[dahart]

> I think your approach would work if there was a shortage of jobs

There is always a shortage of good jobs. You can fight the process all you want, if any job at all will do, and you don't care how long it takes to get it.

> You are often asking accomplished individuals to waste their time on badly compensated job proposals

What do you mean by badly compensated?

Why would you assume someone else knows anything about your accomplishment and credentials and trusts the skills you list on your resume before you've demonstrated anything?

Also, if you're good, then why does a low bar for entry scare or offend you? A screen for basic aptitude is narrowing the field and removing people from competition who can talk well but don't have programming experience. That seems like an advantage for anyone who can pass the easy tests.

[bitL]

Alright, imagine you worked for top engineering company, have github full of bleeding edge stuff anyone can observe, wrote books, have patents under your belt, do public speaking, teaching at universities etc. and some HR person comes in and wants you to do trivial HackerRank stuff. She basically interrupted you from working on something benefiting humanity just because she was lazy to check your CV and ignorant of the industry. Then you see the same company awarding their good jobs to friends of higher ups and all they have left are generic jobs they need to fill that would end up with all the work, complaining "where have all the good programmers gone?". And then you read on HN post like this and wonder why there is so much resistance to acknowledge one's qualification from what they provided in their CV. Imagine the same doing in other areas of industry - we don't care you won these multi-million law cases in the past, all we care is how the history of US North-East affected common law between years 1870-1893.

[dahart]

FWIW, I have a patent and do public speaking, recently sold a startup, and I gladly take the coding quizzes for all my interviews.

They are fun, and they give me a chance to shine. The coding quizzes actually saved me once when I did really badly in another part of the interview. That company hired me, and gave me what others there thought was the good job.

I also administer coding quizzes to people I hire, and I find them a small but useful part of the larger interview process. I'm giving an assembly language coding quiz to someone later today.

> She basically interrupted you from working on something benefiting humanity

That seems a little hyperbolic. Do you want the job? You have to spend time interviewing. Simple as that. Don't do the quizzes if you don't want the job.

> Then you see the same company awarding their good jobs to friends of higher ups

Most companies try to promote from within, and many people think that's a good thing. The alternative is you hire unknowns from outside the company over people who've been there putting in the time and know the system.

> just because she was lazy to check your CV and ignorant of the industry

It's both presumptuous and pessimistic, and also likely wrong, to assume that a coding quiz implies any laziness on anyone's part.

> Imagine the same doing in other areas of industry

Other jobs have it much worse, you have to get bureaucratic certifications for a lot of jobs that are a lot less fun than Hackerrank, and take months and months. Or you could be a lawyer or doctor, and you have to raise money and bring in clients in order to get the good jobs.

What jobs are you thinking of that have it so much better than programmers?

[bitL]

It was about accomplished people getting the same treatment as newbies or wannabes that have no clue what they are doing. You don't see it in other industries. E.g. I wrote this new language/library everybody uses, but I am forced to solve some crappy puzzles I probably was solving when I was 14 and match the current mood/skills/tunnel vision of the interviewer. As a consequence, I rather start my own company and charge you much more for the same service you'd get if you employed me with a bit of a good will on your part, or by simply reading my CV and clicking on the links there.

[dahart]

You do know there are a lot of "accomplished" people according to their own CV who can't actually code their way out of a paper bag, right?

The more senior someone gets, the more expensive. It's worth the company's time to screen for basic aptitude, especially when someone claims greater expertise.

> As a consequence, I rather start my own company

By all means, you should definitely do that and stop worrying about job interviews!

> if you employed me with a bit of a good will on your part

Good will is something you earn. And you earn it by doing things the company needs without complaining. For starters, they need to be able to compare candidates against each other when hiring. Fighting that, and asking the company to evaluate something you've done that doesn't allow comparing you against other people, isn't something that will benefit the company.

> or by simply reading my CV and clicking on the links there.

You're expecting people to spend time reading your projects before they screen you? If you got the call, it's probably because someone read your CV. That's all you can expect at this stage. If you want them to click the links and read the rest, then you take 30 minutes to do the phone screen, and another 30 to do the coding quiz. Then you get to have a conversation about your projects.

If they never ask you about your projects, then yeah, maybe you shouldn't work there. The coding quiz is only one small part of a many-part process.

[palerdot]

> You do know there are a lot of "accomplished" people according to their own CV who can't actually code their way out of a paper bag, right?

