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psydude posted:I also sit on phonecalls with people who ask me questions for work. Is your argument that doing things at job interviews that you do for work is free work? If I ask a candidate how to configure a switch, is that free work? I dunno man, I think I agree with you on this. Especially considering you're hiring for a high level sales engineer job. I for one have decided against products in my org specifically because I was essentially training their "SME" on stuff he should already know. If you're logging into YOUR GEAR and you think your text editor is what version of Linux you're using, maybe you shouldn't be dealing directly with customers. Doubly so if you're in a security oriented field. I had a buddy send me his company's knowledge test that included having to sort through a bunch of pcap files to figure out different attacks on an OT system. What that did was identify gaps and allowed me to decide for myself if I was cut out for the job. Chances are this guy talked a great game, but at the end of the day, was essentially not going to be a good hire. I like when people self select out. If he was truly too busy, he'd have asked you ahead of time how long it would take, and then politely decline or ask for a shorter test. One thing I've noticed about IT in my organization specifically is it's loaded with big talkers who in reality are actually completely useless. Psydude dodged a bullet, imo, expecially since he was hiring someone who was directly contributing to company revenue stream.
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Jun 12, 2019 19:45
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psydude posted:I also sit on phonecalls with people who ask me questions for work. Is your argument that doing things at job interviews that you do for work is free work? If I ask a candidate how to configure a switch, is that free work? Wow You and your org are a bullet to be dodged.
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Jun 12, 2019 19:54
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Internet Explorer posted:Yes, but you are showing good faith by being on the call and hopefully sparking a conversation. Yeah this is the difference. There's a huge difference between tossing out a pile of unpaid homework to candidates that you can look at later and doing a 2hr technical interview. Hell I've even done the thing where they fly you out for a day, because that actually says they are seriously interested in appraising you as a candidate while this says "Please do the work of selecting the technically proficient among yourselves, for free, and maybe I'll hire one of you after". I mean if you are at some place where you are exclusively pulling from willing true believers who would do anything to get in and don't feel bad about exploiting them, then go for it. But I'm not interested in working at a place like that because if they show how little they give a gently caress about abusing my time before I'm hired, I can only imagine what kind of shitshow it's going to be once I'm salaried and obligated to do a job for them. EDIT: There is a non-lovely way to do this if your org wants to hand out little proof projects to see if they can walk the walk. My wife worked at a place once that would simply pay people a couple hundred bucks for the time to do these little projects, and then offer them a job after if the person could competently complete the task. Nuclearmonkee fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 20:18
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Comradephate posted:And the problem with your argument is that it's based on the assumption that the single candidate who exited psydude's interview process is the reasonable, logical average, and a superstar that psydude would be crazy to not hire, rather than the outlier that he is shown to be by the comment that this is the first time it's ever happened.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:31
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Vulture Culture posted:How many people—or what percentage—should slip and fall on your iced-over stairs before you consider putting salt down? But I'm trying to filter for people that carry their own sand.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:35
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quote:Thank you for taking the time to chat with Sam, I hope you enjoyed the conversation. We'd like to move to the next step in the interview process, the take-home exercise. Relevant. Heres an email I just got.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:42
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Methanar posted:Relevant. Heres an email I just got. “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to re-asses how much I wanted this job. “
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Jun 12, 2019 20:45
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Methanar posted:Relevant. Heres an email I just got. Didn't you accept an offer already?
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Jun 12, 2019 20:46
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PBS posted:Didn't you accept an offer already? I did. And this other place just sent me the next step of an interview process I was in before I had accepted.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:47
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Methanar posted:Relevant. Heres an email I just got. Lmao "gently caress off"
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Jun 12, 2019 20:51
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Methanar posted:I did. And this other place just sent me the next step of an interview process I was in before I had accepted. Nothing like validating an already-made decision.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:51
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I would politely ask how I will be compensated for my 3-5 hours of time before telling them to gently caress off
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Jun 12, 2019 20:52
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quote:For your technical take-home exercise, you'll be mocking up a design for a basic network in real router config. Like, I guess. Its a pretty important job with a lot of responsibility. And I guess how else do you really know what you're getting out of somebody without seeing a sample of their work. But man that's a lot of work for a 'ehh maybe you'll get a job. kind of depends what else we get submitted' Methanar fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 20:53
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I get it, bu man the 48-hr hard limit is a serious _fuck you_.
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Jun 12, 2019 20:57
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I ran a little site years ago that would spin up isolated network topologies using 4 or 5 routers and included a little course to troubleshoot problems. It was mostly aimed at education but I also pitched it to a few recruiting companies as a way to reduce noise in the interview process. Couldnt get anyone to bite on it though so I shut the whole thing down
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Jun 12, 2019 20:58
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Can you just upload your code to be a giant ASCII middle finger?
