[ipnon]

I think the distinction to be made is between the process of finding the best out of 7,000 and finding someone sufficient out 7,000. The first is surely extremely expensive for companies. The second can be done in a week or two. I think the anecdotal evidence shows though that no company can accurately do the first, and the gamification of this process is a deeply researched topic, so it's likely that a company that believes they're accomplishing the first is really doing the second in practice, all the while spending unnecessary money and time, and deluding themself into thinking they found the needle in the haystack.

My belief is that if you aren't doing Ph.D. level research, all you need to do is get the candidate to prove they can write themselves out of a bag with React/Python. Anything else is overkill, and a real cost loss to the business in terms of money and time.

I will admit that for most businesses there will be times to do the first, and time to do the second. But I imagine this distribution is something like 20/80, whereas most companies are doing 80/20.

Coding is hard, but so is marketing, accounting, management ... But are your marketing candidates being put through the ringer too? I suspect software engineers are being uniquely hazed.

Peace & Love

[ravenstine]

That's a false choice. The number of applicants is mostly a function of time, so if 7000 applicants is too overwhelming then just throw out 6900 and focus on evaluating 100 of them. To weed through thousands of candidates is to believe that you can find the one that's exceptional, yet if the position being advertised doesn't need to be filled by a genius then it's strange to scour the earth for the right person. If you are at the point where a genius is needed then hiring through personal connections is probably the better approach.

But if I must write code as an applicant, it better be similar to real world tasks and not some bullshit, especially if my chances of getting hired are still slim. Having to do work in order to get hired is literally sucking the lifeforce out of me, so don't suck even more out of my via the agony of glorified brain teasers.

[higeorge13]

I worked in ATS company and 7k seems like an exaggeration. Most companies would only get tens of candidates, some of them hundreds and only a tiny minority would get thousands. I would also confidently say that the vast majority have sourcing issues, and that’s why they ask recruiters, agencies, etc to fill more applicants to their open positions.

And yet, all these companies would have complicated hiring pipelines to hire. I have seen examples which made me laugh; like receiving tens of cvs and asking almost all of them for take home exams (felt sorry for the reviewers and the candidates who lost their time), multi stage technical reviews for companies with less than 10-20 employees, final executive level interviews with more than 5 candidates in parallel, time to hire times of 3-6 months, etc.

[Swizec]

> Coding is hard, but so is marketing, accounting, management ... But are your marketing candidates being put through the ringer too? I suspect software engineers are being uniquely hazed.

My girlfriend works on the business strategy side of Fortune500’s. Our interviews look like a joke compared to theirs.

[jokethrowaway]

My developer friend stopped working as an engineer because he found out he can pass those interviews with no preparation and the job takes way less effort compared to software.

He's now doing two jobs at the same time and the companies don't notice he's barely doing anything but appearing in meetings.

YMMV

Big corporations are incredibly wasteful, so I'm not surprised.

I also know plenty of developers who do little at work, but at least they need to produce a substantial amount of code, at the end of the day.

[Swizec]

> he can pass those interviews with no preparation

I've never had to prepare for an engineering interview in some 15 years of doing this professionally.

> the job takes way less effort compared to software

The easiest part of my job these days is writing code.

The challenging fun part is setting a technical strategy that aligns with the business and gardening the team around me with soft influence towards that strategy. Super challenging. Would've been easier to just do it myself, but there's only so much I can do on my own.

Ultimately, you should go do whatever comes to you easiest and/or is most fun. No sense grinding away at something you're not good at. Maybe your friend has an immense talent for business and strategy.

[boppo1]

Also interested in top strategy interviews. Not that they aren't hard, just that "strategy" has always seemed so ephemeral to me. My business profs failed to impart any real criteria to define it. Seems like something people either have or they don't and all you can do is hire based on past success.

[Swizec]

> all you can do is hire based on past success

That’s kinda what they do.

You are put through an initial ringer to vet for basic fit and competence. Then you get a take-home exercise that consists of several business case studies. You have to detail a strategy for what you would do in that situation, support your argument with research, etc. My girlfriend said it’s a lot like writing a term paper in college.

Last time she interviewed it took her I think 2 or 3 days of full-time work to do the case studies.

Then you go back and defend/present/discuss your work at an interview.

Her job consists of doing basically that, but with a team, larger consequences, more direct ownership, and loooooonger processes because so many people get involved in everything. Her team is strategizing what could become a trillion dollar product (in like 10 years) if they get it right. It’s pretty cool.

[Shocka1]

As a software engineer I would rather do what your gf does than leetcode problems. I went to school already for six years and don't feel like hanging out on a website for the next six months solving CS problems.

I've always been of the opinion that a take home software engineering project that I can present in the interview would be preferable. Coding alone for a few hours and then being able to get all my ducks lined up.... Sounds like a practical and great interviewing process to me.

[dmitryminkovsky]

What are they like? Are they asked tangentially pertinent brainteasers and riddles?