Are you saying, the recruiters are just treating everyone (accomplished/non-accomplished who happened to have a great CV) the same? I think your point just supports the view instead of refuting it.

[Caveman_Coder]

> "...working on something benefiting humanity..."

I think you forgot to add the "/s" to this statement.

[bitL]

Maybe you are idealistic and work for non-profit dealing with human trafficking in your spare time and have to cut it to take a silly HackerRank test?

[mywittyname]

Why are you interviewing if you're working your dream non-profit job?

[bitL]

You mean you do service to other people for no salary in your spare time and you are asking why do you need a job to pay bills? Seriously?

[mywittyname]

The phrase, "work for a non-profit" implies some level of compensation. Had you instead said, "volunteer for a non-profit," then I would have understood that you were working in your spare time and for no pay.

[Caveman_Coder]

More likely it is watching Netflix and reading HN...let's not pretend we're all out there saving the world and volunteering our free time for selfless causes...

[bitL]

It's just an example of course. But even downtime from work is massively important for your mental health, why it should be interrupted by a constant treadmill on recruiter's rat race?

[Caveman_Coder]

> "why it should be interrupted by a constant treadmill on recruiter's rat race?"

Isn't this self imposed if you are the one applying for the job??? I don't get it, if some rando recruiter emails me a Hacker Rank test, I delete the email if I'm not interested...pretty simple. If I am interested, then I apply and that is no longer an "interruption"...or at least it is self imposed so there is no real reason to complain.

[crdoconnor]

>There is always a shortage of good jobs.

If their hiring process involves jumping through hoops before being granted permission to interview and if the tasks assigned to you bear almost no relationship to the job at hand, the chances of the job actually being good are low.

Employers that do this kind of thing typically have an entitlement complex and not the smartest. People with an entitlement complex who are not very clever are bad to work for.

>Why would you assume someone else knows anything about your accomplishment and credentials and trusts the skills you list on your resume before you've demonstrated anything?

In my case because I have a bunch of open source available that they can just read.

If a company expects me to complete a 1 hour badly thought through exercise that is at best barely related to the job before they grant me permission to talk to them, just exactly how well do you think they'll treat me once I'm actually hired?

[dahart]

I'd love to hear examples of how to do it right, without taking all my time. I'm genuinely interested in how to hire people without wasting their time or mine. I'd love to screen people with a day of pair programming or a 2 week paid internship, or whatever other good ideas are floating around. I can't.

You have just dismissed most tech companies. All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

If you don't want to work for one of those companies, that's absolutely your choice, but you'd be wrong to say they have an entitlement complex or aren't the smartest.

> In my case because I have a bunch of open source available that they can just read.

I do read people's OS projects, but I simply can't do that for every candidate before I screen them, I don't have enough time. If the coding tests are easy, and you want me to see your open source project, then just ace the coding test and move on.

If you don't want the job, then don't do the coding test. It is your choice.

[crdoconnor]

In the past I've given programming tasks that mimic real life work as closely as possible and fit them into a reasonable time frame - for example, 1 hour of pairing/programming during an arranged face to face interview. If the test is well designed, touches on a number of areas and self contained, I think this was sufficient for me to assess their skills.

"Mimic real life" means no puzzles (unless I've literally experienced them in real life), no binary tree reversals and no big O notation questions.

>You have just dismissed most tech companies. All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

I think that type of thinking leads to embarrassments like this:

https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

I think he experienced exactly the same problem the OP is talking about and in this case it's not him who was dumb, it was Google.

I wouldn't rule out any of those companies but I think I'd rule out joining through the standard interview process - I'd look for specific people who looked to be doing exciting work on specific teams and try to befriend them.

>you'd be wrong to say they have an entitlement complex or aren't the smartest.

I think it would depend upon the team. I think they're not all geniuses, and they do have a tendency to drink their own kool aid. For sure some teams are great though.

[dahart]

> 1 hour of pairing/programming during an arranged face to face interview. If the test is well designed, touches on a number of areas and self contained, I think this was sufficient for me to assess their skills.

Sounds great. I've done this too, but I've never done it before screening candidates. I don't have enough time to screen candidates by programming with them.

> "Mimic real life" means no puzzles (unless I've literally experienced them in real life), no binary tree reversals and no big O notation questions.

Understood. My goal with my coding quizzes and knowledge questions is not to mimic real life. It's to asses the boundaries of the candidate's education and experience, without regard to skill.

> I think that type of thinking leads to embarrassments like this

There always have been and always will be false negatives, even with lengthy face-to-face interviews, even with pair programming, and even with paid internships.

