
Developer Interviews Are Broken, and You Can't Fix It - curtis
http://www.gayle.com/blog/2015/6/10/developer-interviews-are-broken-and-you-cant-fix-it?
======
fsk
They missed one of my favorite (least-abusive) tactics, the paid trial
project.

I.e., pick a real project that will take 10-40 hours. Pay them to do it as a
contracting/interview project. That even works for someone who already has a
job, because they can do it in the evening/weekends.

Asking me to do a 5 hour homework project is an insult, but a paid short-term
contract is fair. (However, some people have employment contracts that forbid
side work.)

However, even that is abusable, because the person might find a more-qualified
friend to help them on the trial project, who wouldn't be helping out for real
projects.

I read another interesting post by someone else (I think it was the Monsanto
guy), who said "Don't filter people out at the phone interview stage, unless
they really fail the phone interview." His reasoning is that you're selecting
for people who sound good over the phone.

~~~
dmoy
How does this tactic avoid missing out on a large number of potential
applicants? e.g.

1) People who are employed and are prohibited from working for a second
company (which may (I don't know) preclude all of Amazon, Facebook, Google,
Microsoft, Yahoo, etc etc).

2) People who do not have much time outside of work (because they work too
much, maybe missing them is a good thing?)

3) People who do not have much free time outside of work because of non-work
(e.g. family with a bunch of kids)

Also how does that work for companies where

1) Source code for their projects is quite secret (unless, are you suggesting
the project be some random thing unrelated to the company? In which case, that
might be a lot of money down the drain)

2) Spin-up time for new employees vastly exceeds a 10-40 hour project (maybe
they need a long time to ramp up)

I mean I like the idea of a paid project, I just don't see it working for a
lot of candidates, or a lot of the industry.

~~~
fsk
Yeah, that approach has issues also. I wouldn't want to spend a week of free
time on something unless it was a much higher rate than my regular job or an
amazing opportunity.

If you're expecting me to put in a lot of time BEFORE I meet you, I'll just
pass. After I meet your team, it'll be easier for me to decide if I want to
put in more time jumping through hoops.

One advantage of giving people homework is that it DOES filter out a lot of
candidates! Does it filter out the good ones or the bad ones?

------
ryanobjc
Ah well done.

People might get down on this article because of it's negative framing, but
the reality is to improve the situation, one has to really understand what has
been tried, why it did or did not work.

Great stuff here.

------
mehrdada
Says someone who has vested interest in it not get fixed.

~~~
suyash
That's good point. I'm sure she probably has that mentioned in her post.

I wouldn't take on the pessibimist's attitude like the author, but encourage
folks to keep trying new ways of interviews and sharing what worked and what
didn't on both the ends on the web.

Just like other software processes like Agile development, Code Review,
Release process - the more open companies can be in sharing their strategies
the more input others can add and experiment and who knows maybe come up with
something a whole lot better than what has been the trend for the past 20 - 25
years started by Microsoft.

