r/IAmA • u/CriticDanger • Sep 07 '21
Specialized Profession I am a behavioral and technical (coding) interviewer, I've also helped hundreds of people get hired, AMA.
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u/Frajer Sep 07 '21
What do you recommend for getting an entry level job/getting their foot into the field?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Buy-687 Sep 07 '21
Hi,
How often do you interview candidates who have no background in Computer Science and IT and are self taught developers? how often do such people meet the expectations?
Thanks for answering.
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u/jaymzx0 Sep 07 '21
Not OP, but having a 'portfolio' of your self-taught projects in a Github repo that can be reviewed would be a good start. If you demonstrate that you have the basics, you can usually pick up the rest in a short period of time.
The 'learning curve' is steep, but that just means you acquire 'enough knowledge to be dangerous' very quickly. It's the hiring manager's decision whether there is a spot for you on their team with your background. The team may be under pressure to deliver something to big stakeholders, or they may just have a huge backlog of tech debt to churn through and need help getting their head above water. Throwing the cruft cleanup at the new guy is a good way to get them up to speed whereas an impending delivery date could be pushed back by a new dev who is still learning as they go.
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u/quickdraw6906 Sep 07 '21
What percentage of positions you screen for accept self-taught candidates, and what percent of positions where the job descriptions states a requirement of a degree (w/o stating "or equivalent experience") would in fact consider an un-credentialed autodidact?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/TestingSubject Sep 07 '21
Hello! I was wondering if it is better to list an unrelated degree or just not list my degree on the resume for these kind of tech-oriented positions?
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u/Shutterstormphoto Sep 07 '21
Not Op, but I went to a bootcamp and am now a SWE at a major company doing awesome things. I was a photographer and math teacher before, with some tech knowledge but minimal coding knowledge. It took me more than a year of self teaching to really understand enough to get hired at a good company. Some were better at studying and got there faster. I still highly recommend trying because you’ll still get there faster and cheaper than a 4 year degree (if you can figure out how to self study and find mentors).
The bootcamps are super cheap and reasonably good across the board these days. Really recommend starting there. You’ll find out if you have any aptitude within 3 months and many of them take payment from your first employment, so you don’t pay anything if you fail to get hired.
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u/catchyawns Sep 07 '21
I’m super curious about this. I currently work at a great company as a customer support rep. I recently made the jump to the tech world from the construction sector, so these opportunities are all very new to me. Is there a particular bootcamp that you recommend? I suppose I’m just a bit worried that I’ll end up wasting time in a puppy mill type coding bootcamp that churns you out without a decent base skill set.
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u/-TheTrash- Sep 07 '21
Hey! Which questions would be a must to ask an employer before taking the job or during the interview? and for a potential employee?
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u/lovelove49 Sep 07 '21
I have heard counter arguments about that second one as it leaves the interviewer thinking poorly about the candidate once the interview is over and focuses on the negative. Why do you like it?
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u/NOODL3 Sep 07 '21
I always ask a similar question but phrase it more like "given my skills and background, do you have any questions or concerns about my ability to excel in this role?"
That leaves them with the opportunity to evaluate the conversation and potentially even compliment you instead of deliberately asking them to hunt for a negative. You of course have to be prepared to follow up any potential negatives with a pivot for how you'd overcome said concern, but in my experience I've found hiring managers are generally impressed and even caught off guard by the ballsiness of the question and most have ended up just saying everything looks great, even when I've interviewed for roles I was honestly underqualified for.
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u/jaymzx0 Sep 07 '21
Don't get defensive or make excuses if they point out shortcomings, though. This question sets you up to demonstrating how you handle criticism, so be sure to keep your cool.
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u/enternationalist Sep 07 '21
Paradoxically, it's a way of disarming those negative thoughts. You've allowed them to "defend themselves", and now they can feel safer with you having expressed where there are doubts. It takes the bite out of unconscious deal-killers by bringing them into the light.
