Comment by decafninja | Hacker News Reader

Comment by decafninja | Hacker News Reader

Hedge fund: Got through all the coding/technical rounds. Hiring manager and team were enthusiastic to get me on board. Final round was a casual chat with the CTO. It just so happened we went to the same university. Great, right? The conversation went well and I thought I had nailed it. But then as I prepare to leave, he throws in one last question - "oh btw, what was your GPA?". I tell him the truth - "2.3". Note that this was about 7 or 8 years after I graduated. According to the recruiter, that one last question about my GPA torpedoed my candidacy.

FAANG1: Frontend engineer role. Internal recruiter told me to practice leetcode problems. There was also a pre-interview session where I got to chat with an engineer who also recommended I practice leetcode problems. Day of the interview comes, and I was given zero leetcode problems - every coding assignment was "implement this function/feature in JavaScript".

FAANG2: Successfully passed a phone screen. I did not know it at the time, but the phone screener was a somewhat famous "celebrity engineer" too. He seemed very pleased with my solution. I am invited to the onsite.

At the onsite, I am given the exact same question as the one from the phone screen. I tell the interviewer the truth and he says its fine, go ahead. I tell him that I'll do the same solution I gave for the phone screen. He ends up nitpicking bits and pieces and basically tells me my solution sucks. In hindsight, the vibe was negative the moment he walked in and he seemed pretty hostile throughout the interview. So not sure what I could have done better.

I can understand how you would have felt after your interview with the hedge fund. During my college placements, I cleared the written programming round as well as the technical round interview with an international company (Non-FAANG but their salary package was quite high when compared to other companies visiting the campus).

I went in for the final round with the HR team, and conversation went well until they asked if I got placed for another company that had visited the campus earlier. I replied "No, I was not eligible to attend the interview since I had an existing arrear due to a failed lab exam.". They immediately cut the interview short, and later I was informed that I was rejected. I could have just given any other answer and gotten away with it, because I would have cleared that exam before I had to join the company.

According to the recruiter, that one last question about my GPA torpedoed my candidacy.

If these guys were as smart as they think themselves to be - and a certain minimal GPA is in fact a requirement - they'd ask for that up front.

So not sure what I could have done better [FAANG2]

There's nothing you could have done - and that's the whole point of these hazing rituals.

A significant portion of the time (like around 20 percent per round) we either fail, or are at least moderately "dinged" due to what are essentially just chemistry issues between yourself and the interviewer. Performance, or so-called native ability has very little to do with it.

The companies doing this are more or less aware of this, on some level. And in fact use to pat themselves on their back, saying "Well we're so awesome that we can afford to burn through 3x as many candidates as we really need to to fill this position. And because the terrifyingly high false positive risk. Which just proves how awesome we are."

That's depressing to hear as a recent grad. Why would CGPA weight this much after 7-8 years in the industry when you've passed the technical part of the interview?

It shouldn't. It was an isolated (and IMHO, stupid) incident.

Sounds like it was a blessing in disguise. Who knows what you would have encountered had you been hired under that CTO.

> Why would CGPA weight this much after 7-8 years

An indicator of consistency / consistent performance was what I was once told by an HR of a billion dollar agri company that also screened candidates based on their scores starting from 10th standard / grade (in India the 10th and 12th school exams are considered important "markers" in our education system as they are national exams). Huge variations between a candidates score in 10th, 12th and every semester of college was treated as a potential red flag by them. Candidates with good experience and qualifications weren't immediately disqualified but were asked to explain the reason for the "fluctuations" in the interview. Experience did matter more, but their logic was the job gets more and more stressful as you rise up the ladder, and so it was important to consider your grades too as they reflect something about your personality.

I can understand GPA being a factor for new grads with little to no industry experience. But someone with many years of proven work under their belt?

By that token, the fact that I went to a prestigious and selective university (where I bombed with the 2.3 GPA) vs. someone having gotten a higher GPA at an easier/less selective school would seem like it ought to carry some weight, but I don't think it ever has - and I think it shouldn't.

I agree it should matter less when looking for experienced candidates. That was their company culture. There was a time in the US when a lack of degree didn't matter if you had competence and experience. But that ship has sailed and most of the tech industry now prefers to hire people with a degree.

(Perhaps cultural context also comes into play here - A British banker had come to India for some conference. After learning about how the banking industry in India is, he asks one of his fellow indian colleague on why indian banks asked for a college degree for a Clerical position, where as British banks in UK stipulated that high school diploma was enough for such positions. The indian guy replied, "When I can get a college graduate for that position, why would I hire someone with a lower qualification?".)

No one has asked for my college GPA (2.4) since my first job out of school.

I’ve been working as a dev for 22 years, and have yet to be asked whether I went to college. Which I didn’t.

Why would CGPA weight this much after 7-8 years in the industry when you've passed the technical part of the interview?

It doesn't, of course. They're doing this because they're clueless, and hypersensitive to any superstitious indicator that you might not be the "perfect" fit.

That (and applies to HF types), a very deeply ingrained sense of elitism (and a the supposed link between high performer status and "native ability"), of course.

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