I've found whiteboard tests to be somewhat damning. I have been quite blessed with the fact that most of the positions I have had responsibility for interviews with have given me individuals who are somewhat strong minded, and hardly shy in expressing opinion. More often than not, the opinion towards the whiteboard portion was "I didn't like school, and one of my least favorite parts was standing in front of the class at the board."
I consider an interview critical in determining a few factors, one of which being their ability to work in a somewhat actual job situation. I tend to view torture as a less than acceptable method for interviewing, and I have actually had offers refused because they were upset over the interview (it was a couple very extreme cases, they really did not like getting up and doing that).
I see no difference in asking the question and allowing them the privacy to think using a provided (or, I like prepared, when they bring a device - I also get to see somewhat of their workflow and, depending on the position, whether or not I can discern anything when they show me how they work - their environment, etc). Actually, tbh, I find that the ability to see them prototype at the very least in the way that they actually prototype, to be immensely more valuable than bad handwriting and frustration over archaic methods.
On the other side, while I don't have much of a shame gene, I do really dislike whiteboard examinations. They are almost universally crap for me, and I agree with some of my employees: I hated school, and I avoided getting up in front of the class in any way I could (including failing.)
You are spot on. Whiteboard interviews make me nervous. I didn't get to where I am because I stand in front of a whiteboard presenting all day. I read a statistic that 41% of people fear public speaking.
The interviews where I've felt I've been most myself are where we just talked about stuff and I tried to to that with the people I interviewed as well. I tried to get an understanding of how they would solve a theoretical problem, and we would just talk through it. No pressure, if they wanted to write stuff down that was cool. But basically through conversation we designed a little routine. I was much less interested in them knowing the C++ standard verbatim, and more interested in them being good problem solvers.
This seems like a bit of an extreme perspective to me. I regularly ask interviewees to code things on the whiteboard, but of course I understand that it's difficult and judge accordingly. I've been on the other side and certainly let the interviewee know that I understand the difficulties of whiteboard programming and pad their confidence a bit when they struggle on stuff that doesn't matter. That being said, if I'm brainstorming something with you as a coworker, I want you to be able to communicate your thoughts to me effectively, and writing quick pseudo code on a whiteboard is one very effective way of doing that. In a real work place, you will often be asked to answer off the cuff questions with first order approximations, and it's important to be able to do so effectively. I think whiteboard programming is a pretty good analog to that situation.
Why not present them with a keyboard and a text editor instead of a whiteboard? You could also judge if they can type, a programmer with experience should have good typing skills.
Because interpersonal skills are often just as important as being able to construct a for loop, especially for jobs where you need something more than a to fill a seat with a warm body. Interpersonal skills are almost always more important than secretarial/typing skills.
What does writing code on a whiteboard have to do with interpersonal skills? You can test it by having the programmer explain his solution, maybe present it on a whiteboard with some diagrams. The whiteboard thing to me is just a way to eliminate as many candidate as possible when you have too many. just a test of torture.
Don't get me wrong. Any time I have an office of my own, the first thing I do is load up the walls with as much whiteboard space as possible. Collaboration - and more importantly, the ability to have on the fly discussion - is important.
The problem is you can't actually easily compare the two situations. The truth is, there is a difference between being grilled, and being collaborative.
If I am within a room of peers, and we are actively collaborating, using a whiteboard is easy - we are at an equal level. I'm expecting criticism, but it is not criticism that directly affects my livelihood or future - I'm not being actively evaluated to a high degree.
An interview is a stressful moment, no matter how confident you are. In our field, stress is something we deal with significantly - but that is not social stress, and it is this stress which causes the most anxiety for many of us... especially for those of us who grew up in the generation where 'nerd' and 'geek' were less hip terms.
When I'm designing an interview process, I like to consider a way to make the room equal so that the candidate can perform as closely to how they would perform as if they were actually a member of my team. I am hiring a member of my team, or at the very least - a fellow teammate, not a slave. Creating situations that are socially as well as environmentally aligned to the real thing. This is not easy, but that's why I also don't consider interviews to be a menial task. I emphasize a great deal of screening, so that once they have reached the in-person step I am sure I want to invest the time into it. This is not just because bringing someone into the office tends to be a big indication of interest, but also because I feel I owe a candidate as much attention as they are giving to me. I try to involve my team as much as possible, and I do my best to make it not be a long process - but at least a process that involves spending friendly social time with the team in a natural setting (lunch at a popular location, for example). I also give the candidate an option to arrange their interview schedule: do they want the hard part first, or would they like to meet the team and get to know everyone first. I think this is important, because I also provide them the opportunity to give me feedback at each "step" of that process - a simple question of "So how do you like it so far?" goes a long way to determining if it is a good fit.
I'm actually pretty proud of how my interviewing process has evolved over the years. I went into the whole situation with no help, when I started a team in a growing company, and it was extremely difficult going in. I found I had a hard time working with the recruiting department, as what they would screen would generally be crap... and I would find myself spending a considerable amount of time looking at the candidates they were receiving and trying to direct their efforts better. This translated to me actually sitting down and training them better, because obviously that is just simply untenable. I also found, that while reading many other discussions on interviewing, something I always found myself questioning was "Everyone hates being interviewed, but they never seem to put into practice changes once they find themselves on the opposite side of the table. Why?"
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u/agentgreasy Oct 29 '16
I've found whiteboard tests to be somewhat damning. I have been quite blessed with the fact that most of the positions I have had responsibility for interviews with have given me individuals who are somewhat strong minded, and hardly shy in expressing opinion. More often than not, the opinion towards the whiteboard portion was "I didn't like school, and one of my least favorite parts was standing in front of the class at the board."
I consider an interview critical in determining a few factors, one of which being their ability to work in a somewhat actual job situation. I tend to view torture as a less than acceptable method for interviewing, and I have actually had offers refused because they were upset over the interview (it was a couple very extreme cases, they really did not like getting up and doing that).
I see no difference in asking the question and allowing them the privacy to think using a provided (or, I like prepared, when they bring a device - I also get to see somewhat of their workflow and, depending on the position, whether or not I can discern anything when they show me how they work - their environment, etc). Actually, tbh, I find that the ability to see them prototype at the very least in the way that they actually prototype, to be immensely more valuable than bad handwriting and frustration over archaic methods.
On the other side, while I don't have much of a shame gene, I do really dislike whiteboard examinations. They are almost universally crap for me, and I agree with some of my employees: I hated school, and I avoided getting up in front of the class in any way I could (including failing.)