4 ms·

I've been on both sides of the process and in both cases I prefer the whiteboard. As an interviewer, I simply don't have an hour or two to evaluate someone's p

I've been on both sides of the process and in both cases I prefer the whiteboard. As an interviewer, I simply don't have an hour or two to evaluate someone's project. I want to see a strong resume and ask a few questions to understand whether the resume is real or not. A simple whiteboard question or two is great for that. You can always see whether the person is capable of writing code and it always brings up questions around the choices they made. As an interviewee, I rather not be engaged in a live coding session: the whiteboard is a very efficient tool to get an idea across, without sweating on syntax errors, searching for API documentation and whatnot. Test projects - I have a job, thank you very much.

mikekchar 12y ago
I am going to have to disagree with you. The whiteboard question does not always work. In fact, while I am generally able to do whiteboard questions without a problem, I had an experience 2 years ago where I completely blanked and was absolutely unable to write any code on a whiteboard. If they had handed me a computer (or if I had not been too flabergasted to ask for one), I would have been fine. In the end, the company in question lost out on my skills and I ended up at a different company. Not really so bad for me, as I have never been scarce of job offers, but it made the problem very obvious to me. It is easy to dismiss something that you have never experienced yourself. Some people are good at whiteboard interviews and some are not. In my experience, the ability to be good at whiteboard interviews is mostly independent of how good the person will be at their job. The questions are either too difficult to avoid the stress-blanking issue, or too easy to weed out the barely-capable-but-not-someone-you-would-ideally-like-to-hire candidates. We currently do pair-programming interviews with ping-pong. I write a test, you write the production code, then you write a test and I write the production code. We discuss programming issues as we go. This seems to work well for people who are familiar with TDD and real pair programming (as opposed to: one guy codes and the other guy watches them). It does not work so well for people who have never tried it, though. We actually do most of our work this way, so finding people with this experience is good. Unfortunately, I think we've almost certainly missed good talent just because they don't immediately grasp how this process works. We do some hand-holding at the interview, but then you are always wondering about the person's actual ability. @jimbobimbo, if you don't mind some unsolicited advice, I would recommend that you revisit your stance on maintaining a few non-job projects. A portfolio that shows what you can do on your own is unbelievably valuable (in terms of real dollars) when you are looking for the next job. I have gotten good jobs in the past simply because someone stumbled across my portfolio and decided to hire me. The time required is not all that bad -- say an hour or so 3 times a week for the next year or two would give you a really excellent portfolio. It also allows you to experiment with techniques and tools that would be too risky to introduce into a project without some experience. Building that experience outside of work, also makes you much more valuable even if you don't switch jobs. I think you will find that while it is difficult to find the time, the pay off is excellent. Avoiding doing low priority overtime at work and replacing it by investing in yourself is a good way to start. Having said that, my portfolio is currently a complete mess and I really need to spend some time on it ;-)
- jimbobimbo 12y ago
  Mike, actually I totally empathize with your feeling towards the whiteboard questions. I would probably be flabbergasted myself if offered a live coding session. Whiteboard is much more forgiving in the interview setting, in my opinion. When I'm interviewing, I keep stressing the fact that I don't care about correct syntax, coding style and whatever have you when you are doing whiteboard - only idea counts. I also leave them for about 20 minutes to give them space to think. Not sure if that helps, but I've not seen people having problems after such intro. "Non-job projects" != "test projects". I do have non-job projects and showcase them when interviewing, but I would not take a test project as part of the interview process, unless I have really good reasons to do so.
jqm 12y ago
If you don't have an hour or two as an interviewer, you probably aren't getting very good results. This is a pretty small investment of time considering what is at stake.
- jimbobimbo 12y ago
  I actually hired two best performers at my previous company this way. The amount of people interviewed total is about 30.
jghn 12y ago
"As an interviewer, I simply don't have an hour or two to evaluate someone's project." These are people with whom you'll be working together with for years. If you can't spare a few hours to make sure you are finding the right person, what does that say to a candidate?
- jimbobimbo 12y ago
  The interview is a tool to quickly evaluate the candidate. Not every candidate reaches the point where they could be even considered being a person I'll "be working together with for years". There're more than one candidate at any given time and I still have my day job to do. I don't know what does this say to a candidate, but I surely hope they're mature enough to understand that there's nothing personal about it. They will be treated with dignity and courteously during the whole process, but that's all I can promise.
  - jghn 12y ago
    The thing is that they're also interviewing you. If I expect a candidate to spend time prepping and then taking time off of work to come in and talk to us, the least I can do is take the time to properly prep for them. I know that when I'm on the candidate side of the fence it makes a big difference to me if a company/interviewers seem like they've actually taken the time to get to know who I am instead of just walking in a room and that being the first time they've checked out my resume. I realize it's not personal and I don't expect it but if a company/interviewer puts in the extra effort it's a definite positive.

