(Thread IKs:
OwlFancier)
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Is there a set of guidelines or consensus or whatever on how to assess a job candidate’s practical skills while also respecting their time? My company is going to be hiring another software developer soon and as I’m currently the only dev I expect I’ll be involved in the interview process; not really sure what’s the best and fairest way to assess people’s coding skills. Sending people a task to spend a day or two on lets people solve a realistic problem with reduced time pressure but eats into their free time. Whiteboard coding is bullshit I won’t consider. Which leaves a mix of looking at personal projects (not everyone has — I don’t!) or some “live coding” exercise with us peering over the poor fucker’s shoulder? I got hired just on the basis of the interview chat and basically passing the persuasion check, and it partly feels like pulling up the ladder to not judge the next person by the same criteria… but it also feels like a bad idea to hire a coder just based on vibes?
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Feb 21, 2024 12:57
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| # ? May 26, 2024 08:14 |
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I interviewed a guy last year who started the interview by saying he’d had 4 other interviews that week and got turned down for them all so he expected this one to go just as poorly. He was right, but also maybe don’t open with that.
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Feb 21, 2024 12:59
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TACD posted:Whiteboard coding is bullshit I won’t consider.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:00
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Feb 21, 2024 13:01
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Wait I thought liberals drank soy milk to give them extra estrogen (even though that's not how anything works), when did skimmed start getting involved?
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Feb 21, 2024 13:05
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Feb 21, 2024 13:06
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I'm gonna start promoting the STARMER interview method. There's none of the Reflection, but at halfway through the interview you change all your answers to be the opposite of the first half. Guaranteed you will gain the approval of every interviewer on the panel no matter what they're looking for  (Also you need to down at least half a pint of whiskey before you go in)
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Feb 21, 2024 13:11
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Situation Task Action Result Meeting U-Turn Retreat  vvv
Isomermaid fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 13:15
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Situation, Task, Action, Reversal, Macallan, Equivocating, Result! e: ^^ or that!
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Feb 21, 2024 13:15
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I knew the thread could be relied on here
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Feb 21, 2024 13:16
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Isomermaid posted:Situation
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Feb 21, 2024 13:19
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TACD posted:Whiteboard coding is bullshit I won’t consider. Which leaves a mix of looking at personal projects (not everyone has — I don’t!) or some “live coding” exercise with us peering over the poor fucker’s shoulder? If you don't give a programmer at least a Fizzbuzz level test you'll end up hiring someone who can't actually do the job at all and then you'll have to fire them later, which is no good for anyone The nicest job interview pattern I've seen (as a candidate) was a live coding test, for some relatively simple task, and then a unit test for the same. For example if the job has SQL in it you might ask them for something where the right answer is like "select sum(foo) from bar group by gnng", or for a more generic thing, write a function that returns the n'th Fibonacci number. You'll need to set up some kind of skeleton project env first, with a template for the code and the test, and probably the candidate will need to set up their IDE beforehand, so you won't end up wasting time on all that during the interview
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Feb 21, 2024 13:19
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TACD posted:Is there a set of guidelines or consensus or whatever on how to assess a job candidate’s practical skills while also respecting their time? It’s probably different at a place where you need somebody to come in and be at a particular technical level immediately, but at the software house I work at we tend to consider a persons ability to think and problem solve ahead of full technical knowledge. We have a multi-stage interview starting with a 30-minute call with a few technical questions, then do in-person interviews with problem solving, data modelling etc. It helps to weed out the people who really don’t know what they claim to know or can’t think their way through a problem with a smaller time commitment. Don’t think we do any real coding challenges, definitely no assignments before talking to them.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:21
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TACD posted:Is there a set of guidelines or consensus or whatever on how to assess a job candidate’s practical skills while also respecting their time? If your company might be willing to pay for a testing platform you might try these? https://coderbyte.com/ No idea what they cost or how good they are!
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Feb 21, 2024 13:23
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quote:So there's a dud British nuclear missile sitting in the ocean off the Florida coast? Is this another Thunderball rewrite?
