I always try to give everyone I’ve interviewed the benefit of the doubt. You never know what’s going on in their lives, and even if they fail a trivial question it doesn’t mean they are faking the ability to code.
I joined Facebook back in 2018. Didn’t study at all for the interview and passed somehow. Then I probably conducted 200-300 interviews in my time there, so I became quite familiar with the questions. My performance ratings were all exceeds or greatly exceeds. I voluntarily left on my own after four years to join a unicorn startup. I didn’t prep for that interview either but passed it too. Well, the startup failed and many people went back to Meta. So I actually prepared quite a bit this time and scheduled a mock interview with them. The mock interviewer said I did great and not to change a thing. When it came time for the real screening interview... I failed the matching parentheses question.
I generally try not to make excuses. Almost every interview I’ve failed has clearly been my own fault. But in this particular one the interviewer kept interrupting me every two seconds and I absolutely could not think. I had done matching parentheses many times before in practice, but the constant interrupting rattled me to the point where I totally lost focus and bombed it. Not a great experience.
So yeah, I’d just recommend giving people the benefit of the doubt. Everyone has difficult moments occasionally, but it doesn’t mean they’re stupid or can’t code.
I run coding interviews at BIGCO. Half of the candidate success relies on the skills of the interviewer. A bad interviewer can bomb the best candidates.
Something I have changed my stance on a bit is automated coding interviews. I used to be adamantly against a company giving candidates automated code tests, but I see now that it takes the interviewer out of the equation.
Pre-screening, depending on how it’s done, could eliminate good candidates.
There have been times I’ve received answers in interview that weren’t the written answers, but I looked it up afterward and tested it out… and they were right. I learned something news and tweaked the answer reference as a result. If those questions were in the pre-screening instead of asked directly by me, it would have filtered out good people.
I remember fighting to get access to the pre-screen data to see what the answers were and find if there were any other cases like this, where the non-technical pre-screener was filtering out potentially good candidates, because we couldn’t give them exhaustive answers to questions being asked.
>but I see now that it takes the interviewer out of the equation.
Well yes, that's why I'm against it. A one way "interview" is an audition, not an interview. There's nothing worse than wasting 2, 5, 10+ hours on something that ends up with a template rejection letter.
That's great for the interviewer, but devastating for the interviewee. They can't even get feedback on how to improve.
Nobody is going to give an interviewee feedback, even if they are interviewed by a human. There is too much legal risk to open the company up to discrimination lawsuits.
There is also nothing worse than wasting 2, 5, 10+ hours on an in person interview to just have the interviewer flunk you our be unfair to you.
I still believe that personal interviews are important, I'm just raising the fact that a large portion of an interviewee's success is based upon their interviewer.
Yes, and actions have consequences I'm not going to audition if I have not at least talked to a human first. The game industry in particular does this to abuse Artists and Designers with spec work, so I feel especially strong about the power dynamic here.
>There is also nothing worse than wasting 2, 5, 10+ hours on an in person interview to just have the interviewer flunk you our be unfair to you
The interview stage inflation is definitely a problem, but speaking with actual people still has benefits. You get an idea of their culture and you can still network even in such a situation. It's not guaranteed but you get a much higher chance to get advice and feedback on or off the record if you're polite. People are flexible, some standardized exam may never even reach a human.
>'m just raising the fact that a large portion of an interviewee's success is based upon their interviewer.
Indeed. I'm just stating a viewpoint where an interview needs to be personal. An audition in this software space is about as impersonal as you can get.
As an interviewer at Google, we arent given an exact list of questions to ask or what to evaluate (there are broad categories).
It is really entirely up to each interviewer how the interview goes and they are usually scheduled between 2 other meetings so often the interviewer is distracted.
Yeah, rejected after previously working there. Was also going for a different role than I previously had. To their credit, I respect that they don't just hand out free passes back in.
Welcome to the wonderful world of coding under pressure, which almost never occurs in the real world. It's a non-issue when you're young and don't feel the pressure. But when you have grey hairs in your beard and know you're already walking in with two strikes, all of a sudden the fog of war kicks in.
I always try to give everyone I’ve interviewed the benefit of the doubt. You never know what’s going on in their lives, and even if they fail a trivial question it doesn’t mean they are faking the ability to code.
I joined Facebook back in 2018. Didn’t study at all for the interview and passed somehow. Then I probably conducted 200-300 interviews in my time there, so I became quite familiar with the questions. My performance ratings were all exceeds or greatly exceeds. I voluntarily left on my own after four years to join a unicorn startup. I didn’t prep for that interview either but passed it too. Well, the startup failed and many people went back to Meta. So I actually prepared quite a bit this time and scheduled a mock interview with them. The mock interviewer said I did great and not to change a thing. When it came time for the real screening interview... I failed the matching parentheses question.
I generally try not to make excuses. Almost every interview I’ve failed has clearly been my own fault. But in this particular one the interviewer kept interrupting me every two seconds and I absolutely could not think. I had done matching parentheses many times before in practice, but the constant interrupting rattled me to the point where I totally lost focus and bombed it. Not a great experience.
So yeah, I’d just recommend giving people the benefit of the doubt. Everyone has difficult moments occasionally, but it doesn’t mean they’re stupid or can’t code.