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by steven777400 3145 days ago
I have to encourage you not to give up on all tech interviews. (By that I think you mean "hands-on"/"practical" type tests).

I do hiring for our agency, which consists entirely of non-rock-stars, at non-rock-star pay, solving non-rock-star problems, in non-rock-star time. We still do practical tests for all interviews. Some people, actually, do just get up and walk out. I wish they'd at least look.

We do problems on the level of "fizz-buzz" or similar. Quick 10-20 minute problems. We don't make full completion a binary success/failure metric. We just want to hear you discuss your thought process and see that you're aware of variables, if statements, and for loops. Because, yeah, turns out some candidates who claim years of programming experience ... aren't.

But no tricks. And we also make sure the request is suitable to the resume (think about it as resume validation). So we wouldn't say "Python person, write a method for us in C#" or vice-versa. Smart people can easily cross-train themselves once the job starts. It's more about finding someone who has the fundamentals and can apply them.

In conclusion, I would defend the hands-on "tech" interview as necessary and not even evil.

3 comments

You might not make full completion a binary success/failure metric but so many other companies do, that people assume any random tech interview will be like that. Its anecdotal but both my friends and I all have the same experience of making a single mistake and seeing the interviewer visibly check out of the rest of the interview, and only getting offers from places where you passed every aspect of their interview correctly.
I do very well on technical homework-type tests, but they still want to bullshit in the phone about culture, and be very exclusive (28 year-olds with beards) etc.
we do that aswell, but we are in germany and there an interview is still standard.