
Ask HN: Who does whiteboard interviews? - bsvalley
Similar to who is hiring&#x2F;firing topics on HN, we should start a black list of companies that do onsite whiteboard interviews or notepad phone interviews (algo&#x2F;data structure). Let&#x27;s stand up and  bypass those silly interviews.<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;techcrunch.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;03&#x2F;21&#x2F;the-terrible-technical-interview<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;lightspeed-venture-partners&#x2F;most-tech-interviews-suck-the-only-4-questions-that-matter-1a71181ef4d4
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davelnewton
You can blacklist anywhere I work; I want to see how people approach a
problem, and see some basic coding skills.

While I prefer take-home exercises, I'm always going to ask people to sketch
something out for me.

~~~
smt88
This is a great way to pass over great coders who are introverted or just
thrown off by the act of writing code on a board. Younger people won't even
have learned handwriting skills in school and will have a really hard time.

If you want to test how someone is at coding, why not pair with them? Why not
hire them on contract for a few weeks instead of making them do unpaid
homework when they already might have a full-time job?

If you use artificial tests that are unlike the real job, you're going to get
lower-quality candidates.

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davelnewton
I've never worked in a place that doesn't have whiteboarding sessions for
design, architecture, algos, etc. but YMMV on that one.

In 30 years I've never met anybody that can't write well enough to be read--
that counter-argument I don't even understand. ¯\\(°_o)/¯

I also do pairing, but that won't solve the introversion issue at all. If
anything it might exacerbate it because of personal space issues. Remote
pairing is fine for this, and I do that as well, but it's a little weird for
an onsite.

I've never had the resources for a short-term contract, and there are often
legal issues involved regarding IP, NDAs, HIPAA, whatever. Personally I think
that would be the best approach, but you _have_ to get to the point where you
want to _offer_ them a "short-term" contract. That's not something I'd ever be
willing to do without having a pretty good handle on whether or not hiring
them is a possibility.

I've mis-hired precisely once in twenty years. It may not be an ideal process,
but it's worked for me so far.

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smt88
Pivotal

Google

Also, would be a good idea to link to some research/essays about why
whiteboard interviews are bad for both employers and applicants.

