

Ask HN: Do coding interviews accurately assess candidates? - unclebucknasty

Is asking applicants to write code to solve a random problem while the interviewer watches a good way to assess the applicant&#x27;s abilites?
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davismwfl
Yes and no.

Yes it can help understand where a candidate is confident or weak, but no it
doesn't tell you if the candidate is qualified usually. I have had people flub
the most basic of questions because of nerves or a stupid mental block etc. So
I don't think this is a productive way of learning if the person is quality or
not.

But even a slight twist of making it mainly interactive can lead to many more
interesting discoveries. Recognizing people might be nervous and giving them
some helpful hints and working collaboratively with them to come up with
ideas/solutions and letting them lead you where they feel is the right place
helps you learn far more. This doesn't mean that you aren't pushing them to
learn the extent of their capabilities, it just means you are doing it in a
way in which you are hopefully getting the best/most from the person.

I have also found that even when you need to say no to those that can't make
the cut, if you followed the basic collaboration pattern they will generally
spread good comments about the process and over a little time that helps you
get better applicants.

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gt565k
It's better to give them a coding assignment with a deadline of say 24 or 48
hours. That way they can use resources available to them, just as they would
at the workplace. Have them submit it to github as a pull request, and you can
inspect the quality of the code.

Follow up with a phone call to discuss the code and ask questions about it.
That way you know the candidate actually wrote the code and you can be
confident the quality of it represents the candidate's skills.