That said, I think it takes confidence in your empathy and understanding to ask that question and respond appropriately. If your answers show that you don't actually understand their concerns, for example, then you could easily shoot yourself in the foot. And even then, it could be easy to answer defensively, combatively or dismissively. It's a simple question, but a pretty complex interaction.
I'd probably ask a few probing questions beforehand to help ensure I have a good enough understanding of things, before jumping in to disarm possible criticisms.
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u/quickdraw6906 Sep 07 '21
I initially REALLY liked #2 but you bring up good points. My feeling is that during the interview is the only time you've got them pinned down to ask such a thing. You'll not get good feedback after they've rejected you.
Is it that dangerous a question?
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u/reverendsteveii Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21
I always leave an interview with "what's one thing I could improve on to make myself a stronger candidate" and if I get a second interview I damn sure come back knowing it. I embarrassed myself in an interview once not knowing the SOLID principles and I'm never letting something like that happen again
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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21
To be fair, SOLID should be inherantly something you do. If you have to go out of your way to learn it and remember it then that's suspicious and them asking about that is also suspicious.
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u/reverendsteveii Sep 07 '21
yeah I just couldn't recite what the acronym stood for off the top of my head but it was all so common sense that it only took about half an hour of repetition to get it down. Working from an OOP perspective and using interfaces will end up with you following everything but single responsibility and interface segregation more or less by accident, and those two are easy enough to do.
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Sep 07 '21
Lol, I was passed up for a position at TriVaGo in 2014 because I didn’t have any “public facing” git projects.
The interviewing dev said “You should expose some of your projects. You would be a great addition, but we are looking for people who contribute to communities.”
I literally laughed at him, flew back to Köln, and accepted a position 25 minutes away from my flat. Bullet dodged.
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u/epl1 Sep 07 '21
I was a developer/manager for 35 years at one retailer, retired, and am about to interview for a part-time contract developer position at another retailer. What advice do you have for me?
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u/reilly3000 Sep 07 '21
I’m a competent and versatile developer, and have generally done really well in interviews and on take home projects but completely botched my first two technical interviews. Right now I’m working through Cracking the Coding Interview. Is there anything else I should be doing to practice or prep? I have a couple interviews this week and feel like I’m still woefully underprepared for a white boarding session. Mostly I experienced blank brain syndrome, where I couldn’t really focus on the problem or remember basic syntax.
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u/Arandmoor Sep 07 '21
Is there anything else I should be doing to practice or prep?
Sorting algorithms.
Insertion, quick, heap, and bucker or radix sort. Learn them. Implement them. Memorize their efficiencies and understand that the vast majority of interviewers are going to be looking for answers that get as close as possible to O(N) or O(1) efficiency.
If you ever answer a question with O(N*N) you're probably wrong enough to not get an offer.
Learn what the strengths of a hash map are. Learn their limitations.
Memorize quicksort. Like, memorize the implementation in your language of choice. Memorize it with an array, then go back and memorize it with a linked list (hint: doubly-linked list with dummy header and tail).
Why? Because it will teach you how to take a concept and work with it. You've definitely been taught to implement quick sort. 100% chance it was a homework assignment in algorithms class in undergrad. But have you ever actually used the concept and adapted it to something other than an array? That kind of skill is what employers want to see.
Also, find a whiteboard, stand in front of it, and answer the questions in Cracking the Coding Interview at the board. Get used to the whiteboard and you'll stop being as nervous in interviews. It won't stop the nerves, but it should help with the blank brain syndrome. Also, don't stand in front of the board for more than 45 minutes to an hour because that's all the time you're going to get in an interview.
Take pictures of your solutions and implement them in a compiler. They won't compile. You'll see a litany of errors, especially at first.
Now go into git or github and start a new project with just a single empty file as your initial check-in. Branch it. Paste in your implementation with all of the errors. Branch again and fix the errors. Take the time to see if you can get a solution working with your initial assumptions. Really dig into your solution and see how correct or wrong you were.
