Job Interview 2.0 | Hacker News Reader

Job Interview 2.0

thedailywtf.com

26 pointsdanw14 comments

"Despite the complete absurdity of the design request, and the complete practicality of his answer, the job will go to a candidate who manages to answer the question by designing an extremely overcomplicated solution for a completely non-existent problem. And that candidate will be the same person who designs their software."

Why am I not surprised that Microsoft is credited with coming up with this type of interview?

To be fair, I hear Google asks similar questions, and I don't think anyone would argue that Google's software is too complex (at least from a user-interface perspective).

touche.

these sorts of questions are common all over the place. at bare minimum it's for the interviewer's entertainment

The classic anecdote about solving the wrong problem is asking engineers to deal with bicycle handle bars getting cold when it's cold outside: they design an expensive thermal heating system that weighs down the bike and makes the bike more expensive than the competition.

The non-engineer's response to the problem is to wear gloves.

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The_Complicator_0x27_s_Glove...

'm not a big fan of "brain teaser" questions, but the logic of this rant isn't very solid. It's a little like complaining that the Olympics are completely stupid and irrelevant because in reality I never need to pole-vault or whatever. Difficult but arbitrary challenges can often be a reasonable gauge of strength and ability.

They certainly do measure abilities in a certain area, the question is whether that measures whether knowing why manhole covers are round can add value to an organization in the way that is currently desired for that position.

I don't see what connection stupid puzzles have to turning a spec or a vague, contradictory set of requests from a user into working code and working with other people.

Judging from friends who used to compete in mathematical olympiads, my educated guess is that the people who sail through the brainteasers are the ones who practice working on them (the way you prepare for a mathematical olympiad is to solve old mathematical olympiad problems).

Do you want to hire someone who spends their spare time working on job interview puzzles? Do you want someone who's delighted by answering "why are manhole covers round?" with the pointless, trite response of "because manholes are round!", which only begs the question? I swear to god those Joel on Software forum people get off on this crap.

Microsoft's problem is that you get fired if you look at open source code, so talking about neat open source side projects you did the way more enlightened companies like ThoughtWorks do is completely out of the question, which shows that they have much deeper problems than just figuring out the right interview questions.

It's a little like complaining that the Olympics are completely stupid and irrelevant because in reality I never need to pole-vault

I don't see that at all. It's more like complaining that pole-vaulting would be a stupid and irrelevant way to screen, say, firefighters. Which indeed it would. And that has nothing to do with calling the Olympics themselves irrelevant.

Actually, Olympic pole-vaulters would probably make much better fireman than the average person -- think of the strength and determination required to become an Olympic pole-vaulter. Plus they could just pole-vault in and out of burning buildings :)

Sure, there's a lot of noise in using brainteasers as a predictor of problem-solving ability; but IMO they do offer some predictive value. It's an opportunity for them to see how you think. They're hiring you to solve problems - and the easiest way for them to gauge problem solving ability is to ask you to solve problems.

"Would you want to work with the guy who builds a water-displacement scale/barge, taxis a 747 to the docks, and then weights the jumbo jet using that, instead of simply calling Boeing in the first place?"

Umm, just because you CAN solve these brainteasers doesn't mean you don't know how to call Boeing! Knowing more than one way to solve a problem is almost never a weakness.

And as for the blind bike example, the candidate was not being practical, just being a pain in the &*%. Just answer the question without being a smart alec.

Except brainteasers are vulnerable to prior exposure. Once you've heard enough of them you have a bunch of tools at the ready for any others that use the same kinds of intuitive leaps -- and you may not even need to do that if you get asked ones you already know.

Just pretend you're really trying hard and voila, eventually spout the correct answer you appeared to have thought up on the spot.

I hear these little brain teasers and can't help but think of Monty Python's Holy Grail: "What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?"

Yeah, I'm the guy who would ask "747-300 or 747-400?". Granted it could probably be figured out by taking the vector of the thrust to lift ratio of the engines and wings at take off, but something tells me you'd go through a lot of planes that way rather than designing it with that in mind.

I am happy Microsoft has stopped doing that, talking to friends who got internships and jobs there, they mainly stick to programming brianteasers (how would you traverse a node while doing blah blah), and at most design questions (how would you design a red button).

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