One high profile false negative anecdote, while unfortunate, doesn't imply there's a widespread or unexpected problem. Applying for jobs always comes with a risk of not getting the job for a wide variety of factors that are outside the candidate's control. If it's a job you really want, all you can do is try hard.

I love homebrew, and I'm sure @mxcl is a fabulous coder, but the tweet you shared does make it sound like he expected to get the job without an interview, and might have come across that way, or might have not prepared at all.

[crdoconnor]

>I've never done it before screening candidates

No me neither. I screened with a 5 minute fizz buzz like task and CV fits. Bad programmers slipped through the net (and were caught by the test) but I never got anybody who literally couldnt code. I was happy with that balance.

I was afraid if I made it longer than 5 mins we'd filter out good candidates who couldn't be bothered with our bullshit.

>One high profile false negative anecdote, while unfortunate, doesn't imply there's a widespread or unexpected problem.

It does imply that it just doesn't prove it.

A wanton disregard for realism in interviewing is, in my experience, very clearly systemic and industry-wide.

>tweet you shared does make it sound like he expected to get the job without an interview

Seriously wtf? I think you're starstruck by Google and that is affecting your judgement.

Asking him about binary trees was dumb. Unless Google place him somewhere patently unsuitable for his skill set (kernel hacking/low level database code), he won't be using binary trees.

[dahart]

> It does imply that it just doesn't prove it.

@mxcl's experience doesn't imply it either. The only evidence for a widespread problem is the number of people who have that problem. I have never had an interview where I felt rejected for what I thought was a single dumb question, ever. And I've never seen it happen to someone I know personally, or at a company I've worked for.

> A wanton disregard for realism in interviewing is, in my experience, very clearly systemic and industry-wide.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but could you elaborate more on what bad things are actually happening that affect people? Are good coders, by and large, not able to get jobs? Are good coders having statistically significant problems getting paid or finding enjoyable work? I don't think so. Please elaborate on what actual damage is being done, I'm not seeing any.

> Seriously wtf?

Seriously. I don't know what happened, but I'm not automatically on the side of @mxcl because he was turned down or because I'm a fan of Homebrew. He might be exaggerating what happened. Do you know for a fact that it was specifically the binary tree question and nothing else in his interview that lost his chances there?

For all I know, the binary tree question was put there just to see if he would scoff at actual programming questions given his high profile status, and he failed because he scoffed and not because he got it wrong.

> I think you're starstruck by Google and that is affecting your judgement.

Why? What have I said that suggests I'm a fan of Google at all? It seems to me like you're making wild assumptions here.

> Asking him about binary trees was dumb.

That's an opinion. One that is based on not knowing why the question was there, or what the other questions were. I do ask questions on topics that I don't expect the candidate to use in their job. I'm interested in whether they paid attention in school. I'm interested in what they know, regardless of their skill. I'm interested in what they don't know, and where their limits are. I'm interested to know if people are curious about software. I'm interested to know how people react to questions they don't know the answer to. And I have a rule to specifically reject candidates that get upset about being asked technical questions. Those are people I don't want to work with.

None of that precludes asking some realistic questions about things people will use on the job, in addition to any unrealistic ones.

[bitL]

Getting to Google is more difficult than getting to Harvard. They built their process that way risking rejecting great candidates in order to minimize false positives, bad hires, according to their definition of bad hire. So the Homebrew author could have expected it, it happens all the time. I object to using the same criteria throughout the industry on most jobs these days though, instead of only on top-end ones. I have nothing against top companies having top interviews, they are usually fun if you are good.

[crdoconnor]

Explain to me the justification behind using an interview process that deliberately placed no emphasis on realism.

This guy wouldn't be using binary trees at Google. He hasn't used them before. They are of minimal relevance in his area of expertise.

[bitL]

I guess you need to talk to Norvig or whoever designed their data-driven process and the definition of good hire they wanted to achieve. It used to be that when you joined Google you had no clue what your project will be before your first day, so I guess they wanted to maximize success rate on blind assignments to teams/ideas. For that certain abstract skills are more important than your past accomplishments you might not be able to reproduce in different environment with different rules. It's their money after all, they are desirable, they can select for whatever they wish.

[bitL]

> All the large ones (Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.) give coding puzzles as part of their interview process.