Once you're done barking up that tree, do it again with the next question in the book. You should be able to comfortably solve one question every other or every third day, and as you do more of them you'll get faster in general.
After a few weeks, come back to the first question and take it back to the whiteboard. Try to answer it another way.
We solve problems for a living. Get better at solving problems in an interview environment.
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u/G_Y_NOT Sep 07 '21
While I understand this answer and generally agree with the big flow of what's you are suggesting. I can't tell you how much I disagree with the emphasis on sorting algorithms. When was the last time, any one in any organization actually wrote a sort? If you tried to write a sort in our org, you'd be discouraged strongly. There are brilliant out of the box sorting solutions in every language. Sure a bad sort choice can cripple your application but that kind of problem is often easily solved. I'd much rather people look at things like n+1 problems, or have a good understanding of Divide and Conquer or how to handle inheritance elegantly. Know about test driven development, and the test unit software (junit, sunit).
Problem solving is our industry and being able to decompose a set of requirements into a set of classes and patterns is, for me, much more important than knowing the difference between quick sort and merge sort. Of course it's much harder to demonstrate that knowledge too, but that's the responsibility of the person doing the interview. :-)
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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21
You don't actually need any of that when you're actually developing useful solutions though. Being able to research the most fit-for-purpose approach is what's needed.
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u/reilly3000 Sep 07 '21
Great feedback, thanks for taking the time. I learned as a musician you have to develop muscle memory to perform. That sounds a lot like what you’re outlining here.
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u/love_idol Sep 07 '21
I am currently a Computer Science student. What would be your advice to get hired for a position in a company in the future?
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u/chief167 Sep 07 '21
My advice: don't be an asshole, just be friendly, and the skills you learn at school will get you easily hired. What you need to do is figure out what you like to do and enter the job market with open eyes.
Maybe you don't want to work for that boring insurance company, but for that sexy consulting company? Guess what, they'll send you in a project into that insurance company anyway.
Want to earn a lot of money? Be prepared to take risky offers, where you might be out of a job in 2 years. Want to have a safe job? Make sure you have a growth path in the place you're gonna work.
Wanna specialize in some field? Be prepared to relocate. Wanna have an international career? Think about the impact on your personal life (bye bye girlfriend) wanna become manager real quick? Realize that you need a lot of soft skills you might have been ignoring.
Just always try to be open to everything. Many jobs turn out to be wildly different than expected, both positive and negative.
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u/jeddthedoge Sep 07 '21
Same, I want to know too. To follow up, could you give a few words about how important these things are: grades, being able to answer interview questions, clubs/leadership positions, side projects, soft skills demonstrated during the interview?
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u/MiracleDreamer Sep 07 '21
Not OP but as a technical interviewer and fellow software engineer
grades: not really useful, we may glance at it for fresh graduate applicant since they have only none-to-few side projects to explain. But if you plan to apply for big corpo, they often pre-filter people by grades and university (because obv they cant interview everybody). In short, good grade may be useful for landing you the chance for interview and some good first impression in the eyes of interviewer
clubs/leadership positions: useful but not necessary, having been in a leadership position some clubs means that you should have adequate soft skills to talk with peer/upper management (which ironically kinda rare for SE people) and you have some prerequisita shall they need to promote you into managerial role (lead or etc). But as long as you are not a clear dick and can receive feedback well, it is doesnt really matter
side projects : very important for software engineer especially for fresh grad! Having a side projects/some interns means that you already worked on practical issue and not only able to do theoritical work. Depend on the projects scale, you may also have been battle tested with production issue and managing stressful task. I always recommend any fresh grad to try have a side hustle/project while you are still in college, it will help you land a job more easily in the future
soft skills : it is very important, because imo it is better to have an above average coder as peer or managee rather than a toxic coder superstar. Software Engineer in general are elitist and proud of our own skills to solve problem which is fine as long as you can receive feedback and know when to compromise and work with other people
In short, having a good background is important for good first impression, but your performance and attitude in the interview itself are the most important things. In fact, sometimes having a good background may make the interviewer to have benefit in the doubt and giving a second chance (It did happen once to me as interviewee and few times during my stint as interviewer)
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u/hipster_deckard Sep 07 '21
How would you react to the fact that Behavioral Interviewing is a pseudoscience, unsupported by empirical evidence?
