
Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process? - greyostrich
I was given seven problems to submit via an online coding service called remoteinterview.io. Three problems included HackerRank style challenges. I was able to solve everything within an hour (though, it take me closer to two hours to code the edge cases for the third one), and the time limit was eight hours. Everything was  green; all tests cases were solved, minus any hidden cases I didn&#x27;t know about. Next day, auto rejection.<p>How common is this? It&#x27;s not my first time dealing with this. I find the interview process such bull crap, at the moment.<p>Note: I did document my entire code, which included my plan of action before writing anything and any necessary comments.
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paulddraper
I had 4.0 GPA, valedictorian, 2400 SAT, 800 on three SAT II tests, a varsity
letter, awards in chemistry and math competitions, and 5s on 14 AP tests.

I got turned down by MIT. Yeah, it sucks but anger will hardly help.

And there are always upsides. In my case I went to state U on full-ride and
saved myself $170k in tuition. In your case, you avoided being hired by a
less-than-competent company.

~~~
paulcole
>I had 4.0 GPA, valedictorian, 2400 SAT, 800 on three SAT II tests, a varsity
letter, awards in chemistry and math competitions, and 5s on 14 AP tests.

I used to work with students polishing admissions essays for colleges like
MIT.

The one thing I learned is that a resume like you listed isn't what gets you
into a school like MIT. It's those things + something that makes you a
uniquely appealing candidate.

Sure, you can get into MIT with your resume, but it's also very possible to be
passed over. But the kid with that resume + something special is very very
unlikely to get overlooked.

MIT, Harvard, etc. can fill an entire class with outstanding academic records.
But they want people who are going to be truly special in the future and the
best way to do that is select people who are already there. And they have
their pick.

~~~
dongslol
In practice the "something very special" thing comes down to how well you can
bullshit admissions. If you helped kids polish their essays, you know this.

The annual number of 18yos who have done genuinely remarkable things is less
than the size of the Ivy league freshman list.

------
BillBohan
If a company wants me to write code, they need to pay me for it.

I came across a similar situation where a prospective employer sent me the
requirements for a complex routine and gave me 7 days to return functioning
and commented code. My estimate was that it would take me 2 days to do it, so
it would probably have taken 6 days.

I can envision an unscrupulous business model whereby you do the top level
design and break it into routines, advertise for a programing position, and
send the specifications for a routine to each applicant. You reject each
applicant after they have submitted their code, take the best implementation
of each routine, pack it all together and now you have a product.

I don't know that that's what they were doing but nobody will do it to me. I
hope that's not what happened to you.

You may call me cynical but I've been around enough that I come by it
honestly.

~~~
gravypod
This is only a practice because people are being tricked into doing it. Also,
I'm not too sure you're being cynical. This is the obvious next step to an
interview puzzel, isn't it?

    
    
       * I need to test my employee so I give them a test
       * A test isn't code so I give them a coding HW
       * The coding HW isn't representative of our work, so...
       * I give them a small chunk of my real work. 
    

This is pretty stupid. I've just barely started in the working market and I
think my resume is solid enough that I won't mess around with any BS like this
and if no one else does then they will finally stop.

There is one proviso (as usual). I'm completely fine with coming in and doing
a pair exercise with people if the job requires pair work. I mean, that's not
really about the programming at that point (maybe just write a simple web
scraper) together with someone you'll actually be working with to see if you
can all get along. Crack a few jokes, get some work done, leave with a better
understanding of the enviroment. I'd be fine with that but nothing that would
take more then 1-2 hr.

------
jackgolding
Got three examples like this:

First happened to me with Australian Department of Defence - invited to do
online testing which took between 4 and 6 hours (4-6 online tests on computer
theory, mathematics, logic, verbal deduction etc.) - never spoke to a person
and was rejected within the week.

I interviewed for an analyst position for an ASX20 company through a recruiter
which involved giving a 30 minute presentation on the results of their
marketing campaigns. Never heard back from the company, the recruiter said
that they decided not to hire anyone for the position.

Most recently I did 7 hours of code for a startup (100 lines SQL, 100 lines
JS, 200 lines python, 20 lines R, fair bit of excel and powerpoint) for a
junior manager role - got rejected from that too with a one line "you looked
good on paper but no thanks" type email (mind you I put in a lot less polish
than I would have if that was my job, didn't ask the reason why as I felt like
they were asking too much of someone at that pay grade anyway.)

The last two cases weren't even through HR (went straight to hiring manager) -
HR makes things even more difficult. I went through a bunch of standardised
testing for one job interview and ended up being asked to fly 8 hours return
for a 1 hour interview. When I declined, I was told by HR that this showed
them I wasn't serious about the role. Of course once I told them that I
already had a job offer from one their competitors they rushed me through a
skype interview and gave me an offer straight afterwards.

All of this stuff really irritates me, I don't even bother writing cover
letters anymore (will include a short paragraph at the most) - its much more
respectful for the company to meet me in person.

