
Ask HN: Hire based on coding tests? - justonepost
We&#x27;re currently interviewing folks based on coding tests that we provide them with.  My concern is that I&#x27;ve been finding that some candidates that seem less than stellar from talking to them actually perform better than other candidates who seem pretty bright but because they likely haven&#x27;t been grinding on leet code or similar site (usually because they&#x27;re working), aren&#x27;t performing as well.  That said, coding is the most critical task of our engineers.   Should we accept people who code better at these 40 minute algorithmic riddles?  The position is for junior to mid level engineer.
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kaosmonk
I'd suggest you rather talk with people you interview about underlying
concepts and how would they approach and/or solve a real life use
case/task/problem. Talk about their experience using this or that tool, IDE,
alg, etc. Rather let them talk about their experience and then start going
deeper with additional and specific questions about their experience in order
to find out how well they understood the task they've been working on and how
they researched and used certain toolset, why they've decided to go with
certain approach, what were their thoughts about what they did once the task
got completed, what would they change/improve etc. You may go as deep as
needed with questions in order to see what areas does their knowledge spread
across and to actually test how well they understand and know about certain
topics that are of your interest.

I don't mind coding tests and whiteboard sessions myself but am finding coding
tests not to be that informative on someone's knowledge since the
implementation doesn't count as much as someone's understanding of what needs
to be done and how well someone is able to grasp all the shortcomings of going
with one approach vs going with some other.

At the end, it's always easy to google out the perfect solution to the problem
(and/or quickly test several solutions in order to find the most convenient
one for the given task) but if you don't understand underlying concepts and
are not able to grasp what exactly you need to do no googling will help you
with that.

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huebnerob
Unless your business is selling solutions to algorithmic riddles, your coding
test probably shouldn't be testing for them. Try to make it a reasonable proxy
for what the engineer will be doing day-to-day, and make sure it's a novel
problem statement to which the candidate hasn't already been exposed.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Good advice. But the 'novel problem' part - would a plumbing company hire
plumbers that had never worked on their type of installations?

I think its perfectly reasonable to find out if your candidates can do the
work you need them to do. Never mind any kind of novelty requirement.

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gauravk95
A 40-minute algorithmic riddle, may give you a gist of what the candidate is
capable. But, you never know for sure, if he/she will perform well in actual
work environment.

You have to understand what your technical challenges are and what you are
hiring for..? Do you need a generalist or specialist? Does you product require
a lot of new algorithm?

I have seen candidates that are extremely good at algorithmic puzzle, but lack
the overall approach to build stuff, candidates that have a lot of projects
and not so good at algorithmic riddle excel. Also seen the pretenders that
show they have done a lot of projects and domain expertise, but when you dig
in, you come to know that those project where either trival or they where just
lucky to be a part of a team good team.

You will have to be very careful on getting candidates that actually are
interested in building things and not just for the sake of interview and a job
the prepare for the algorithmic riddle...but you never know for sure, until
he/she start working on the project.

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itronitron
You may want to consider that the candidates doing well on the coding tests
may have less experience interviewing for a variety of reasons. It really
depends on the role and the needs of your organization to decide whether the
qualities of the candidates that seem bright are more needed than the
qualities of the candidates excelling at the coding tests. A consulting role
would likely place a higher weight on the 'seems bright' score.

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remyp
Code tests are a perfectly reasonable way to assess talent as long as they
meet two conditions:

1\. They don't take more than an hour or two

2\. They closely resemble the work that the candidate will be doing on a day-
to-day basis.

Leetcode style exercises have zero value to me as a hiring manager. I'm much
more interested in whether people can gather requirements, think critically
about them, ask questions, and provide a functioning solution that fulfills
them.

~~~
ccajas
I'm on the 1-2 hour limit camp. As much as I know a lot of people find
whiteboard tests awkward, or don't like coding tests with short time limits, I
actually prefer them over take-home coding challenges. If a company requires
that I do one of those before the interview proper, I usually give them a
pass.

With short live coding tests in person, Once it's done, it's done. I do not
like to finish an interview, and still having to think about putting more time
aside to do additional "work" for them in the form of a take-home test
requiring an arbitrary length of time. The fact that they happen outside the
office, outside of the worry of the company's time constraints, makes these
sorts of tests more prone to exploitation. Self-contained interviews in a
short time limit are my personal preference.

There is a Github page that is a compilation of companies that do not use
whiteboard tests for their candidates. I'd like to find out if a similar list
exists for companies that don't give their candidates take-home tests.

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mchannon
You're asking the wrong question. Instead of "should we do the opposite of
what the coding test tells us?" you should ask "should we require coding tests
at all?"

Some candidates can't code, but most companies throw the baby out with the
bathwater. They don't realize the candidates they want simply refuse to
interview because the process is insulting, and there's little correlation
between demonstrated talent and an offer (a hard-to-accept fact that you've
helped validate with your post).

The candidates they're left with are the desperate and the only hires are
clones of the interviewer.

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bjourne
Dude, it is pretty shitty to have your candidates go through a 40 minute
coding test and then not hire those with the best results! If you aren't
acting on the test then you're essentially giving these candidates false hopes
and are wasting their time by having them do this test. How would you feel
about it if you were in their shoes?

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mrfusion
Why not find a small real world coding test from your actual day to day work?
I’ve found testing with riddles finds people who are good a riddles. You find
what you look for.

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mrfusion
I’d just say fizzbuzz and a good conversation would be fine.

