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Discussion on: A tech interview that doesn't suck

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jacobmparis profile image
Jacob Paris

I think a big problem is that interviews are usually designed by professional interviewers or professional developers, and those are two distinct skills that need to work together to design an effective interview

It comes down to asking what behaviours you want to select for and to select against, and then testing your interview to make sure it actually works as intended

It's a lot of work to design an interview like that, but just to run it? You're absolutely right that it's easier. It basically brings you down to one question: is this candidate making reasonable decisions?

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leob profile image
leob • Edited

Yeah I suppose you're right, there's something to that.

I think the problem is also that companies aren't always asking themselves the right questions, or setting the right goals - what kind of a person am I looking for? I believe some of these interviews are even aiming at weeding out the bottom 97%, you know, that nonsense about the "top 3 percent developer", or finding the elusive rockstar or ninja or whatever.

In most cases companies don't need that, they need someone with a pragmatic and productive attitude, with an eye for quality, who gets stuff done and who can effectively communicate and be part of a team - I don't see how endless lists of questions about algorithms or the ability to code a quick-sort from scratch is achieving that, your approach would come a lot closer to that goal.