense. It's as toxic as screening a resume. On one hand you have people with immense industry experience (such as yourself) advocating to drop the "do I actually like this person" approach and on the other hand you have people who also have immense industry experience advocating that culture fit should be one of the most important criteria. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on eliminating prejudice (both intentional and unintentional) and cognitive biases whilst at the same time, ascertaining whether or not someone would be comfortable within your companies established culture and also contribute positively to said culture.
  - VLM 12y ago
    To clarify, the difference you aren't seeing between the groups is the incompetent managers define "sit next to" as "sit next to at the nudie bar" or gaming table or harry potter movie premier or frat house or pretty much any place other than work. AKA young inexperienced white frat boys only need apply. In comparison, competent managers define the same "sit next to" as "sit next to during an emergency bug fix" or while hashing out a new feature idea or optimizing a slow task or automating a process or just gossiping about a new technology. These are the kind of managers who "dare" to hire non-white people or women or older than 25 yrs old etc. Usually their company is much more successful for obvious reasons.
    - Peroni 12y ago
      I fail to see how criteria #3 in the parent comment: Do I want to sit next to you for the next 6 months or longer? is assumed to be toxic when it can be as easily assumed the intention is the latter half of your example.
- smm2000 12y ago
  When you hire somebody for your your team, company is not the only one stakeholder. The CEO won't spend 40 hours/week with new hire. Your personal productivity and happiness depends on new hire and if he has (1) bad communication skills (2) unpleasant to be around, it's no hire no matter his technical skills. There are exceptions to this rule of course - like when you won't personally work with the person or he is genius.
fnbr 12y ago
As a junior developer, I find myself confused by your comment. It seems as if a large proportion of the posts on HN claim that, when looking to hire someone, they focus on problem solving abilities and and culture fit. However, in May when I was interviewing with companies (including YC backed startups), almost every company focused on quizzing me about trivia [1]. I was actually given a paper quiz by one of the companies on equality comparisons in Javascript (e.g. "Does 4 == '4'?"), which I found pointless, as I can test that within seconds at a computer. [1] The major exception was 42Debut. Even though they didn't give me an offer (just stopped replying to my emails, but c'est la vie), I was treated with respect throughout the whole process, and the interview was very well done, with challenging questions that forced me to think, and didn't rely on language trivia. I would recommend the company to any of my friends, whereas I can't say that about almost any other company I interviewed with.
- lostcolony 12y ago
  That kind of question can actually be useful as a proxy for experience with the language, and whether you're the type of person who digs into understanding your tools. If you say "I'm a rockstar Javascript dev", it's very hard to prove it; but if you've never been bitten by some of Javascript's type conversions, and/or have never really looked into some of its intricacies on your own, you probably aren't. It's just one data point, it won't be enough on its own to sway the interview either way, but it's interesting. To give you an idea, I once interviewed a Javascript dev who said you should null out your variables with 'undefined' when you were finished with them. Oh, why is that? 'Because sometimes they leak out into the global scope and that can cause problems elsewhere in the code.' This person had noted that you could declare a global anywhere in Javascript, but had not noticed, nor asked anyone, nor looked up, nor anything, to find out that there's a difference between "x = 5" and "var x = 5". We didn't hire him. Had he simply been unaware you -could- declare globals (and had instead said that "x = 5" won't work, you have to use the 'var' key word, or something), we wouldn't have counted it against him; he's following a best practice and never encountered it, fair enough. If he had never been bitten by the scoping rules, fair enough, a minor ding but we'd continue the interview. But the fact he had seen it, possibly been bitten by it, and just handwaved it away as non-deterministic weirdness that required a mystical incantation to avoid? No.
pmiller2 12y ago
I'd like to know what company you work for so I can apply there. My email is in my profile.
- jghn 12y ago
  It says in his profile ...

tptacek 12y ago

Criteria #3 is toxic. It's one of those things people adopt with the best intentions, but (a) is often at odds with the best interests of the firm and (b) provides an enormous amount of cover for prejudices and, more perniciously, cognitive biases. When you're interviewing a candidate, assume your brain is trying to trip you up (it is!). Build a hiring process that treats your intuition as an adversary and eliminates cover for biases.

