Note: This depends on hiring style. Some companies have a bar and everyone who meets that bar is hired. Other companies are hiring for a position that gets one person...
These results may be "curved".
If you give the same easy test with no pressure and everyone is sufficiently good, then it was a waste of everyone's time.
In such an approach, you do something that is sufficiently hard that you're able to identify the people who are the better performing ones along with a reasonable idea of how well they work under pressure (because that will happen at some point).
Is it testing the right thing? Probably not. However, we still haven't found "the right thing" that is able to scale, respectful of the time of the candidate, not too intensive on the interviewer, and minimizes biases in hiring (same set of questions to all candidates, same grading scale).
> Is it testing the right thing? Probably not. However, we still haven't found "the right thing" that is able to scale, respectful of the time of the candidate, not too intensive on the interviewer, and minimizes biases in hiring (same set of questions to all candidates, same grading scale).
Maybe because the concept of a test is flawed? It seems to me like every company that uses a whiteboard test gives out the same tests anyways.
What are they really trying to test? If someone understands common algorithms and data structures? I dont see why that couldnt be determined by a simple interview with an engineer. A test might be useful for a HR recruiter who doesnt have a computer science background, but those tests are usually conducted by other engineers anyways.
The whiteboard thing just seems to me like an arbitrary hazing ritual.
These results may be "curved".
If you give the same easy test with no pressure and everyone is sufficiently good, then it was a waste of everyone's time.
In such an approach, you do something that is sufficiently hard that you're able to identify the people who are the better performing ones along with a reasonable idea of how well they work under pressure (because that will happen at some point).
Is it testing the right thing? Probably not. However, we still haven't found "the right thing" that is able to scale, respectful of the time of the candidate, not too intensive on the interviewer, and minimizes biases in hiring (same set of questions to all candidates, same grading scale).
reply