They are considered the best and give above average compensation. Is your company considered the best, properly paying top talent, to employ the same schema? Those tests were done to distill the top end performers with the accepted risk of huge number of false negatives. Now every mom-and-dad shop is trying to use it. That's why I call it insanity, getting extreme practices into mainstream in our industry.

[dahart]

> Is your company considered the best, properly paying top talent, to employ the same schema?

Yes, this was true of every job I've ever had. Maybe I've been lucky.

I don't really understand why asking someone to do a small amount of programming for a programming job interview, when they claim to be an experienced programmer, is any sort of "extreme" practice.

You've expressed a lot of complaints about coding quizzes, some that many people here share, and some that I agree with.

I would urge you to spend your energy making a specific alternative proposal that companies can actually use. The OP's proposal isn't something companies can actually use for all candidates, even if they could use it for him.

I'm very interested in how to better screen and interview devs. I want to improve my process. But no process I've ever been exposed to is even close to perfect.

Make sure your proposal considers the company's perspective. The ideal process will benefit both the candidate and the company, but something that's pleasant for the candidate and unpleasant for the company will never get adopted no matter how good it sounds.

[bitL]

Because if you have in your CV verifiable statements that you worked on some super tough engineering challenges, including advanced snippets of code/projects on GitHub demonstrating your dominance in that area, doing silly low-end coding quizzes seems like a total waste of time. Can't you really see that? It's literally like if I asked you if you ever ran a company and if you could handle preparing a budget, despite knowing you are a serial entrepreneur that sold multiple companies already. It's just super arrogant.

[dahart]

> Because if you have in your CV verifiable statements that you worked on some super tough engineering challenges

If it takes longer to verify than it does to test your coding ability directly, why shouldn't I just ask you to do some coding? The challenges you took might be less impressive or well known than you think. The challenges you took might not say much about you if they were team challenges.

> including advanced snippets of code/projects on GitHub demonstrating your dominance in that area

That doesn't help me compare one candidate to another at all. Nor does your github demonstrate dominance in anything, unless your project is React or something like that. Github is a vast wasteland of barely used code.

> doing silly low-end coding quizzes seems like a total waste of time

It's going to take about as long to get through job interviews no matter how the interview is conducted. You can spend it programming, or you can spend it talking. The time spent is an investment in getting the job. If you don't actually want the job, then you're right, it's a waste of your time.

What's not going to happen, ever, is someone will take the initiative to read through all your work, verify the things on your CV, and offer you a great high paying job without going through the interview process.

> Can't you really see that?

To be very frank and honest, given all the reasoning and experience I've shared with you, this question gives me the impression that you might be very inexperienced.

> It's just super arrogant.

What, precisely, is arrogant? What are you talking about specifically? Using Hackerrank in an interview? Having an interview at all? Not noticing that you're a rockstar before talking to you?

Please take some time to articulate what the right interview process is, rather than spend any more time passing blanket judgements.

[crdoconnor]

>I don't really understand why asking someone to do a small amount of programming for a programming job interview, when they claim to be an experienced programmer, is any sort of "extreme" practice.

It isn't and that's exactly what you should expect.

Nonetheless it shouldn't be too much to ask that the test and interview ask relevant questions and that the company puts skin in the game that is commensurate with the sacrifice being asked of the candidate.

In other words, 5 minute screener tests are cool but if you make me do a weekend project you put me up in a 5 star hotel.

[mywittyname]

Those "mom-and-dad shops" are the ones who have the most to lose by hiring the wrong person. A sufficiently poor performing person could cripple them.

[WDCDev]

They also have a lot to lose by leaving the position unfilled for months on end. If you aren't Googlefaceapplezon, then false negatives could be as costly as false positives given time is money.

[foo101]

> Also, if you're good, then why does a low bar for entry scare or offend you?

It's not a matter of fear or offense. It's a matter of judiciously investing my time on the right opportunities.

I get about 3 to 4 calls from recruiters everyday. If I agree to go through this kind of interviewing process every day (even if the bar is low), I would be spending more than 20 hours every week just doing HackerRank tests. This is not feasible for me. Therefore just like the recruiters need a way to filter candidates out, I need a way to filter recruiters out.

Requesting a HackerRank test is just one of the many filters I use.

[dahart]

> It's a matter of judiciously investing my time on the right opportunities. I get about 3 to 4 calls from recruiters everyday.

I agree completely, I was under the assumption that this entire conversation is about what happens after you (the candidate) submit an initial job application, or respond to a recruiter about a job you're actually interested in.

I'd never do Hackerrank tests in response to recruiter spam.