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by acatton 314 days ago
Yeah, I'm confused by the article. Following this logic, any interview sucks because of the stress it puts on the candidate. So what am I supposed to do? Hire based on a home assignment? then the "unpaid labour" crowd will call me out, and I personally believe they would be right to do so... So I'm supposed to hire based on résumé only? It's a lose-lose situation.

It reminds me a professor who recently told me, regarding ChatGPT use in university: "we're receiving every week applications from foreign students written in perfect German, then when we schedule a call for an interview with the potential scholar, they're incapable to speak either German or English."
2 comments
gedy 314 days ago
Not specific to you possibly, but how about interviewing based on what you do in this role, and what the person has experience in?

I'm personally done with frontend/UI development roles where the interviews expect you to "brush up on CS fundamentals" or "prep", and then they ask nothing about "here, make this UI", as if it's some side thing. And if you didn't "prepare" for their leetcode crap, they act like you are some huge liar/faker who's somehow been coasting for 15 years.

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Ekaros 314 days ago
Lot of people are pretty decent at bullshit. And they can talk the shop well enough to coast for a while.

On other hand I wouldn't say it would be unreasonable for UI people to setup some basic UI or like that could be done fast. And then do some edits there. Even if it is just copying some toy project. Then again I am not sure what is the current state of fronte-end and how much crap you need to do basic UI.

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gedy 314 days ago
Yeah I think there is a: "does this person get UIs at all, and like this type of work" filter that gets missed by some of these leetcode processes. Personally tired hearing "this guy ACED the interview, a++++" then they fumble around with the actual work we have to do.
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parpfish 314 days ago
i agree. the stress is an unavoidable in any context where people are being judged or evaluated. i also find take-homes stressful, with in-person coding at least the stress is constrained to a narrow time window.

but i also think that that's why live coding can work really well with simple problems like fizzbizz, create a list of fibonaccis, etc. these are simple-ass problems that any coder can churn out in their sleep. if the stress of an interview prevents you from solving something like this... you probably need some more practice coding until something like this becomes easy enough to do under stress.

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