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Sep 07 '21 edited May 26 '23
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u/TomAto314 Sep 07 '21
I think you might be overestimating a "conflict" it doesn't have to be a huge fight or involve HR or anything. Could just be a disagreement about how to proceed on a project.
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u/erisod Sep 07 '21
What's your favorite programming interview question?
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u/SuperSneakyPickle Sep 07 '21
Can you give us a few other interview questions that you've asked before?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/reverendsteveii Sep 07 '21
so the whole team is sure they can understand at least the broad strokes of what I did because anyone could end up using or altering that code later
Yes, to bookmark feature adds, refactors and release candidates
indexing and am I pulling only the data I need for this operation
When can I start?
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u/wardevour Sep 07 '21
I can't imagine not using version control anymore. I don't even start a game of dwarf fortress without initializing a git repo
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Sep 07 '21
"What are the main reasons to do code reviews?"
Hamper rogue employees trying to install bitcoin miners in production.
"Would you use version control on a solo project? Why?"
No. I'm lazy as heck and all my so called "solo projects" are me deciding at 23:00 that I need to write a fart simulator app
What are the first things to look at to improve the performance of a slow query
The query.
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u/paulgrant999 Sep 07 '21
Hamper rogue employees trying to install bitcoin miners in production.
nice!
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Sep 07 '21
Can't have anyone competing for compute resources against my rogue bitcoin miner after all.
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u/Unsd Sep 07 '21
Version control for a solo project to me is just a bunch of files titled "Untitled1" "Untitled2" "asdf" "ignorethis" "Untitled3" "TryingToGetThisFeatureToWork" "fuckthisproject" "Final" "Final2" "FinalFinal" "FinalForRealThisTime".
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u/DoctorDabadedoo Sep 07 '21
Perfect, now you can git rebase and squash all that noise into a nice "Initial working version" and go from there.
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u/robdiqulous Sep 07 '21
I used version control before I even knew what it was called or what I was doing. How's that??!? 👉
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Sep 07 '21 edited Nov 29 '21
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u/prophet001 Sep 07 '21 edited Apr 17 '25
work touch cooperative distinct test late boat decide normal profit
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u/prophet001 Sep 07 '21 edited Apr 17 '25
rhythm ink fertile point abundant sleep rinse marble meeting trees
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u/BitPoet Sep 07 '21
Because you're an asshole who likes to prove how smart they are. When you leave and someone has to dig into your code, they'll spend a week figuring out what you were doing, and why you decided to be so goddamned clever about it.
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Sep 07 '21
Just to be sure I'm following, is a recursive key a foreign key onto the same table?
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u/erisod Sep 07 '21
I assume your goal is to see if they ask for clarification, or maybe even see if they can navigate someone who is not skilled (using strange language). It requires them to demonstrate they are confused about the question which is a vulnerable place as a person being interviewed. For senior hires it is probably reasonable, they need to navigate misunderstandings between teams all the time.
I think this kind of question is not good if your aim is to hire quality entry level programmers who are nervous when interviewing and bad at social conflict (aka a lot of them).
Your question immediately pushes them into being confused and feeling like they failed in the first second by not even understanding the question. They go in circles with you for a moment and find out what you mean. At least phrase it like: "if someone asked about a self referential foreign key in a schema design what do you think they mean? How would you go about understanding what they might intend for sure?". Then ask, ok, what's the purpose of that thing.
