Anders BorchDec 23, 2023

I have interviewed 100s of candidates for software engineering positions.

I’ve done take-home tests, in person challenges, pair programming with the candidates.

All of them were awful experiences for me and especially for the candidate.

I can only think of a single instance where a code challenge exposed a poor software engineer and I could definitely have made the same assessment just by talking to them.

Lately I’ve stopped doing any software or mental puzzles.

I don’t do any of that when I interview designers or QA people or HR people, so why would I be particularly toxic towards software engineers during the hiring process?

Instead, I actually read their resumes (which is significantly quicker than doing interviews, asking them to repeat the same information), and then I ask them questions like:

- Where do you get your tech news?
- How do you learn about new technologies?
- What do you most appreciate in your coworkers today?
- What is a perfect workday like for you?

I specifically avoid trap-style questions like “what is your greatest weakness?” or “why are you leaving your current job?”

I recommend that you make a plan for what you want to learn about the candidate, e.g. “are they good at acquiring new skills?” or “do they share the same values as the team?” and then structure the interview around that.

Be a non-toxic manager. Make your company look good during the interview process. Get better candidates.

#jobs

Show threadChip Unicorn

@anders

@OctaviaConAmore

Interesting.

I don't like software traps for interviewing, either, but I need to know how good or bad of a programmer someone is.

I give them a straightforward problem with three steps in order, plenty of time to do it in, and I'm there for the whole time to answer questions. I emphasize that they should be writing code as if it's going to be code reviewed. Yes, there is a tricky part of the question, but there's an obvious O(n3) solution, and no one gets points taken off if they do the O(n3) solution.

And this technique has done well for me. And I've gotten praise for this way to handle coding.

Dec 23, 2023 at 10:17pmWeb
Show threadAnders BorchDec 23, 2023

@Chip_Unicorn @OctaviaConAmore

Interesting. Are you generally hiring people straight out of school?

A while back (2017ish) I was working for a company that took in people from a local university - but that was mostly on an intern basis - so we just took them under our wings and extended offers to the ones that had grown the most during their stay with us.

We never did code challenges with the interns, instead we pair programmed with them in the beginning to assess their level and which kinds of tasks we could give them.

Show threadChip UnicornDec 24, 2023

@anders

@OctaviaConAmore

No, but I found a wide variance between what people wrote on their resumes and their actual abilities.

Show threadNetuxDec 24, 2023
@Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore there is another thing you don't see. Folks like me that have been at the same company for a decade moving rules internally that just blank during interview code stuff. I have no idea what happened, I used to be able to interview without any prep and be good. Now, even with prep I just freeze catastrophically. Like a waste of everyone's time freeze, basic syntax, gone, keywords, never heard of them.
Show threadNetuxDec 24, 2023
@Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore Frankly embarrassing and I'm terrified of when I need to find a new job instead of just looking for fun.
Show threadBenjamin ReedDec 24, 2023

@Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore I suspect whether or not this works depends very much on the type of person you’re interviewing, and you’ve been lucky so far.

My particular neurodivergence means I’m terrible at that style of coding test. Not having my normal work environment, coupled with anxiety at being watched while I work, means I do not in any way end up working like I do in the real world.

You never get to “see how I think” you just get to watch my brain chemistry be a jerk to me.

Show threadAnders BorchDec 24, 2023
@RangerRick @Chip_Unicorn @OctaviaConAmore the secret agenda of making people feel comfortable instead of subjecting them to testing is to get a chance to actually hire neurodivergent people who might otherwise have a terrible experience during an interview 🤫
Show threadBenjamin ReedDec 24, 2023
@anders Yeah your style of hiring is exactly what I did when I was on the interviewer side of things and we ended up with some really great people. I don’t know that a tech test would have told me anything more.
Show threadRaven667Dec 24, 2023
@RangerRick @Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore I have found some value in having a _very_ simple practical test as part of the interview process, not some sort of gotcha but just to see if they are *grossly* overestimating themselves and how they work under pressure, as we do operations. I understand how nervous this can make some people, as I myself have totally screwed up an interview when my mind went blank, but you can see the difference between stress and lack of fundamental knowledge.
Show threadRaven667Dec 24, 2023
@RangerRick @Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore That's why any exercise should be _exceedingly_ simple, for example I recently hired a dev/ops person, emphasis on the ops, and the question was to make a script that renamed some files but not others programmatically, using whatever language and editor you wanted, another was to programmatically edit an ini file to change one line but not another similar line. This wasn't pass/fail (usually) but helped us rank our choices
Show threadThe UberduckDec 24, 2023

@raven667 @RangerRick @Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore not a hiring manger but occasionally did interviews where coding was a required part (not my choice). After a while, I started doing just plain fizzbuzz. No tricks, no twists, and the candidate's choice of language. I would also explain the modulus operator if they got stuck there.

Our candidate pool would usually include fresh graduates, so a resume had fewer signals for coding ability as I would have liked.

Half passed.

Show threadBenjamin ReedDec 24, 2023
@raven667 @Chip_Unicorn @anders @OctaviaConAmore when I have my own tools I work quite well under pressure, but “interview test” is an entirely different artificial kind of pressure.