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Feb 21, 2024 13:32
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I think the Sun is implying that it hit that Strictly star.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:35
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Tigey posted:So there's a dud British nuclear missile sitting in the ocean off the Florida coast? There was no warhead.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:46
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Is... is he talking about Nanny's milk?
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Feb 21, 2024 13:49
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NotJustANumber99 posted:There was no warhead.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:55
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I honestly don't get what kind of jobs give you all these fascinating stories of memorable challenges and times you did a leadership. Surely most people just have jobs where they get given something to do and then they do it until it's either done or time to go home? Reasons you should employ me: If you ask me to do something I know how to do I can do it for up to eight hours a day.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:55
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Jobs where you get to run/lead/collaborate on complicated long-running projects that require a bunch of smaller decisions. Not generally applicable to e.g. customer service roles, but that's not a value judgement. Having done it before, I know that I would know be pretty crap at doing A Thing for 8 hours per day. Especially if it impacted my posting style
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Feb 21, 2024 13:58
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Also often the test is mostly about whether you can turn that workday into some kind of escapade where everyone stood up and applauded at the end. Which would seem to be a skill more valuable in Hollywood screenwriters, tabloid op-ed writers, and pub day drinkers than in engineers, but it's enduring in its popularity. I bet Adrian Chiles is great at them. e: Also bet Toby Young thinks that he is great at them but just comes off as an insufferable oval office, like in general.
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Feb 21, 2024 13:59
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NotJustANumber99 posted:There was no warhead. didn't have any rocket fuel either by the sound of it.
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Feb 21, 2024 14:00
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I remember working in tescos as a teenager and one day a lady drove her car into a lampost in the carpark. The decisions and actions I made here could probably be the basis of some kind of interview answer from time spent in a minimum wage job. I mean not for me of course, I just lolled and walked back to my car and went home.
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Feb 21, 2024 14:02
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NORMAN!!!! I SHOULDN'T WONDER THAT THESE MISSILES ARE FAILING DUE TO THE CREWMEN HAVING TO SPEND ALL THEIR TIME ON WOKE DIVERSITY TRAINING, NORMAN! WE NEED OUR NUCLEAR DETERRENT, NORMAN!!! ... BECAUSE WE ARE A WORLD POWER, NORMAN!!! WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO PUSH THE RED BUTTON IF OLD MR PUTIN OR THE CHINAMEN DECIDE TO INVADE OUR GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND, NORMAN!!!! 
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Feb 21, 2024 14:17
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I imagine Mrs Norman prefers the old V bomber fleet to any of this submarine nonsense. The sound of good old Delta Lady going full throttle would put the fear of Jesus back into those who have instead decided to be Juche or Russian Orthodox or Chinese. 🫡
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Feb 21, 2024 14:24
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OwlFancier posted:I honestly don't get what kind of jobs give you all these fascinating stories of memorable challenges and times you did a leadership. If you're in an interview, these don't have to be work-based stories, but could be something like when you were Chief Cub Scout running a camp that went bizarrely wrong or you were doing your Duke of Edinburgh in the Saarland forests and got completely lost having failed miserably to read the map correctly... (source: me doing DofE in 1974 - our team got hopelessly lost & they had to send out a search party) or everyone in your family had buggered off on holiday* leaving you - 15 year old grandson - behind and your near-to-death granny alone in her almshouse & you're convinced granny has died in the chair but she's always told you never to phone for an ambulance - so you ring your big sis (moi) at work 400 miles away & cry down the phone. What do you do if you're the boy, what do you do if you're big sis? *important ed: without leaving ANY contact details or address of where they've gone and this was in the days before mobile phones. Jaeluni Asjil fucked around with this message at 14:33 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 14:28
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Obviously you set up a series of ingenious and deadly traps to catch the burglars.
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Feb 21, 2024 14:35
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That comes with the danger of terrible sequels.
