Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by jgh on Thursday April 03, 2014 @04:12PM (#7526135)

I interviewed with Skype once, I ended up not taking the job because it would have meant moving to SF and I don't really want to do that, but they asked me to do something interesting. They asked me to complete an assignment that was similar to the work I would have been doing, but did not require me to install their codebase, nor was it such a huge task that it would have taken a week to do.

This, to me, feels more like a happy medium between whiteboarding and "auditioning". The task was simple enough to be completed in 8 or 10 hours that I could do after work, and I even had some time to add some flair to it for style points.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by potatolicious on Thursday April 03, 2014 @04:15PM (#7526176)

Ditto here - I did an interview with AirBnb once where I had 3 hours to build a mobile app from the ground up to a specification. They provided all the designs and assets necessary, as well as the API and specification. The exercise was broad, covered multiple areas, and was holistic (you get a shipping app out the other end, not an isolated non-contextual piece of code).

I rather enjoyed it, and at 3 hours wasn't a huge intrusion on my time. This sounds a hell of a lot more attractive than throwing a whole week of my spare time at a company I'm not sold on, and IMO is just as representative.

The extra perk of this approach is also that, assuming you give the same/similar assignment to every candidate, it makes their performance directly comparable.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by collyw on Friday April 04, 2014 @06:51AM (#7530450)

I could see that 3 hours is fine for something you are familiar with. Right now I am at my desktop and everything is ready to go for building something Django based. But say someone decides I should do it in Flask. I have looked briefly at the docs, but the fact I don't know it means I am unlikely to get far in the first 3 hours.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by Jemaclus on Thursday April 03, 2014 @04:15PM (#7526173)

Yes, exactly. That's what I do when I interview people. I make it clear that this is something I am actively trying to solve (or maybe I've just recently solved it), and not just some academic exercise I'm doing that isn't productive.

I think that makes a huge difference. And in the end, I don't care what language you do it in or how you do it, so long as you solve the problem. If I write it in Ruby and you write it in Java, then if it works, I can hire you and your first job will be to port it over ;)

I moved to SF and I love it, but I understand not wanting to move around. I'm resisting moving away from SF for other opportunities...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by jgh on Thursday April 03, 2014 @04:32PM (#7526349)

Oh I'm not against moving around (in the last 4 years I've lived in Toronto, San Diego, Sacramento, and Los Angeles)... My wife and I just found SF/Northern California is not really our taste ;)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by jon-wood on Friday April 04, 2014 @05:22AM (#7530191)

If only somebody made software which allowed video calls with remote employees they'd have been able to hire you without having to move to SF.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by zerr on Friday April 04, 2014 @01:55AM (#7529563)

Interesting. Could you please clarify if your interviewed when Skype was already acquired by Microsoft?

I wander if Skype does similar thing now, i.e. maybe they preserved some autonomy and did not adopt general MS style puzzle interviews.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by jgh on Friday April 04, 2014 @11:00AM (#7531776)

This was in 2010 IIRC, so I guess it was before the Microsoft acquisition

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by JayBlanton on Friday April 04, 2014 @02:43AM (#7529720)

MS employee here. AFAIK puzzles have not been used in a long time.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Why You’re Not Hiring the Best and the Brightest by zerr on Friday April 04, 2014 @11:48AM (#7532175)

I meant CS puzzles (like in programming olympiads), which are still widely used I believe.

[ Parent | on HN ]