~~~
flukus
I was rejected for by one for not doing TDD because I checked in the new test
and code in the same commit. I suspect some of it is part of their "we can't
find any Australians to fill the role" 457 requirement.

Also, if a code test takes 7 hours (some take days) then they are limiting
themselves to the already unemployed, so probably not paying well.

------
chrisbennet
I would never take a test before talking to the hiring manager. It's a two way
street, how would I know if you want to work for them?

That said, it's a great signal: the fact that they aren't willing to put in
the work to talk to you _first_ lets you know that they don't respect
potential employees and can't compete with companies who do. Thus they have to
go for volume. You don't want to work for a "minimum effort" kind of outfit.

------
fspear
Yes you have a right, and a duty, to be angry.

I say duty because it's our fault for not massively speaking up and demanding
a radical change. We let companies get away with this, and it's not going to
stop until we do something about it.

------
paulcole
>Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

You have the right to be angry about it. But ask yourself if that anger is
doing you any good? If not, why bother getting worked up?

Are you in a position that allows you to decline interviews? Do you feel
strongly that interviews should be conducted in a certain way? Feel free to
turn down any that don't meet your requirements.

But don't expect any company to accommodate your desires in their interview
process. It's just the way it is.

~~~
fspear
>It's just the way it is.

And if we don't take a stand then it's going to be like that forever. We can't
let companies continue to get away with this.

In the end they need devs more than we need them.

------
dongslol
I once went onsite for a week-long trial. I learned their codebase, discussed
infrastructure, wrote an app, and demoed it, explaining how it might improve
their workflow. At the end of the week I got rejected for "not being a 100%
cultural fit."

Either companies should have the balls to tell you that you suck, or you don't
suck, and they should stop hiring off narratives. All the more so after they
take up your time.

------
bcbrown
I've had a similar experience. I will now decline all online take-home coding
evaluations. I want the process to require a symmetric amount of effort from
both sides.

------
rcymerys
Are you angry about wasting 2 hours of your time or not getting the job?

Keep in mind that a lot of companies use automated tests to filter candidates,
not necessarily in the most fair way. They're simply not able to do a whole
interview with everyone as it's extremely time consuming.

I'd say don't worry about it too much. If you have the skills you'll find
plenty of good companies that will want to work with you.

Unfortunately, job interviews are not as predictable as how code works. Even
the best devs I know get rejected once in a while. :)

Think about it - there's 2-3 people (interviewers) trying to asses whether a
person has the skills for a job and is a cultural fit for the company. All of
these during an 1-2 hour long chat. That's virtually impossible to do right,
they can only guess.

~~~
greyostrich
I don't like the zero feedback loop. I passed the test, yet I failed it and
don't know why.

~~~
notforgot
I was on the job market recently and similar things happened to me. It's worse
when you don't get feedback after you go to an interview.

Two days ago I thought of making a job site that requires the employer to
provide feedback, and the candidate to sign a form that says they won't sue
the employer over the interview process. This way the employer has _no_ excuse
for not giving feedback.

Would you use this?

~~~
poikniok
The form will not be legally binding, so the premise of your site is broken.

~~~
ajeet_dhaliwal
Could show stats on companies that did not provide feedback, would deter some
people from applying.

------
graphememes
I think personally they should provide feedback for rejections on request, I
personally want feedback so I can improve and better myself during a failure
often times companies won't tell me so it makes it hard to understand what
went wrong in their eyes.

------
vitaminbandit
Very common. I no longer do these tests.

Basically, I refuse any interview that has me invest disproportionately more
time than the interviewer. You're interviewing the company as much as they are
interviewing you.

------
bsvalley
Right now, the job market is super over crowded. There are a lot of jobs out
there but too many people applying... You get a rejection on a 99/100 score
(one tiny mistake and you're out), actually, even a 100/100 score sometimes
will lead you to a rejection because other candidates were stronger than you.
Too many people are applying from everywhere at the moment.