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Feb 21, 2024 14:36
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Ms Adequate posted:Had the exact same thought. If Labour are so clever and led by a Forensic boy who can chair a meeting, why have they not anticipated this extremely obvious problem and figured out a solution? This only worked when the tories functionally didn't have a majority (because surprise surprise, the DUP didn't turn up to vote) and half of their party didn't actually want brexit, or at the very least didn't want their political legacy to be tainted by the worst possible version of it. There are other reasons of course, but it was a very weird time when amendment fuckery had its moment in the sun. I honestly think Starmer isn't bright enough to realise that (a) this doesn't work any more, and (b) the reason people went nuts over it then was because it was Corbyn doing it (who people liked), and it was funny to watch the conservatives perfect fascist reshaping of the country fall apart repeatedly. He is a strange little man who had One Weird Trick, and now that conditions have changed he's still trying it, hoping that this time it'll start working and the press will love him again. Like a rat frantically pressing the button after the study has ended. E: and I think the tories have worked this out as well. Which is how they were able to leave the proposed bill under a large box propped up by a stick, with a sign next to it saying 'important bill, please do not amend.' Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:47 on Feb 21, 2024 |
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Feb 21, 2024 14:40
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wonder how much Labour paid the speaker to bail them out on this one
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Feb 21, 2024 15:03
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Bobby Deluxe posted:My suspicion is that Starmer cut his teeth politically during the May vs Corbyn years, where the real big brain move was to abstain, allowing the act to pass, and then do the clever stuff at amendments. This doesn't really reflect what is happening today. With the speaker having allowed the labour amendment hes let starmer off the hook.
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Feb 21, 2024 15:04
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Whats all thsi about Lindsay Hoyle doing a shenannigans?
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Feb 21, 2024 15:14
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keep punching joe posted:Whats all thsi about Lindsay Hoyle doing a shenannigans? he’s allowed a vote on a Labour amendment to the SNP bill, which means that any potential Labour rebels may be satisfied with voting yes to the amendment and then no to the final bill apparently allowing an opposition party amendment on an opposition bill shouldn’t happen but here we are
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Feb 21, 2024 15:21
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TACD posted:Is there a set of guidelines or consensus or whatever on how to assess a job candidate’s practical skills while also respecting their time? 1. Informal chat - get them to talk about their experience, get a sense of whether or not they're a knob and the extent they lied on their CV. 2. Take home challenge - I think if you're doing this it should be small and easily comparable between applicants. This is the part I'm most iffy on because it's very easy for the candidate to either cheat by getting ChatGPT or a mate to help them or to spend way too much time on it so it isn't representative of what they'd be able to accomplish in x hours. It has served its purpose weeding out a few candidates who talked articulately about things they had no clue about in the first interview though. 3. In person pairing interview - this is the most valuable part in my experience, but unfortunately a bit late in the pipeline. I think the key is that it should give you a sense of how they would be to work with rather than just being an adversarial challenge. The way I phrase it is that we're going to work together on a problem, similar to how we would in a normal workday. The candidate "drives" and proposes solutions, but we also talk it through and discuss. It's worked well so far.
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Feb 21, 2024 15:25
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Why not just cut out step 2?
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Feb 21, 2024 15:29
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get chatgpt to devise a series of questions and then have the candidate use chatgpt to answer them - thus accurately simulating the world of tomorrow
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Feb 21, 2024 15:29
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Julio Cruz posted:he’s allowed a vote on a Labour amendment to the SNP bill, which means that any potential Labour rebels may be satisfied with voting yes to the amendment and then no to the final bill This probably won't be all that effective as a face-saving measure, considering: https://x.com/garyothic/status/1760305931793965403?s=46&t=ARI_L-v32Oind1-d9B3a3Q
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Feb 21, 2024 15:30
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I'm thick but handsome and friendly. So interviews have always been piss.
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Feb 21, 2024 15:31
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kecske posted:get chatgpt to devise a series of questions and then have the candidate use chatgpt to answer them - thus accurately simulating the world of tomorrow Yeah about that... At the moment, ChatGPT has spectacularly gone off the rails. It's spitting out word salad, like more so than usual. It's gone full on "end of Metal Gear Solid 2" gibberish.
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Feb 21, 2024 15:40
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