jawns 12y ago
I largely agree with B but I'm not so sure about A -- particularly since hiring someone whom you don't want to be around is likely to affect your performance, which is likely also at odds with the best interests of the firm.
- jebblue 12y ago
  Unless that person does a better job at helping the firm make money in which case you might be the one "at odds with the best interests of the firm".
Peroni 12y ago
Criteria #3 is toxic. Nonsense. It's as toxic as screening a resume. On one hand you have people with immense industry experience (such as yourself) advocating to drop the "do I actually like this person" approach and on the other hand you have people who also have immense industry experience advocating that culture fit should be one of the most important criteria. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on eliminating prejudice (both intentional and unintentional) and cognitive biases whilst at the same time, ascertaining whether or not someone would be comfortable within your companies established culture and also contribute positively to said culture.
- VLM 12y ago
  To clarify, the difference you aren't seeing between the groups is the incompetent managers define "sit next to" as "sit next to at the nudie bar" or gaming table or harry potter movie premier or frat house or pretty much any place other than work. AKA young inexperienced white frat boys only need apply. In comparison, competent managers define the same "sit next to" as "sit next to during an emergency bug fix" or while hashing out a new feature idea or optimizing a slow task or automating a process or just gossiping about a new technology. These are the kind of managers who "dare" to hire non-white people or women or older than 25 yrs old etc. Usually their company is much more successful for obvious reasons.
  - Peroni 12y ago
    I fail to see how criteria #3 in the parent comment: Do I want to sit next to you for the next 6 months or longer? is assumed to be toxic when it can be as easily assumed the intention is the latter half of your example.
smm2000 12y ago
When you hire somebody for your your team, company is not the only one stakeholder. The CEO won't spend 40 hours/week with new hire. Your personal productivity and happiness depends on new hire and if he has (1) bad communication skills (2) unpleasant to be around, it's no hire no matter his technical skills. There are exceptions to this rule of course - like when you won't personally work with the person or he is genius.

fnbr 12y ago

As a junior developer, I find myself confused by your comment. It seems as if a large proportion of the posts on HN claim that, when looking to hire someone, they focus on problem solving abilities and and culture fit. However, in May when I was interviewing with companies (including YC backed startups), almost every company focused on quizzing me about trivia [1]. I was actually given a paper quiz by one of the companies on equality comparisons in Javascript (e.g. "Does 4 == '4'?"), which I found pointless, as I can test that within seconds at a computer. [1] The major exception was 42Debut. Even though they didn't give me an offer (just stopped replying to my emails, but c'est la vie), I was treated with respect throughout the whole process, and the interview was very well done, with challenging questions that forced me to think, and didn't rely on language trivia. I would recommend the company to any of my friends, whereas I can't say that about almost any other company I interviewed with.

lostcolony 12y ago
That kind of question can actually be useful as a proxy for experience with the language, and whether you're the type of person who digs into understanding your tools. If you say "I'm a rockstar Javascript dev", it's very hard to prove it; but if you've never been bitten by some of Javascript's type conversions, and/or have never really looked into some of its intricacies on your own, you probably aren't. It's just one data point, it won't be enough on its own to sway the interview either way, but it's interesting. To give you an idea, I once interviewed a Javascript dev who said you should null out your variables with 'undefined' when you were finished with them. Oh, why is that? 'Because sometimes they leak out into the global scope and that can cause problems elsewhere in the code.' This person had noted that you could declare a global anywhere in Javascript, but had not noticed, nor asked anyone, nor looked up, nor anything, to find out that there's a difference between "x = 5" and "var x = 5". We didn't hire him. Had he simply been unaware you -could- declare globals (and had instead said that "x = 5" won't work, you have to use the 'var' key word, or something), we wouldn't have counted it against him; he's following a best practice and never encountered it, fair enough. If he had never been bitten by the scoping rules, fair enough, a minor ding but we'd continue the interview. But the fact he had seen it, possibly been bitten by it, and just handwaved it away as non-deterministic weirdness that required a mystical incantation to avoid? No.

pmiller2 12y ago

I'd like to know what company you work for so I can apply there. My email is in my profile.

jghn 12y ago
It says in his profile ...