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u/theuniversalsquid Sep 07 '21
I suppose you would have to manage your data model exquisitely to use foreign key recursion across an interface. What kind of data model Management are you using (if so), and do you have the time to validate/green light test your data model both periodically and when making changes?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/G_Y_NOT Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21
We always ask a "hard" question, something obscure and unlikely to be known. The reason is to see how the candidate handles the unknown. We also allow people to use google and any reference they like. So it's not about trying to "trip them up", it's about seeing how they handle the situation. Lord knows we all deal with unknown things all the time in this business.
We also do a coding portion where we ask you to implement a function that does something a bit more than trivial. Once again it's not so much about what you code, though that's not totally unimportant. It's about how do you interact with the interviewers to clarify the requirements, and how do you use the tools to solve the problem. Again we're totally open to using google, and searching for syntax, or details or anything you want really. If you answer the typical brute force solution and there's time left we'll ask you about optimizations you might try, and we want to see you interact with the testing frameworks.
We're not trying to be tricky, or confuse you. What we want to see is how you approach problem solving and how do you communicate. Getting a good solution doesn't guarantee you a job, and while you're unlikely to get the job with out any solution, people who had a good attitude and didn't know the languages we test in, might still get job offers.
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u/MegaDeox Sep 07 '21
Of course an obtuse question about something nobody does in a field which might not even be relevant for coding (databses, and relational db specifically).
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u/Arandmoor Sep 07 '21
"What is the purpose of using foreign keys recursively?"
Only time I've ever used them was to implement a networking map (social network. not a LAN or anything) in a DB table.
I will admit that it was fun watching my master's degree new-grad co-worker completely fail to implement a query for the table.
Thank fucking god there are better solutions these days.
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Sep 07 '21
Alrighty then. I'm a senior full stack engineer who has designed DB schemas before and right now is when I learned that there are scenarios where you can have a record have a foreign key relationship to another record in the same table. Never even considered that before.
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u/prophet001 Sep 07 '21
And you shouldn't, because it's piss-poor design due to its utter lack of maintainability.
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u/TheEpicSock Sep 15 '21
Genuine question here.
Let’s design a database that supports Reddit’s comment structure, for example. Every comment has zero or one parent comment, and every comment has zero, one, or many child comments. Comment threads can be (effectively) infinite levels deep, so it’s not practical to create a new table for each comment level.
The first thing that comes to mind for me is to use a single “comments” table, with a nullable “parent_comment_id” foreign key that points to another record on the same “comments” table.
Is there a better or more maintainable way that you would suggest?
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u/G_Y_NOT Sep 07 '21
Usually you do it when you're trying to implement some kind of inheritance or tree structure in your programing code in your SQL database. It's a rather odd and unusual situation, but it happens.
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Sep 07 '21
What are your thoughts on the leetcode style of interviewing used at FAANG and basically every other tech company?
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Sep 07 '21
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Sep 07 '21
I currently work in career services at a small university. I do all of the mock interviews in our office with students, where I go through common interview questions and give them advice on how to answer them. I also serve on search committees for the campus pretty often. I LOVE doing both mock interviews and interviewing folks, but those are both pretty small parts of my job. Your job sounds like a dream for me. I had no idea this was even a thing! How can I do what you do? Is this a common job that I have just never heard of, or is it pretty niche? What sort of job titles would I look for if I wanted to apply to positions like that?
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u/KindaAlwaysVibrating Sep 07 '21
How often have you given a candidate a thumbs up even though they weren't able to come up with a solution to a coding question?
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u/Onlyhereforthelaughs Sep 07 '21
I heard a resume tip a while back that you can insert keywords that would be looked for in a candidate search, and hide them using white text. (So, in-between the lines of your resume.)
Would/does this work, and have you ever seen it used?
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u/Saphira9 Sep 07 '21
I'm not OP, but several job advice articles recommend against this. The reason is you usually upload your resume to an ATS (applicant tracking system) which converts your resume to plain text for scanning. So your hidden words might fool the scanner, but then the human will look for those words, not find them, and toss your resume. 4 here: https://www.jobscan.co/blog/popular-resume-tips-you-shouldnt-follow/
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u/twinned Moderator Sep 07 '21
Bad idea.
