Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I can't speak for other interviewers, but I barely take this into account. As long as someone isn't actively antisocial (has never happened to me) or unprofessional (has happened once or twice) I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication. There have been times where I liked someone and wanted to give them good feedback, but couldn't.



> I barely take this into account.

> I file feedback exclusively on technical merit and communication.

I appreciate your comment, but my point is that there's no way to actually do this, even if your goal is to. It may seem that you're being objective, but the objective facts can only influence the subjective opinion that's ultimately responsible for the decision, not the reverse as we like to think.

For example, if an interviewer likes the interviewee, they would actually think that the person did quite well in the technical question, and not if they don't. We first form an opinion about someone or something and then look for "objective" facts to justify it, not the other way round.

The only way to really be objective here is to use a point system and hard thresholds which completely removes the human in the loop, like SAT.

I recommend "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "Why Buddhism is True" which go into this idea in detail, and in general about how poor we are at being unbiased and rational. You'd be surprised at how deep our irrationality goes even if you already have some idea.


And that's why Google's recruiting has the extra step of a hiring committee which didn't meet the candidate. Interviewers fill out interview feedback based on how their interview went with the candidate, and there's guidelines to try to reduce bias (no gendered pronouns in feedback, the candidate's code is included as-is in the feedback, etc) and the committee makes the final decision based on the feedback.

Sure, what is included can still be slightly biased, but if you're talking about non-technical things at the beginning or end, it won't really make it into the technical interview feedback, and probably will have little to no effect on the committee's decision. At the end of the day, the problems you're asked have optimal solutions and your code will either work or it won't.


Okay, of course, I didn't mean to suggest that I'm a robot - I meant that"Googleyness" is not a conscious criterion. I'm sure charisma etc. can influence me a bit. But when I've asked the same question 50 times, and I have to write up feedback in a structured way (I'll be vague about this to play it safe with my employer, though it's nothing exciting or complicated), there's only a quite limited amount of wiggle room. I certainly wouldn't advise a candidate to optimize for rapport over whiteboard coding or algorithms. Like I said, I've interviewed candidates with whom I had good rapport - with whom I'd love to have a beer - but I still couldn't write strong feedback for them.

I don't think your point is totally off base, I just think you stated it too strongly in your previous comment.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: