Re:So I refused a white board technical test and was asked t...
by notacoward on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @09:28AM
(#11945410)
> An intelligent and curious person will not run away from a mentally taxing activity, he would face it bravely and even enjoy it in the process.
So many fallacies there. You're assuming that intelligent and curious people can't also suffer from social/performance anxiety. What if the person's just very introverted? They could still be an invaluable member of your team, but you'd never know that if you insist on interviewing them in a manner directly contrary to their strengths. What if the person's female, and doesn't want you staring at her butt even more while she writes on the board. Yes, that s* happens.
Even worse is the way you use "bravery" to equate distaste with cowardice. I'm sure there are programmers who have exhibited more bravery in more contexts than you ever will, but might still balk at jumping through hoops for you when they could be engaging in more empirically-proven interview methods instead.
~25 times interviewing, on either side of the desk, is not much of a sample. Look to people who have been there hundreds of times individually, thousands of times collectively. You might find that there are more techniques, more pitfalls, and more kinds of people involved than you had ever thought of before you made your appeal to authority. Whiteboard interviews might have their place in some very limited circumstances, but making them a default part of the process is just lazy and sets up a generally unhelpful competitive/hierarchical dynamic. An intelligent and curious person will not run away from other methods, but will face them bravely and enjoy them in the process.
So many fallacies there. You're assuming that intelligent and curious people can't also suffer from social/performance anxiety. What if the person's just very introverted? They could still be an invaluable member of your team, but you'd never know that if you insist on interviewing them in a manner directly contrary to their strengths. What if the person's female, and doesn't want you staring at her butt even more while she writes on the board. Yes, that s* happens.
Even worse is the way you use "bravery" to equate distaste with cowardice. I'm sure there are programmers who have exhibited more bravery in more contexts than you ever will, but might still balk at jumping through hoops for you when they could be engaging in more empirically-proven interview methods instead.
~25 times interviewing, on either side of the desk, is not much of a sample. Look to people who have been there hundreds of times individually, thousands of times collectively. You might find that there are more techniques, more pitfalls, and more kinds of people involved than you had ever thought of before you made your appeal to authority. Whiteboard interviews might have their place in some very limited circumstances, but making them a default part of the process is just lazy and sets up a generally unhelpful competitive/hierarchical dynamic. An intelligent and curious person will not run away from other methods, but will face them bravely and enjoy them in the process.