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Jun 12, 2019 20:59
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I personally don't mind the idea of a take-home excercise, but 1 hour over the course of a week is probably my threshold.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:00
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Vulture Culture posted:How many people—or what percentage—should slip and fall on your iced-over stairs before you consider putting salt down? If you think this is a valid or useful comparison, there's a good chance that you are stupid, but I'm assuming you know it's a bad comparison and are just being a tool.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:02
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Comradephate posted:If you think this is a valid or useful comparison, there's a good chance that you are stupid, but I'm assuming you know it's a bad comparison and are just being a tool.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:05
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Comradephate posted:If you think this is a valid or useful comparison, there's a good chance that you are stupid, but I'm assuming you know it's a bad comparison and are just being a tool. Goons are really outing themselves today for serious lack of self awareness.
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Jun 12, 2019 21:07
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Interview length the topic? This gives me the opportunity to tell you, as I do every three years, that a company once asked me to come in for a full day technical assessment. They wanted me to come in and sit in front of a computer and run through various exercises. This was in house IT for a lending company in Southern California. I "countered", as much as you can in that situation, that I could come in for an hour or two, but that was the best I could do. The woman from HR that I was talking to told me that she'd relay my response to the IT team who would be hiring me, who in turn had her inform me that they wouldn't be moving forward with the process. Aww, shucks. On the topic of optimum interview length, I will say this. And this is just my opinion so do not destroy me for going against group think. Interviews are way too long. By orders of magnitude. I've assessed your communication skills by the end of the first question. I've got a feel for your technical ability and personality by the end of the third question. And the next couple of questions are just confirming my suspicion. Anything after that is just marking time off the clock. I'd say I've generally made a decision within 8 minutes - especially if it's a No. I can always change my mind on a Yes if you're saving your unprompted immigrant rant for the 23rd minute, but unless there are surprises, it's just not that complicated of a process. I understand why people want to do 3 hour long meandering technical interviews. They're trying to be thorough. I'd just counter with this. If you're going to learn something critical about a candidate in the 3rd hour of that interview, then maybe your questions in the 1st hour of that interview weren't as insightful as you thought they were. MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 21:54
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:if you're saving your unprompted immigrant rant for the 23rd minute, I agree with your post completely, but I really hope you have a story about this one.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:26
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lol, unfortunately not, just thinking of deal breakers.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:28
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What is the optimal time for an interview so I can maximize my signal to noise ratio?
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Jun 12, 2019 22:31
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Methanar posted:When you're finished, push up your config and open a pull request. Please write the pull request as you would in your normal course of work on a team. I've never used GitHub or done a push/pull request. The conference I went to last week was all about NetOps doing DevOps... But we aren't there yet.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:38
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tortilla_chip posted:What is the optimal time for an interview so I can maximize my signal to noise ratio? 1. How long into the interview did you stop particularly caring about their answers? The interview should be shorter than that. (Or, if the answer is some comical "almost immediately" option, then you shouldn't be interviewing candidates.) 2. Did they answer the question you asked, but you didn't learn anything from their answer? You didn't need to ask that question.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:40
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Nuclearmonkee posted:I would politely ask how I will be compensated for my 3-5 hours of time before telling them to gently caress off By getting a >150k compensation job doing interesting things with smart people. I dunno. I feel like for a lot of higher paying, higher responsibility jobs things like 3 stage interviews, onsite interviews and take home projects are acceptable. If you're interviewing for a higher level job that you know full well involves kafka, then spending some time to review how kafka works and patterns involving kafka is doing your diligence. Same for any other technology. You could argue that doing some exercise where you instrument a dummy app with a statsd library is the same level of preparation for the job when the job is very much going to involve instrumenting applications with a statsd library. Basically: you're going to have a lot of people interviewing and you have to make a decision somehow. Its great that you have your friendly chat opening interview where you ascertain that you're speaking to a normal human who at least can pretend they know what they're talking about. But you've got 6 of those. Now what I still think coding interviews are stupid as hell, and 5 hour unpaid projects are excessive. But I'm not really sure what the alternative is. Its just another aspect of how asymmetric hiring processes are. Maybe the job does involve a lot of bureaucratic jumping when I say jump, and anybody who refuses to do the dumb task given to them by an authority wouldn't have liked the job and left after 6 months anyway which is one of the worst things that can happen from a hiring manager's perspective. I'm saying this as the guy who spent >20 hours travelling within 48 hours and ended up sleeping in his truck to get to an onsite interview.
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Jun 12, 2019 22:57
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Vulture Culture posted:How many people—or what percentage—should slip and fall on your iced-over stairs before you consider putting salt down? Put up a sign and disavow all responsibility . I have a sign for this but I can’t find it right now unfortunately .
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Jun 12, 2019 22:59
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Methanar posted:By getting a >150k compensation job doing interesting things with smart people. Handing out some unpaid project for them to do at home shouldn’t provide any meaningful data that was not covered in the interview process and technical appraisal. If you are getting woefully unqualified people after that then your process sucks and needs to be fixed! I’ve had situations where we have multiple candidates that were close together to the point that the panel/hiring manager couldn’t decide, and even done a final follow up interview once. Tossing hours of unpaid busywork at folks and wasting their time is pointless as a tiebreaker.
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Jun 13, 2019 02:21
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Handing out some unpaid project for them to do at home shouldn’t provide any meaningful data that was not covered in the interview process and technical appraisal. If you are getting woefully unqualified people after that then your process sucks and needs to be fixed! What question do you ask that answers the same thing as seeing an implementation of tracking the p95 response time of all API calls made by a service.
