Comment by udev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by udev | Hacker News Reader

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It is also a cultural thing.

I observe that anglo-saxon peoples teach their kids to voice their concerns, needs, wants, and opinions, and to expect (!) results from this. (Compare how american kids behave at airports, train station, and public places with kids from other countries, e.g. french speaking countries).

This helps them approach situations in life with a healthy dose of self-worth and the baseline state of mind that if something is wrong it's not their fault.

In contrast, many other cultures teach their kids that it is impolite/crude/disrespectful to bother adults with your half-baked thought, or (God forbid) unexpected wants, or complaints.

I come from a culture where you are expected to moderate your verbal output when addressing your superiors (e.g. teachers, boss, etc.). You speak out only when you have something worthy to say.

Example:

I had trouble going to "office-hours" when at university in North-America. I always got the feeling that I am bothering the prof, and it is my duty to study more to understand the material, and I should not take his time when I merely did not understand something.

My anglo colleagues seem to not have such qualms. Their thinking is more along the lines of "I don't understand (not my fault), it is his job to teach me (most likely his problem), he has to explain this better, I pay for tuition after all...".

I am happy to have unlearned some of the above things.

But generally, I find the speak-your-mind-at-the-white-board-while-we-watch interview tailored for cultures where kids are taught to be vocal, and are difficult for equally intelligent people from other backgrounds.

What you're describing is Power Distance.

On the whole the West tends to have lower power distance than the East. And Anglo and Germanic countries tend to have lower power distance than Romantic countries, while Scandinavia has the lowest power distance anywhere.

France has quite a high power distance by Western standards, although it's still lower than most Eastern countries.

The US tends to have rather high power distance by Anglo/Germanic standards although if you look at all the cultural dimensions the US tends to be an outlier towards moderation in its cohort probably due to its amalgamated culture (the US is hardly a strictly Anglo country).

http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimen...

I recently started teaching a class to grad students, most of whom are foreign-born (China and India mainly). I have a lot more sympathy for my college instructors now that I see it from the other side: If students don't speak, I have very little information on whether they are learning the info (which in turn, reflects how well I'm teaching it). Homework is my main clue, and that involves a delay (plus I have a healthy bias against busy-work homework, so while I give assignments it does not count for/against your final grade).

I believe this is exacerbated by the sorts of cultural differences you highlight - I'm (relatively) loud and brash, many of them are reserved. I have no doubt there are lots of signals of confusion/understanding that I'm missing, but I don't know how to find them either.

I recently got my mid-term evaluations from the students (anonymous) - I was shocked to see many of them spent (or at least claimed, which I have to trust in absence of other data) 11+ hours/week on the work outside of class - triple what I expected. (and the answers formed a believable curve of results, so again, I have to trust it absent other data). I had only one student up until that point say how much time they were spending. Everyone else was silent.

People are downvoting this, but the difference in cultures is real (though I wouldn't say it is confined to anglos). But udev might be exposing a case where the "anglo" culture has a genuine advantage.

Engineers really should communicate clearly about technical stuff. People solving complex problems really should concepualise their approaches clearly, ideally so that can be expressed in words. People really should reach out for help when blocked.

And if Anglos find it easier to do those things, then good on 'em.

I don't think it's just a communication thing. It's also a confidence thing. When a culture places emphasis on self-censoring behavior, then the candidate is less likely to express themselves for fear of censure.

As someone of East-Asian decent, I totally get this. But I also can understand the counter-point: if you are joining a company of predominantly "anglo-saxon" peoples, does that company not have a valid concern that the people they are hiring are conducive with their current work process (i.e. communication, collaboration, etc.).

I understand your comment isn't advocating for what I am insinuating, but in general, I think the sentiment that companies need to adjust their culture for their candidates is problematic.

What's the best way to do hiring in your culture?

There's a lot of variation within Anglo-Saxon cultures too. In New Zealand, we're usually a bit more reserved, but I can see that we're more forward than in many Asian and Pacific cultures. Also people everywhere have variation in introversion/extraversion and in their self-confidence.

It would be great if there was a way to do hiring that could identify good candidates without bias among these different things. Probably the only good way to hire is to simulate the real work environment as closely as possible. That's difficult and expensive though.

In my opinion, the best hiring interviews for tech positions should include the type of interactions that will actually take place in said job, but also resemble the usual way in which people in the given culture do intellectual work (e.g. for someone out of university, that would be the way he would usually sit an exam).

The best I can think of is to have a 45-60min written test with technical questions/problems going from very easy (where failure to solve is a red flag) all the way to more moderate, some difficult, and maybe even one very hard problem (solving which is a green (?) flag).

No need to be in the room with the person. Can put a webcam to record test if cheating is a concern.

After the test, the candidate gets a 5-10 min break, a drink, while the hiring team of 2-3 people take a quick look over the result of the test.

In the second part of the interview they all go into a room to have a chat based on the problems in the test. The candidate gets a chance to defend his choices, show additional skills, while the hiring team gets to ask tangent questions (how would you speed this up? why this data structure? if space was at a premium how would you improve this?).

I think the secret is to adapt the tone of the discussion to keep the candidate on the edge but avoid intimidation. If the candidate is a confidence artist, test him with more and more direct questions that he cannot weasel out of. If the candidate is more shy, engage him/her with a brainstorming like discussion, and go of on tangents from there.

The written test plus the opinions/notes of the 2-3 people present at the discussion should paint a decently detailed picture of the candidate, and also provide a written record of his/her performance for reference and comparison with other candidates.

That sounds better than an interview, but a written test is not representative of many types of work. In most kinds of work you'd have days to work on a topic, access to reference materials, the ability to discuss with colleagues and ask for help, etc.

Test results probably do correlate with job performance, and it may be better than an interview (not sure) but it's say it's still quite a long way from giving an accurate answer.

Have you ever really asked them what their line of thinking is? You are like to get many different answers.

I sought help from my professors and teaching assistants in college not because I felt it "wasn't my fault" or even that "it is his job to teach me" or that "I pay for tuition after all" but rather my thinking was, quite simply, "I need to learn this and I'm finding challenges with the current approach I am taking... maybe there is another way" where "another way" just so happens to include pursuing some direct face-to-face help from someone else. The line of thinking was outcome-oriented (I need to learn this/accomplish X) and I'd do whatever it took to make that happen.

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