Comment by AndreyErmakov | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AndreyErmakov | Hacker News Reader

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It was the right thing to do, but it was done with the bad timing.

This personal preference should have been communicated right after the first contact and before going on the first date, polite and firmly. That way nobody's time would have been wasted.

It's something I would do these days, given the current industry obsession with these weird rituals. A simple pragmatic and a [constructive] dialog about the needs of the company, my skills and whether there is a potential mutual interest - yes, white board coding, puzzle questions, technical interviews and take home tests - no. Whoever is not okay with this arrangement may move along.

All good jobs that I had were offered without technical tests and they came with nice and smart people. Every time there was some technical grilling involved, the people were arrogant and condescending, and I wouldn't have wanted to work with them anyway.

And anyway, this form of hiring protocol mostly seems to be practiced in the US job market, as well as by those countries trying to closely mimic their US counterparts. I've noticed that phenomenon in Eastern Europeans too. The Western European companies have massively different hiring practices.

For one thing the author is right. These broken hiring techniques force people to leave the mundane job market as quickly as possible, switching to looking for work through other channels. Perhaps this situation contributes to the visible lack of talent that some are observing. Apparently, the talent prefers a more personal and a more civilized approach that the generic job market is not offering.

The West EU market is indeed very different; reading hiring practice in the US on HN it mostly seems like abuse. Probably it is not that bad in reality but I am glad I never had and will never have to do these kind of things. Nor will I put people I hire through this. I guess it is the mentality here; might have said the opposite if I was from the US.

What's it like in the west EU?

Basically, the interview is all about getting to know a person. You discuss your experiences, your interests, your values. You get to know the people interviewing you, they get an image of you. The company tells you about what they do, then asks you to tell something about yourself. Then you move on to discuss the position, their needs and their objectives and eventually you both develop an idea if there is a good match (for the both sides). Through this not only do they learn about your professional level, but they also form an image of your soft skills and your presentation abilities.

Essentially, it's very important for them to find a nice colleague that will naturally integrate in the collective. Someone who can do the work, but also talk, communicate well and overall be a well-rounded person. The technical side of things is an additional criteria, but not the basis for a decision. You often get to hear the idea that "learning on the job" is the way they do things. Nobody has an idea to dismiss you because you don't remember some obscure sorting algorithm from 20 years ago.

At least I have not run in a single case when the interview was being run by people or the Western European origin and I got to be grilled on technical matters. The story was all different when among the Western Europeans there were the Eastern ones present at the table who were mainly asking questions. In that case all that you get asked is the minutiae of the specific technologies they use, and often the interview time is completely wasted as you don't get the chance to learn about the company, so you return home with as little information about them as you had before going to the interview.

After a while you get a clear picture of where everyone fits in the food chain. Western Europeans run a business, see the big picture and care about practical things. Eastern Europeans are grunt workers that are [happily] stuck in their technical silos.

Not meaning to offend anyone originating from Easter European countries and who do not fall under this description, but it's been my consistent experience and my individual observation that I've made while interviewing for positions in Western Europe (mostly in Germany) and also from interacting with my colleagues (of varying origins). There was always a clear separation of concerns to be felt.

Just to clarify. There are many smart and intelligent people among the Eastern Europeans who've moved beyond that level. It's just I've never encountered that type at the interviewing table. Those that I've seen were mostly interested in scratching their ego, proving their smartness to their bosses and putting down the candidate in public. Naturally, they were making a terrible impression of the company and I wouldn't have accepted to work there anyway (unless after a letter from the CEO stating they have all been removed from the company).

But how can they add routes in rails if they can't implement mergesort on a whiteboard? /s

I concur with this; it is the way I have encountered it as well and usually do it myself as well unless I have a specific deadlined project.

I agree that the preference (or demand in this case) should have been communicated upfront. The interviewee should have known well in advance how the interview would be conducted. Waiting until the actual interview just ended up wasting everyone's time for no reason.

Though, honestly, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place here. One of the tenants of interviewing is that candidates have to be evaluated fairly and equally - you can't have one candidate go through one evaluation process and another go through something completely different. As a company, you could easily be sued for this (you could be seen as showing preference to one candidate or the other).

I think the biggest issue is that companies like FB and Google and other tech giants use these interview techniques, so all other companies argue that those techniques "work" for (or at least do not hinder) companies that have literally billions of users and billions of dollars (in other words, you can't argue with the results).

So, until we have solid proof of a better process that scales I think those types of interviews are going to be a consistent part of the tech job industry.

>> you can't have one candidate go through one evaluation process and another go through something completely different

Yes, you can. Because people are all different and need to be approached differently.

>> I think the biggest issue is that companies like FB and Google and other tech giants use these interview techniques

Didn't Google recently admit that those "interview techniques" are worthless and have no correlation with the candidates' abilities to perform well in the field?

>> So, until we have solid proof of a better process that scales

You don't need to scale. You don't have to interview half of the town. Just find some people you can work with and stop there.

>> I think those types of interviews are going to be a consistent part of the tech job industry

As I mentioned earlier, those types of interviews aren't practiced in the Western Europe and hiring there works just fine without them.

Plenty of irrelevant coding tests here in Barcelona. :(

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