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Jun 13, 2019 02:35
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Wait. This drama is over homework? You know there’s like 5 companies that provide technical screening tests. The first response you get from redhat is take this Linux test. Coding whiteboard interviews have proven to be awful. I can write fizzbuzz for you in 5 different languages but it doesn’t mean I know them. Eventually you have to see a person work especially when you’re hiring for methanars level. Help desk sure phone screen works. Handing over a million dollars worth of equipment? You’re drat sure I want to see your work.
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Jun 13, 2019 02:40
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I am however of the opinion that you can just look at my GitHub rather that I provide you free work for your test. Same with my resume over LinkedIn. You want to see what I do. Google my name.
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Jun 13, 2019 02:42
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jaegerx posted:I am however of the opinion that you can just look at my GitHub rather that I provide you free work for your test. Same with my resume over LinkedIn. You want to see what I do. Google my name. I love your old games arcade lobby and Runscape!!
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Jun 13, 2019 02:56
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jaegerx posted:I am however of the opinion that you can just look at my GitHub rather that I provide you free work for your test. Same with my resume over LinkedIn. You want to see what I do. Google my name. You did WHAT with some internet dude named Arus???
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Jun 13, 2019 03:07
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Methanar posted:What question do you ask that answers the same thing as seeing an implementation of tracking the p95 response time of all API calls made by a service. Build a lab and have them show you what they'd do right there? If it's a senior position where it's an involved and more lengthy process, fly their rear end out ideally. jaegerx posted:Wait. This drama is over homework? You know there’s like 5 companies that provide technical screening tests. The first response you get from redhat is take this Linux test. Wanting to see the quality of work and technical ability does not require lazily tossing homework at them. It requires an effective technical appraisal process. If Amazon and Google can manage I'm pretty sure the average shop can. I've mostly been involved in hiring network/systems engineers but if it's for a senior guy I'll just pull real examples and build a little lab exercise or two, either in person or over a webex. Usually though, that's not necessary as you can detect the fakers when you dig into the poo poo on their resume where they say "increased blah blah 100 million dollars" and have them explain in minute detail what their role was, draw out what they did and explain how it worked. If they don't actually know what the gently caress it should come out at that point as you dig into it and they start hemming and hawing over what they actually did. Anyways in my experience homework is used as a lazy crutch to screen large numbers of applicants in more junior positions, usually in software development.
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Jun 13, 2019 03:11
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CLAM DOWN posted:You did WHAT with some internet dude named Arus??? It was consenting adults. I’m not a mod. E: I think he liked Star Trek too. Like enough to run a Star Trek based guild. 🤔🤔🤔🤔
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Jun 13, 2019 03:16
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Nuclearmonkee posted:Wanting to see the quality of work and technical ability does not require lazily tossing homework at them. It requires an effective technical appraisal process. I both agree and disagree a lot with this post, which is impressive. I think the Amazons and Googles of the world are so wildly different from the average shop that a lot of the time, their teachings aren't super useful to us mortals. Their hiring processes are optimized for weeding out false positives (ie, people who are probably good but aren't definitely amazing). They only want to pull the trigger on someone who is a total slam dunk. Most companies aren't trying to shake off the downpour of thousands of mostly-qualified engineers to find that one perfect hire. So cargo culting that behavior leads to bad results. Having gone through A Big Tech Company's hiring process, it's not some magical great thing. It actually really sucked. I've posted my experience before so I won't belabor the point. Just reiterating that interviewing at the likes of Amazon or Google still loving sucks, maybe even sucks more than a lot of smaller companies. But, I also agree that homework is a lazy crutch and should be avoided by both interviewers and candidates. edit: lol upon rereading, sorry for the intense amount of mixed metaphors in this post that I am not going to fix Docjowles fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jun 13, 2019 |
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Jun 13, 2019 04:23
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Docjowles posted:But, I also agree that homework is a lazy crutch and should be avoided by both interviewers and candidates. On the other hand, if I'd have to choose between 4 hours on site vs 2 hours homework + 2 hours interview I'd choose the latter. For the first option i'd have to take half a day off. For the second is just a "dentist appointment" plus 2 hours at home whenever i feel like it. A bit of homework is not the end of the world, but I can understand some people not wanting to do them.
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Jun 13, 2019 04:28
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As someone who works at one the big tech companies our hiring process freaking sucks and it isn't any better than regional managed services provider with a few dozen employees. As Doc said, managers refuse to take any risk and only hire A++ rockstars but we all know those are basically unicorns.
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Jun 13, 2019 04:29
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It's also worth noting that, intentionally or not, homework problems screen out a lot of applicants for totally irrelevant reasons. Taking care of kids or a sick family member, or working two low paying jobs but hoping to advance etc etc? None of that has any bearing on your tech abilities, but sure makes it harder to scrape together 4 hours of focused work in the evening. Why employers might prefer people with tons of free time to spend on tasks very similar to their eventual jobs is left as an exercise to the reader.
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Jun 13, 2019 05:41
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