4 ms·

Regarding snap judgements, I've had multiple interviewers write me off within the first five minutes. It's just silly and a waste of everyone's time. Example:

Regarding snap judgements, I've had multiple interviewers write me off within the first five minutes. It's just silly and a waste of everyone's time. Example: Interviewer asks me a question. I start brainstorming outloud because they coached me to talk through my ideas. Of course some of my ideas are not going to work. The interviewer will shoot the first wrong idea down immediately and peg me as an idiot for the rest of the interview even if my second idea is the perfect solution.

cozuya 12y ago
I think its the opposite. I would much rather had only my and the candidate's 5 minutes wasted, versus a whole hour, when its very apparent in those first 5 minutes they don't have the technical skills we need for the job.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Presumably you consider how drastically your whole process has failed if you bring someone in for an on-site interview who demonstrates within 5 minutes that they lack all the technical skills required for the job.
  - collyw 12y ago
    I have heard much the same about dating, so I don't think it is necessarily about a process failing, as the way we judge people based on first impressions.
  - cozuya 12y ago
    Well mistakes happen - a phone screen can only get you so far, especially in a seller's market where your talent pool is pretty shallow. Though I think a shared google docs interview is probably the best way to go for the initial screen, I just haven't given or taken one like that yet so it must still be relatively rare.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      We came to the conclusion that phone screens are pretty close to worthless. We'd still have been very upset if we ended up in a face-to-face interview with someone who had no business interviewing for the job. You need to do more than just phone screen (actually: you should eliminate phone screens). (I don't know who's downvoting you but I upvoted.)
      - JohnBooty 12y ago
        I'm really fascinated by your replies on this thread; seems you build a really solid process there. I'm curious about the phone screens - how do you screen out the candidates that are grossly unqualified so that they don't progress to the interview stage? In other words, how do you screen out candidates like those Joel describes here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePhoneScreen.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePhoneScreen.html
        tptacek 12y ago
        By my last year at Matasano we were literally discarding the results of phone screens. We did them largely as a pro-forma exercise, and because they made team members more comfortable with the process as a whole. We virtually never selected out candidates based on phone screens. We had a work sample process that kicked in after phone screens, and that cost us almost nothing to run. So we never had an incentive to prevent a candidate from going through that process. Unlike phone screens, the work sample results were strongly predictive. You could bomb phone screens, ace work samples, and end up coming in for in-person interview. (We did "nudge" candidates we felt wouldn't do well on the work sample tests, solely out of concern for not wasting their time, but anyone who wanted to proceed was able to). Phone screens are a waste of time. Spolsky did a really good job of documented the best practices within the framework of unstructured interviews as they were practiced 10 years ago. The problem isn't Spolsky's tactical suggestions; it's that the strategy they're a part of is being discredited.
        timv 12y ago
- nostrademons 12y ago
  Curious how you could judge that a candidate doesn't have the technical skills you need for the job in 5 minutes? Can all the tasks your employees do on the job be completed in 5 minutes?
  - JohnBooty 12y ago
    Sometimes you get applicants that literally don't know what a compiler is, don't know what a variable is. That sort of thing. That kind of person can probably be ruled out in the first 5 minutes for sure. Of course I think everybody would agree that if such a person progressed to the interview stage, there was a failure somewhere.
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
This is the exact opposite of an interview I used to run in my old biology lab. We used to sit down a new candidate in front of a microscope and ask them to do some cell transfers and counting. They had to finish the task. We right away knew if they were persistent, skilled, problem solvers, and if they were meticulous.
- serve_yay 12y ago
  If they pulled it off maybe you knew that. If they didn't -- is it because they suck? Or because they're incredibly nervous and just got put in an environment which which they were not acclimated, and told to do work? I may not be a scientician, but I'm pretty sure there's something in the Big Book of Science about controlling for variables...
  - IndianAstronaut 12y ago
    They may have been good, but we have no way of knowing that if they are nervous. I doubt too many employers have this figured out either. If the candidate is nervous and doesn't perform, there isn't too much that can be done about it other than maybe looking at past history. We were also rigorously testing to see if they could get acclimated to the environment. They would have to do this routinely since there were so many new lab techniques to be learned.

