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Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by xkcd-sucks on Saturday September 22, 2018 @11:20PM (#18049209)
Yeah so do all these fucking bootcamp graduates who copypaste their classmates' code into new repos and star each other. Always ask the candidate to walk you through the repo line by line!
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by dugmartin on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:02AM (#18050684)
I think it would be more telling to just pick a random commit and then show the diff and ask they candidate why they made the changes they did.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by Waterluvian on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:30AM (#18050791)
Hmm. I'm going to try that on myself. I wonder if without context I can answer it every time.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by partycoder on Sunday September 23, 2018 @04:43AM (#18050107)
Bootcamp graduates come in many flavors: no college, some college, and college graduates. Some have a CS background, some others don't. Some have working experience, some others don't.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by aldoushuxley001 on Sunday September 23, 2018 @12:22AM (#18049393)
> Always ask the candidate to walk you through the repo line by line!

That seems a bit much, you're liable to scare away good talent that way.

Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by gaius on Sunday September 23, 2018 @05:37AM (#18050270)
you're liable to scare away good talent that way

People, in general, like to talk about themselves, and engineers like to talk about their own code. "See this if statement, well there's a funny story behind that...".

A few years ago I interviewed a candidate who mentioned Github on her CV but no actual URL. What's your username on there, I asked, let's look at some of your code. She refused and said she didn't want me to look at it. Then why did you mention it on your CV I asked? Because she was told she had to, she said. All in all a weird experience, probably for both of us.

Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by stingraycharles on Sunday September 23, 2018 @02:29AM (#18049692)
I do try to talk a lot about their own projects during interviews, though, since I can only assume they like to talk about it.

And it can lead to very interesting discussions, you learn a lot about a candidate that way.

Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by anonnyj on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:21AM (#18050758)
Really? That sounds super stress free for me. Maybe it's just that I'm super confident about my own code and know it inside out? A white board test on the other hand would literally cause me to run away...

Of course I've never coded in a professional capacity, so don't mind me if I said something stupid.

Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by Gustomaximus on Sunday September 23, 2018 @02:27AM (#18049680)
Coudnt that be easily managed by saying:

"Sorry about this but we've had some candidates passing others code as their own. So we've been asked to take all candidates through some code line by line. Such a pain but we have to do it unfortunately. Ill try and get through quickly. You dont mind do you?"

Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by reitanqild on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:00AM (#18050673)
And if there is a need for follow up, some variation of "we quite clearly are interested in you and value your time since we spend actual engineer hours walking through your code.

What would be disrespectful was if we ignored all your hard work and hired someone not half as good as you because they had more glowing reviews or more stars on their repos."

Obviously I'm no hiring manager, but often a bit of honesty goes a long way.

Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by AJ007 on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:16AM (#18050732)
A bad employee in a small company (or organization of any type) can do a lot of damage. It is negligent to hire someone who hasn't proven they can do what they claim, and negligent for a manager to not verify they aren't doing the work they claim to be doing.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by anonymous5133 on Sunday September 23, 2018 @05:33AM (#18050257)
Good talent will enjoy walking you through their hard work!
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by jl2718 on Sunday September 23, 2018 @09:20PM (#18054376)
I agree. Like gramma talking about her babies.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by austincheney on Sunday September 23, 2018 @08:58AM (#18050883)
Or just look at the commit history.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by LearnerHerzog on Sunday September 23, 2018 @04:19AM (#18050035)
I went to a coding bootcamp. I have 80 repositories and can walk you through every one of them line by line with no problem.
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by anonymous5133 on Sunday September 23, 2018 @05:32AM (#18050254)
Sounds like you'll pass the test then. Good job!
Re:Chinese Thesis Ghostwriting Scandal Reveals Huge Gray Market by rradish on Sunday September 23, 2018 @06:59AM (#18050476)
I would hire you based on that handle alone