5 ms·

If you "interview" people that are blatantly incompetent, that's on you not on them. Just sayin.

by 001sky 12y ago

kazinator 12y ago
That is hard to avoid, because people are called in to interviews based on how they look on paper. Some blatantly incompetent people write themselves up to look good on paper. They have relevant education, skills, plausible-looking experience and so on. Following up on some references before calling people in for an interview isn't a bad idea. Man, I have seen some blatantly incompetent ones. You'd give them a white board and ask them to show a linked list with boxes and arrows. They just couldn't do it. One case I remember couldn't demonstrate pseudo code for a circular buffer operation based on an array with a head and tail index.
- kyllo 12y ago
  That is hard to avoid, because people are called in to interviews based on how they look on paper. And (hopefully) how well they did in the phone screen...?
  - UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
    If you phone screen people and don't call them in for an interview, you are still rejecting them.
    - kyllo 12y ago
      But not solely based on how they look on paper.
- fencepost 12y ago
  While linked lists are fundamental, depending on the language(s) people have used and how people were taught they may actually not be something people have used. Anyone using mostly high-level interpreted languages (e.g. Python) or something like PHP may not have ever used them, and if they're somewhat self-taught then they may not have encountered them in their reading. Hash tables might be a better filter, because IMHO you're a lot more likely to find those in real use these days than linked lists.
  - kazinator 12y ago
    Your comment is on the mark. But in that particular question they were asked something like, show a singly linked insertion on a white board using some box-and-arrow notation. They were not asked to write it in C or whatever. They couldn't visually whiteboard the concept at all. (The job area was embedded development, involving C and C++, so asking for C code related to linked lists would have been fair game!)
UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
Our HR tells us who to interview. We'd like that to change, and asked for change, begged even, but thats the way it is. Not everyone works in startups. (These werr people who couldn't program FizzBuzz) Plus anyone can just make shit up on their resume.

If you "interview" people that are blatantly incompetent, that's on you not on them. Just sayin.

by 001sky 12y ago

If you "interview" people that are blatantly incompetent, that's on you not on them. Just sayin.

That is hard to avoid, because people are called in to interviews based on how they look on paper. Some blatantly incompetent people write themselves up to look good on paper. They have relevant education, skills, plausible-looking experience and so on. Following up on some references before calling people in for an interview isn't a bad idea. Man, I have seen some blatantly incompetent ones. You'd give them a white board and ask them to show a linked list with boxes and arrows. They just couldn't do it. One case I remember couldn't demonstrate pseudo code for a circular buffer operation based on an array with a head and tail index.

kyllo 12y ago
That is hard to avoid, because people are called in to interviews based on how they look on paper. And (hopefully) how well they did in the phone screen...?
- UrMomReadsHN 12y ago
  If you phone screen people and don't call them in for an interview, you are still rejecting them.
  - kyllo 12y ago
    But not solely based on how they look on paper.
fencepost 12y ago
While linked lists are fundamental, depending on the language(s) people have used and how people were taught they may actually not be something people have used. Anyone using mostly high-level interpreted languages (e.g. Python) or something like PHP may not have ever used them, and if they're somewhat self-taught then they may not have encountered them in their reading. Hash tables might be a better filter, because IMHO you're a lot more likely to find those in real use these days than linked lists.
- kazinator 12y ago
  Your comment is on the mark. But in that particular question they were asked something like, show a singly linked insertion on a white board using some box-and-arrow notation. They were not asked to write it in C or whatever. They couldn't visually whiteboard the concept at all. (The job area was embedded development, involving C and C++, so asking for C code related to linked lists would have been fair game!)

UrMomReadsHN 12y ago

Our HR tells us who to interview. We'd like that to change, and asked for change, begged even, but thats the way it is. Not everyone works in startups. (These werr people who couldn't program FizzBuzz) Plus anyone can just make shit up on their resume.