cozuya 12y ago

I think its the opposite. I would much rather had only my and the candidate's 5 minutes wasted, versus a whole hour, when its very apparent in those first 5 minutes they don't have the technical skills we need for the job.

tptacek 12y ago
Presumably you consider how drastically your whole process has failed if you bring someone in for an on-site interview who demonstrates within 5 minutes that they lack all the technical skills required for the job.
- collyw 12y ago
  I have heard much the same about dating, so I don't think it is necessarily about a process failing, as the way we judge people based on first impressions.
- cozuya 12y ago
  Well mistakes happen - a phone screen can only get you so far, especially in a seller's market where your talent pool is pretty shallow. Though I think a shared google docs interview is probably the best way to go for the initial screen, I just haven't given or taken one like that yet so it must still be relatively rare.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    We came to the conclusion that phone screens are pretty close to worthless. We'd still have been very upset if we ended up in a face-to-face interview with someone who had no business interviewing for the job. You need to do more than just phone screen (actually: you should eliminate phone screens). (I don't know who's downvoting you but I upvoted.)
    - JohnBooty 12y ago
      I'm really fascinated by your replies on this thread; seems you build a really solid process there. I'm curious about the phone screens - how do you screen out the candidates that are grossly unqualified so that they don't progress to the interview stage? In other words, how do you screen out candidates like those Joel describes here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePhoneScreen.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePhoneScreen.html
      - tptacek 12y ago
        By my last year at Matasano we were literally discarding the results of phone screens. We did them largely as a pro-forma exercise, and because they made team members more comfortable with the process as a whole. We virtually never selected out candidates based on phone screens. We had a work sample process that kicked in after phone screens, and that cost us almost nothing to run. So we never had an incentive to prevent a candidate from going through that process. Unlike phone screens, the work sample results were strongly predictive. You could bomb phone screens, ace work samples, and end up coming in for in-person interview. (We did "nudge" candidates we felt wouldn't do well on the work sample tests, solely out of concern for not wasting their time, but anyone who wanted to proceed was able to). Phone screens are a waste of time. Spolsky did a really good job of documented the best practices within the framework of unstructured interviews as they were practiced 10 years ago. The problem isn't Spolsky's tactical suggestions; it's that the strategy they're a part of is being discredited.
        timv 12y ago
nostrademons 12y ago
Curious how you could judge that a candidate doesn't have the technical skills you need for the job in 5 minutes? Can all the tasks your employees do on the job be completed in 5 minutes?
- JohnBooty 12y ago
  Sometimes you get applicants that literally don't know what a compiler is, don't know what a variable is. That sort of thing. That kind of person can probably be ruled out in the first 5 minutes for sure. Of course I think everybody would agree that if such a person progressed to the interview stage, there was a failure somewhere.

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

This is the exact opposite of an interview I used to run in my old biology lab. We used to sit down a new candidate in front of a microscope and ask them to do some cell transfers and counting. They had to finish the task. We right away knew if they were persistent, skilled, problem solvers, and if they were meticulous.

serve_yay 12y ago
If they pulled it off maybe you knew that. If they didn't -- is it because they suck? Or because they're incredibly nervous and just got put in an environment which which they were not acclimated, and told to do work? I may not be a scientician, but I'm pretty sure there's something in the Big Book of Science about controlling for variables...
- IndianAstronaut 12y ago
  They may have been good, but we have no way of knowing that if they are nervous. I doubt too many employers have this figured out either. If the candidate is nervous and doesn't perform, there isn't too much that can be done about it other than maybe looking at past history. We were also rigorously testing to see if they could get acclimated to the environment. They would have to do this routinely since there were so many new lab techniques to be learned.