mikekchar 12y ago

I am going to have to disagree with you. The whiteboard question does not always work. In fact, while I am generally able to do whiteboard questions without a problem, I had an experience 2 years ago where I completely blanked and was absolutely unable to write any code on a whiteboard. If they had handed me a computer (or if I had not been too flabergasted to ask for one), I would have been fine. In the end, the company in question lost out on my skills and I ended up at a different company. Not really so bad for me, as I have never been scarce of job offers, but it made the problem very obvious to me. It is easy to dismiss something that you have never experienced yourself. Some people are good at whiteboard interviews and some are not. In my experience, the ability to be good at whiteboard interviews is mostly independent of how good the person will be at their job. The questions are either too difficult to avoid the stress-blanking issue, or too easy to weed out the barely-capable-but-not-someone-you-would-ideally-like-to-hire candidates. We currently do pair-programming interviews with ping-pong. I write a test, you write the production code, then you write a test and I write the production code. We discuss programming issues as we go. This seems to work well for people who are familiar with TDD and real pair programming (as opposed to: one guy codes and the other guy watches them). It does not work so well for people who have never tried it, though. We actually do most of our work this way, so finding people with this experience is good. Unfortunately, I think we've almost certainly missed good talent just because they don't immediately grasp how this process works. We do some hand-holding at the interview, but then you are always wondering about the person's actual ability. @jimbobimbo, if you don't mind some unsolicited advice, I would recommend that you revisit your stance on maintaining a few non-job projects. A portfolio that shows what you can do on your own is unbelievably valuable (in terms of real dollars) when you are looking for the next job. I have gotten good jobs in the past simply because someone stumbled across my portfolio and decided to hire me. The time required is not all that bad -- say an hour or so 3 times a week for the next year or two would give you a really excellent portfolio. It also allows you to experiment with techniques and tools that would be too risky to introduce into a project without some experience. Building that experience outside of work, also makes you much more valuable even if you don't switch jobs. I think you will find that while it is difficult to find the time, the pay off is excellent. Avoiding doing low priority overtime at work and replacing it by investing in yourself is a good way to start. Having said that, my portfolio is currently a complete mess and I really need to spend some time on it ;-)

jimbobimbo 12y ago
Mike, actually I totally empathize with your feeling towards the whiteboard questions. I would probably be flabbergasted myself if offered a live coding session. Whiteboard is much more forgiving in the interview setting, in my opinion. When I'm interviewing, I keep stressing the fact that I don't care about correct syntax, coding style and whatever have you when you are doing whiteboard - only idea counts. I also leave them for about 20 minutes to give them space to think. Not sure if that helps, but I've not seen people having problems after such intro. "Non-job projects" != "test projects". I do have non-job projects and showcase them when interviewing, but I would not take a test project as part of the interview process, unless I have really good reasons to do so.

jqm 12y ago

If you don't have an hour or two as an interviewer, you probably aren't getting very good results. This is a pretty small investment of time considering what is at stake.

jimbobimbo 12y ago
I actually hired two best performers at my previous company this way. The amount of people interviewed total is about 30.

jghn 12y ago

"As an interviewer, I simply don't have an hour or two to evaluate someone's project." These are people with whom you'll be working together with for years. If you can't spare a few hours to make sure you are finding the right person, what does that say to a candidate?

jimbobimbo 12y ago
The interview is a tool to quickly evaluate the candidate. Not every candidate reaches the point where they could be even considered being a person I'll "be working together with for years". There're more than one candidate at any given time and I still have my day job to do. I don't know what does this say to a candidate, but I surely hope they're mature enough to understand that there's nothing personal about it. They will be treated with dignity and courteously during the whole process, but that's all I can promise.
- jghn 12y ago
  The thing is that they're also interviewing you. If I expect a candidate to spend time prepping and then taking time off of work to come in and talk to us, the least I can do is take the time to properly prep for them. I know that when I'm on the candidate side of the fence it makes a big difference to me if a company/interviewers seem like they've actually taken the time to get to know who I am instead of just walking in a room and that being the first time they've checked out my resume. I realize it's not personal and I don't expect it but if a company/interviewer puts in the extra effort it's a definite positive.