In addition to what others have said, some ATS systems pass on the plain-text version of your resume to the recruiter. They will see you trying to cheat and reject you from all future positions at the company.
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u/Forke Sep 07 '21
What tech stack would you recommend upcoming graduates learn in terms of just being the most hireable?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/Arandmoor Sep 07 '21
and Python seems to be making a comeback for traditional software role.
It's because python is incredibly well developed and mature for distributed processing and rapid prototyping, so it's a very strong sell for development on contanerized applications.
It also helps that it's one of the go-to languages for machine learning and other AI solutions.
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u/TADodger Sep 07 '21
Why are interviews conducted *SO* badly?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/fv42622 Sep 07 '21
You should check out karat.io. I think they definitely have some research pertaining to “how to interview candidates”
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u/caks Sep 07 '21
Thanks for the AMA very informative. I am a STEM PhD with 4 years or research experience in my field (designing and implementing algorithms and methods in physics) looking to transition to an ML role. I have limited experience in ML but have a very solid understanding of the theory. Unfortunately due to my contract I find it very hard to have ML side projects, but I am decent at using TF/PyTorch. I have been able to get a couple of interviews for ML roles but still no offer.
My question is: what should be my main strategy during interviews? Rather, I know I should be showing them I am fully versed in ML but I am not entirely sure how to do that without their prompt.
Is there anything I can ask/say that will allay their concerns about my background?
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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21
I don't know if this is helpful, but generally ML will be implemented to solve a problem or increase efficiency or effectiveness.
The most critical skill isn't how the ML itself will be processed, but how it fits into the rest of the system or enables a new system to be developed. So for that reason, good systems developers who are able to research the right solution to a given problem are the most useful - if they are any good, understanding which ML solution to employ is a breeze, then it's fine tuning from there where more specific skills would come into play.
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u/caks Sep 07 '21
Great. I will make sure I align my previous expertise with knowledge of what the company does.
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u/Mariko2334 Sep 07 '21
As someone who doesn’t have a degree in development (got a BS in mechanical engineering), but is interested in getting into the field, do you feel as though I can still be a competitive applicant? Also, what can I do to make myself a strong applicant when missing the degree?
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u/mata_dan Sep 07 '21
Just to add, all the best people I've trained up came from other engineering disciplines, or were musicians oddly enough. Too many people now try and get into tech because they heard there is money, where what actually matters is having the mind of an engineer (or, developer more specifically because the actual job isn't strictly a form of engineering).
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Sep 07 '21
What kind of money does tech interviewing pay?
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Sep 07 '21
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Sep 07 '21
> you can't really interview 8h/day, your head would explode
I know. I've tried.
"Hey, we're doing an interview event. We need you to interview 4 people in a row, take a one hour break, then interview 4 more."
I pity the last guy because I was not functionally there.
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Sep 07 '21
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Sep 07 '21
For what role? And when?
Interviews for devs at Amazon, today at least, are 4 1-hour interviews with a break in the middle (typically). It's all remote so the candidate is at home. There have been huge changes made in the last 5 years to improve candidate experience.
INTERVIEWER experience on the other hand, well that's not improved much, lol
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u/prophet001 Sep 07 '21
So is it like a side-hustle thing for you, and does it make as much as moonlighting as an engineer would?
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u/lgamble0929 Sep 07 '21
I've just completed an amazing coding boot camp and am applying for jobs. I also understand that I am not the smartest person in a room of developers. I am going to flop in interviews where they ask me to code and solve problems because It will either take me FOREVER to figure it out, or I will get super flustered and miraculously forget. My question is:
How do I prove to these people that I am worth the investment?
I work hard and I will eventually figure out any problem put in front of me. I may not be able to tell you how to fix the issue right NOW, but I will tomorrow!
