Re:A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires
by shandor on Thursday November 10, 2016 @09:58AM
(#12920853)
> we encourage candidates to use all resources on our take home interview test
This sounds great. In my response to another comment I was worried if accepting-but-not-encouraging this kind of behavior would put the interviewees on uneven ground. But if you tell them in advance that basically anything goes, it's fair for all parties.
> The real surprising part is how many take home problems we have received that either do not compile, do not pass the test data we give, or look like the instructions were completely ignored.
Sounds horrible. Though I guess that's only a good thing. Seems like the assignment is doing its job in those cases pretty well :)
Re:A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires
by umanwizard on Sunday November 13, 2016 @05:22AM
(#12942688)
Really, any resources? What if they just pay someone to do the whole thing? Are you really confident you could suss this out in the onsite discussion?
Re:A Method I’ve Used to Eliminate Bad Tech Hires
by matwood on Sunday November 20, 2016 @11:03AM
(#12999466)
The problems are usually very simple. Something like implement a queue that can have multiple listeners, and write a test/driver to show the queue works. If someone really needed to pay someone to implement this problem, it will be very easy to figure out in the interview.
Like Fizzbuzz, the point is a quick way filter out candidates.
Nothing, and that's fine. In fact we encourage candidates to use all resources on our take home interview test. I would probably be impressed if someone setup a hackathon to solve a rather simple take home problem.
A take home problem is simply another signal, and a jumping off point for discussions. If someone used some novel approach we'll discuss it and find out if they actually understand what they did.
The real surprising part is how many take home problems we have received that either do not compile, do not pass the test data we give, or look like the instructions were completely ignored. It ends up as a low effort FizzBuzz on our side.