
This || this: Whiteboard Interviews - jmmarco
https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/12/16/this-this-whiteboard-interviews/
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daly
BALL-PITS and CLOWN NOSES

I worked with a guy, Bob, in our college computer room. Bob had returned to
get his BS after many years in industry. He had great stories. He also had
great advice. He taught me that you can learn a lot about how a company will
treat their employees by paying attention to the way they treat you during the
interview. He suggested several sign that indicated it was best to just "walk
away".

If you go into a restaurant for a professional lunch meeting and they have a
ball-pit / swing set /etc. it might not be the most professional place to hold
the meeting. Just walk away.

If you go to a 5 star restaurant and they want you to wear a clown nose
(Everybody Does It!) Just walk away.

The big scam is "We hire the best and the brightest". "We mandate a whiteboard
test (Everybody Does It)". It is my opinion (based on experience) that
companies that insist on a whiteboard test, despite years of programming on
your resume and open source code, are either Ball-Pit companies (who don't
know what it means to be a professional) or Clown-Nose companies (who know
what it means to be a professional but still treat you like a commodity). Just
walk away.

When you object, please reference one study in a journal that shows that
whiteboard tests are effective in any measure when used during interviews.

I understand why Google does it. I've even interviewed there. They get
thousands of resumes (which they never read, at least nobody did at my
interviews). They have to weed out the "learn coding in 6 weeks" crowd. But
you're a professional. You should expect to be treated like one. You don't ask
your surgeon to cut up hams in an interview. You don't ask your builder to
nail two boards together. Professional accountants are not interviewd by bank
tellers and ask to count change.

Google, like Microsoft before it (remember the "why are manholes round?
quizes?"), have combined the marketing claim "We hire the best and brightest"
with the ball-pit mentality of whiteboarding. Google HR (sorry, People
Resource?) SHOULD be embarrassed but apparently they, and upper management,
LIKE ball-pits.

A real professional interview involves a discussion about what the company
does, what it current problems are (aka why are they hiring), and a discussion
of if you, as a professional, have the skills to solve the problem. What do
they need? How can you contribute? It is likely that your interviewer has no
idea what you are being interviewed for and cannot answer these basic
questions.

We, as professionals, should consider whiteboarding as an insult.

Just walk away.