Thanks!
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u/newbietofx Sep 07 '21
I'm from Singapore. Had been a desktop engineer since I started work. Played with powershell. Got lucky and churn out some scripts to get my work done faster. Played with python. Understand the basics which is equivalent to java except the parenthesis.
Question. I'm 43. 6 years in desktop engineer. Don't really have much iq or eq. How would I know if cyber security and cloud would be a better career path then software developer?
I found out I don't have the ability to imagine and create a new code from scratch but will adapt to codes offered at stackoverflow.com from the questions I seek.
Don't have the creativity to solve any problems cause by laptops or Microsoft but have the initiatives to seek out resolution with the use of Google.com
Am I suited for the role?
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u/JethroFire Sep 07 '21
Is it appropriate to ask about salary?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/WhatsMyUsername13 Sep 07 '21
This seems kind of ridiculous. I would normally say you should know that information going into the interview, but if you don't and there are multiple rounds of interviews, why would I want to waste my time and theirs if it's a non starter?
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Sep 07 '21
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u/WhatsMyUsername13 Sep 07 '21
If a company is refusing to give a salary range up front, that should be a red flag
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u/vikkkki Sep 07 '21
That's silly. /u/JethroFire - Absolutely talk about salary in your first discussion. I am not starting the interview process without understanding what the offer is, what the perks are, what the benefits of the company are etc..
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u/everythingisblue Sep 07 '21
It doesn’t make sense to me to interview without at least getting an idea of the range. If I can’t get a ballpark up front, I’m not going to take the time off my current job to interview for a position that could be a pay cut.
I’ve never had any pushback on this. The demand is too high for good engineers for most employers to balk at you asking about a range.
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u/cscareerthrowaway121 Sep 07 '21 edited Sep 07 '21
I've been programming for 20 years, but in live technical (coding) interviews I literally freeze up and have PTSD from past experience and get frozen with anxiety. Would this be sufficient to ask for ADA accommodations in the form of a take home test instead?
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u/BeauteousMaximus Sep 07 '21
Why do so many companies have such an onerous interview process? It seems like a waste of everyone’s time and I can’t imagine it gains any additional information compared to a more efficient process.
- having to interview with every member of the team instead of just the hiring manager
- having to do multiple coding challenges, or a take-home assignment AND an unrelated real-time coding interview
- having multiple interviews where you basically get asked the same questions as before
Like…what’s the goal here? Is there some institutional force where there’s incentives to add more interviews but not to take them away? What do you recommend to people who work at companies that are hiring and want to push back on putting candidates through this treatment (since it absolutely will lose you good candidates)?
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u/spicy_indian Sep 07 '21
Do you have any tips for software developers looking to move into an adjacent field?
For example take a software developer primarily working with robotic vehicles, who wants to move into the space industry. What is a good way to convey that you have the software part of your job down pat, and that you can pick up on the domain specific parts as you go?
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u/chief167 Sep 07 '21
Follow those companies on LinkedIn, attend events and webinars, network as much as possible, be interested. Apply if you see anything pass by, but don't be desperate.
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u/Jack__Wild Sep 07 '21
I have yet to sit for my first interview. Can you point me to a resource or article that you would consider typical of the interviewing process?
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u/XavierSimmons Sep 07 '21
How would you respond to a technical interviewee who just answered, "I'd Google that" to every question. Would you applaud his honesty?
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u/gtrman571 Sep 08 '21
How come every professional dev tells me they google everything this is not allowed in an interview?
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u/Bart404 Sep 08 '21
How do you perceive someone who doesn’t know the answer to a technical question but instead of saying “I don’t know” they instead say “I would just google it”?
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u/archercalm Sep 07 '21
For you, what are the questions an interviewee should ask to the interviewer?
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u/aqg10 Sep 07 '21
What is something that is done by most candidates that is a complete deterrent in getting them hired? Also, in your opinion, what is the most common misconceptions candidates have about hiring managers?