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Discussion on: Keep Calm And Just Say No To Coding Challenges

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel (jmfayard.dev)

That can work but I would argue it depends on the personality.
Some people would feel very uncomfortable having someone watch them code over their shoulders and would program 5 times worse than in their preferred settings.

I think you need a variety of way to evaluate candidates, which will include in-interview coding challenge, looking at their GitHub project, refactoring a pull request, whatever, and pick one that is a fair assesment of the candidate depending on who she is.

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carnes profile image
Carnes

Strongly agree that if there is a coding challenge then it shouldn't be during the interview. That kind of pressure will skew the result and won't be representative of their skill.

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jmfayard profile image
Jean-Michel (jmfayard.dev)

Absolutely, that makes a lot of sense!
I was at a competitive programming night at a company this week, and in this context, freely accepted, free of pressure for your financial survival, the challenge is totally OK.

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hisuwh profile image
Henry Ing-Simmons

yh it does require the interviewer to make the candidate feel at ease. It can work like pair programming and I will give more guidance to more junior candidates. I will also encourage them to use Google or whatever else they need - I'm looking at how they approach the problem not their ability to remember basic syntax.

Sadly very view CVs that I see have GitHub profiles linked. The candidates that do certainly stand out. Refactoring a pull request is a good idea.