Re:Show HN: 15-question programming quiz with answers
by mikekchar on Tuesday May 23, 2017 @10:30PM
(#14407196)
To be honest, this quiz makes me feel that I'm learning more about you than you are about me. I especially find the reactions to the complaints interesting. This response could be read in a negative way, which is not as I intend it. Hopefully it can provide a window to view things from a different perspective.
It is not possible to really determine the ability of a programmer in an interview -- the scope is too large. It takes time and effort to understand how well a person will perform. In an interview we try to find indicators of how well a person will perform. So, a quiz that tries to unearth those indicators is interesting.
Your quiz makes me feel that technical details are foremost in your mind when you asses performance. Will the candidate make technical mistakes that you have seen many times before? Similarly, there appears to be considerable bias evident in your selection of questions. All of these questions asses whether or not a candidate deeply understands the functioning of the code snippet, or whether they understand it shallowly. For the candidate who admits a shallow understanding, their only recourse is to guess (and potentially fail).
From that I infer that your cultural makeup is one where you have a bar that you expect all candidates to surpass. This bar is single dimensional, though, and especially your responses to the complaints imply a lack of realisation that you are narrowly optimising for a single useful ability.
Finally, the quiz is set up in a "run the guantlet" fashion. Can you avoid the pitfalls that others have fallen into? This tells me that you fear candidates who do not statically measure up to your bar more than you are excited to find out what a candidate brings to the table.
While you clearly will have other interview techniques for other aspects that you value, this particular quiz would worry me as a candidate. It's essentially the same question 15 times in a different context. When people complain that the quiz is too Python specific, the answer is essentially "But it covers concepts that are similar for many languages and you should be able to figure it out". It's a kind of "Well, I'm sure I could do it pretty easily, so you should be able to too". It makes me worried that there is a lack of empathy on team and that there will be problems if I don't think exactly like the leaders on the team.
On the other hand, this may be fine if that's what you want in your interview process. Personally, I probably would not apply to your company having seen this quiz. This may also be a good thing from your perspective :-). However, if you ever get to a point where, despite having excellent people on staff, you can't seem to get to the next level, I would concentrate on examining potential biases of what is "good" on your team.
It is not possible to really determine the ability of a programmer in an interview -- the scope is too large. It takes time and effort to understand how well a person will perform. In an interview we try to find indicators of how well a person will perform. So, a quiz that tries to unearth those indicators is interesting.
Your quiz makes me feel that technical details are foremost in your mind when you asses performance. Will the candidate make technical mistakes that you have seen many times before? Similarly, there appears to be considerable bias evident in your selection of questions. All of these questions asses whether or not a candidate deeply understands the functioning of the code snippet, or whether they understand it shallowly. For the candidate who admits a shallow understanding, their only recourse is to guess (and potentially fail).
From that I infer that your cultural makeup is one where you have a bar that you expect all candidates to surpass. This bar is single dimensional, though, and especially your responses to the complaints imply a lack of realisation that you are narrowly optimising for a single useful ability.
Finally, the quiz is set up in a "run the guantlet" fashion. Can you avoid the pitfalls that others have fallen into? This tells me that you fear candidates who do not statically measure up to your bar more than you are excited to find out what a candidate brings to the table.
While you clearly will have other interview techniques for other aspects that you value, this particular quiz would worry me as a candidate. It's essentially the same question 15 times in a different context. When people complain that the quiz is too Python specific, the answer is essentially "But it covers concepts that are similar for many languages and you should be able to figure it out". It's a kind of "Well, I'm sure I could do it pretty easily, so you should be able to too". It makes me worried that there is a lack of empathy on team and that there will be problems if I don't think exactly like the leaders on the team.
On the other hand, this may be fine if that's what you want in your interview process. Personally, I probably would not apply to your company having seen this quiz. This may also be a good thing from your perspective :-). However, if you ever get to a point where, despite having excellent people on staff, you can't seem to get to the next level, I would concentrate on examining potential biases of what is "good" on your team.
Good luck!