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Comment by dms105 | Hacker News Reader

The real weaknesses of technical interviews are:

1) They usually just measure the amount of effort a person has put into studying interview questions. Whether or not the ability to do this translates to being a better engineer is debatable.

2) An interviewer almost always exercise some form of personal bias, whether it be educational, personal, etc. This doesn't always show up in written feedback, but the interviewers with stronger personalities usually dominate interview debriefs, and often influence others into hire/no-hire decisions. This is especially prevalent in smaller startups where the process is more informal, things move quickly, and decisions are based more on gut feelings.

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I had a 800+ page study guide while living in SF for the ridiculous technical interviews they'd put you through. Then you'd see their code base and realize they've never actually done anything that would remotely resemble best practices.

The best part though was realizing if you didn't answer that one question exactly how the "brilliant" person interviewing you wanted it answered, you were done. So at that point I'd quiz them on all their shortcomings that were evident based on what they'd told me.

In my experience hiring it's not that difficult. Good attitude, good aptitude, genuine interest in the field (software engineering), ideally interest in the applied product (if not a software product), decent communicator and good hygiene. If they've done well in those areas, I've never had to let someone go.

Ever thought about releasing this study guide that you've made? I would love to take a look at it/ send it to some friends!

Lol, no. It's mostly just an amalgamation of all the technologies and stupid fucking interview questions that you get.

I have 10-12 different documents. CS/OO (basics for reminders with some simple algorithms), .Net, SQL (I always forget this shit, it's why I have data layer and use ORMs + LINQ), LINQ, jQuery, Vanilla JS, HTML5+CSS, Architecture/Patterns, ASP.Net vs MVC, Tuning, etc.

Haven't updated them in a few years because I left the bubble. My interviews in the midwest are typically an hour or two at most with very little quizzing. At worst they ask you to make them a small simple app (which I find irritating but better than SF interviews).

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