~~~
icedchai
This is the opposite of my experience, both as a candidate and a hiring
manager over the past couple of years. There are many openings, not enough
competent people to fill them. We are essentially at peak employment for tech.

~~~
fenwick67
It's funny how companies / hiring managers always say they have trouble
finding good candidates, and the people looking for jobs always say they are
no jobs.

It's probably an axiom of some sort.

~~~
jfrisby
It's a combination of two things:

1\. We're bad at hiring, as an industry. We just aren't very good at
identifying good candidates.

2\. We're an industry where the average skill level is below the minimum
threshold of competence for even low-level roles.

I.E. there are lots of people looking for jobs, but most of them either
couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag -- and identifying the good
candidates is time consuming and error prone.

~~~
flukus
> I.E. there are lots of people looking for jobs, but most of them either
> couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag

I wonder if the average skill is that low (kind of) or if it seems that way
because only the most desperate are willing to jump through the elaborate
hoops we create for hiring.

~~~
jfrisby
i suspect that even without the ridiculous hoops, the incompetent will always
spend a disproportionate percentage of their time job hunting, and thus making
the hiring process challenging.

------
kosma
Have you actually asked them about the specific reasons for rejection? FWIW,
there's a multitude of reasons why one could get rejected, ranging from
automated systems to the position just getting filled to being too good for
the job to bad references to human error. Until you ask and get an actual
human response, you're completely in the dark.

~~~
greyostrich
It's a no-reply email. Here's what the actual email said:

"Thank you for your interest in Company. We have reviewed your resume,
experience, and responses to the Code Challenge. At this time, we have decided
to move forward with other candidates in the process. We wish you success in
your job search."

Sounds to me like they read my resume AFTER I passed the coding challenge.
Seems to me like a waste of terrible time if I'm spending my time just to get
rejected by my resume.

~~~
desireco42
It seems really strange that you are applying to a position and get
challenges, yet you have no-one to talk to.

Companies have recruiters, other recruiters pitch you to them, there were
times when I had an agent.

------
danpalmer
Was it definitely "auto rejection" or did a human read your code?

I ask because we have a coding test that most people solve (that we invite to
do it) but we reject most on code quality. The purpose might not have been to
solve the task, but maybe to do it in a good way?

~~~
flukus
Why do you expect clean code from a code test? It's going to be thrown away
anyway and there are time pressures.

------
numinary1
Never ever take any kind of test before talking to a person, preferably the
hiring manager. Not even for fun or practice.

------
rick_perez
With big companies, it's pretty common. There is probably something about your
contact info or education/experience that was auto-flagged as a rejection.

~~~
greyostrich
It was a small company you never heard of. But yeah, probably something else.
The rejection said based on my experience, answers, and resume. If so, it's
disturbing that I had to do this challenge in order to get them to read my
resume.

~~~
khedoros1
> If so, it's disturbing that I had to do this challenge in order to get them
> to read my resume.

I'd read that more like "after considering all data points...". I'm sure they
read your resume beforehand. Maybe the discussion on their hiring team was
"Well, if he pulls out some magic in the coding challenge..."

You never know. It's not helpful to be angry about it, although it's natural
and understandable. It's not even necessarily your fault. Maybe they just
found someone that would slot into the position easier, just because of
differences in their experience, education, or personality.

~~~
fspear
>Maybe the discussion on their hiring team was "Well, if he pulls out some
magic in the coding challenge..."

This is an unreasonable expectation. If it gets to that point then it should
be a no-hire, don't waste the candidates time.

~~~
khedoros1
People often don't act reasonably, and "should" isn't "will". That was part of
my point. OP is looking for a reason, and sometimes there isn't a reason that
could be supported logically.

~~~
fspear
You are absolutely right. I guess the point I was trying to make is that
companies are not considerate when it comes to a candidate's time. IF after
making a candidate go through a coding test or several interviews you still
have doubts then don't hire him, simple as that. Nowadays companies/hiring
managers/interviewers are used to treating us like crap, sometimes for their
own amusement.Expecting candidates to pull out magic in a coding challenge is
becoming more and more common, even when they know that a candidate won't be
able to pull it off, it's almost as if interviewers enjoy turning people down
and watching people struggle during interviews has become a (sadistic)leisure
activity for them.

~~~
khedoros1
I take your point, and I agree with it.

