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Comment by BinaryIdiot | Hacker News Reader

If you're looking for them to do something _really simple_, like FizzBuzz, then you're doing it wrong already. This is something that could have taken place over a technical phone screening.

Once they hit the on site interview it should be more about how they can work together with a team, how they would design systems, what they would do if they needed help, etc.

Coding up FizzBuzz on-site is a waste of everyone's time.

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We're a small startup, and we don't have a really structured process. Also I have been the only person asking a detailed coding question (in consultation with my boss). Everybody else on the team has been responsible for those other questions.

I should also add that I personally prefer to do coding questions in person on a whiteboard, rather than doing them during a phone screen with some sort of collaboration software.

My technique of explaining the algorithm before asking the interviewee to implement it works way better with both people in front of a whiteboard.

I'm not saying everybody should do it this way. I'm just saying that this is my current approach and it seems like it's working OK.

I mean if it works for you then great but I've seen that back fire far too many times where I had to interview an incoming candidate who didn't do any coding over collaboration software and then couldn't do simple FizzBuzz. Basically wastes their time traveling and interviewing and my time when a quick check just to make sure they can do a few, quick basic things over the phone can save so much time.

While I dislike the way most large tech companies handle their interview process this one I don't mind as much.

How exactly could you evaluate FizzBuzz over the phone? Its designed as a weed out question early on, if they can't do that (and yes some have failed) then it makes a decision pretty easy

Most places I've interviewed at (or was the interviewer) talked to the candidate over the phone but had something like Google Docs open so you could watch some live coding. Usually just go through some very basic exercises to make sure the person at least knows how to code and ask a few, general programming questions. Stuff like that.

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