Web Dev full-stack [LAMP] since 2005, but much heavier on the JS stuff these days.
Jack of all Stacks, Master of some.
Always looking to learn new things. Always glad to help out, just ask.
Location
Atlanta, GA
Education
B.S. in Biochemistry 2004, M.S. in Computer Information Systems 2007
I see a lot of these posts from the "interviewee" point of view.
I don't disagree with how everyone feels about these processes. The algorithm questions are hated universally and we don't do those at all. Anyone can google how to do a bubble sort, anyone asking you to write that on a white board doesn't know what they're interviewing you for.
Here's the view from the other side [it's a long one bear with me]:
**
TL;DR: The hiring process for developers is freaking hard as a ton of people apply and the skill ranges vary extremely and not all experience is useful experience depending on the job.
**
I participated in the hiring process for my company for a while, and it's been a year or two so things have changed a bit, but here's one version of the process we went through back then.
We tried recruiting companies, most of them suck and just shove every applicant your way whether they're even remotely a good fit or not, so we opted to do it ourselves.
At max we had some 400-ish resumes come in per day [that's roughly 12000 a month though we ran ads in batches, so probably half or so is realistic].
We're a small business, so one admin had to review them all to get rid of all the ones that at a glance were not going to fit the position. For this example we'll just talk about Developer positions.
Did you know construction workers apply for "developer" positions without reading the descriptions?
Did you know that someone with zero coding experience, 5 years of waitressing and an associates in communication will sometimes apply for a developer position?
Anyway, once our admin filtered those out and got to the ones with actual dev info we had a secondary set of filters. eg. Look for those with these languages [languages we used at the time PHP/HTML/CSS/JS] and experience with certain platforms and what not, but still keep some if they have many years of experience, and could potentially be lead devs on a team or a project lead [teaching someone to filter for those is damn hard] or any PM experience, etc. These things make good developers too.
THEN, we get to the first calls and have to deal with questions like "Do you adhere to these specific standards? no, i'm not interested" and "I have ten years experience doing web dev, but i only know dreamweaver and html/css" => note: that makes you practically useless today as a frontend dev for any company, let alone a small one.
How about the "You guys don't pay for conferences, i'm not interested" Sorry, a conference on mobile tech we never use just because you're interested in it is not in our budget when we don't even know if you can code yet.
The best ones are when we ask what's their skill level is with language X and the response is "I'm a 10, I know it inside out" and we look at their portfolio and it's rubbish. People often don't know what they do not know.
THEN we get past that first round and have maybe 20 candidates who seem like a decent fit [note, this is probably per week, so like 2800ish resumes, this is a little exagerated, but i'm on a roll]
We get them on that 2nd call with a Project Manager.
The PM will ask more specific questions related to technical skills and experience and then decide if we would like them to come into the office.
If the first call was immediately impressive and their portfolio was immediately impressive we may request they come in for an in-person interview right away. Gotta act fast, people move on quick, especially if they are good.
We may also request they do a 2-4 hour developer test on their own time. If you're interested in working somewhere, this is hardly a massive request, we think and everyone we've hired never thought it was too much to ask for either.
So say 2nd call and in person go well, then we're competing with companies like amazon and google when offering a job to the interviewee who is also looking at other companies and may be receiving offers from others at the same time especially if they're good.
For frontend this can lead to a hire directly, for backend devs we often have a second harder test to see their skills in action. We generally pay for these additional tests because it's only fair to do so.
We pursue the ones we think would work out, but even then we are still gambling on finding a good developer, because we will not know if they can actually do the job until they start working.
Let that sink in when you're asking why interviews can be such a long process.
Also, imagine companies like google and amazon who probably get 100,000+ applications every day.
From your response, I can hear that you are frustrated with the candidates you see.
However, there should be a better way for you to phrase something like this (for example):
"and we look at their portfolio and it's rubbish"
Please don't take this as criticism.
If you are open to feedback: the way you respond to something is just as important as the content of your response. (If not, just ignore this)
Hopefully this is not generally representative of your company.
Web Dev full-stack [LAMP] since 2005, but much heavier on the JS stuff these days.
Jack of all Stacks, Master of some.
Always looking to learn new things. Always glad to help out, just ask.
Location
Atlanta, GA
Education
B.S. in Biochemistry 2004, M.S. in Computer Information Systems 2007
Let me rephrase [sorry for the late response], I have my opinion when i see people's resumes and code. I might sugarcoat it and go "That looks unpolished" or as i do in my head "it's rubbish, it's crap, it sucks" and so on.
I NEVER say that to an applicant. I know words can hurt. I also know how fickle everyone is these days and how insecure and how nerve-wracking interviews can be. Saying that to someone could really break them and make them feel like crap. I don't do that.
I have however said to applicants "Your code just isn't at the skill level we require at this time". And I've had further discussions with some who then said "Well, can you tell me what I need to improve on". And i do wish them well and better luck at their next interview, but the general thing is that they need to practice more before they apply to the next one.
Some portfolios ARE utter rubbish though. eg. Missing any useful urls to ANY work at all. Any dev should at least have something online you can look at. Or how about not having an email or phone number, so we have no way to contact them? There are worse examples, and these are completely unrelated to their actual dev skills. Some people just don't take the time to make a good resume, and if they're not doing that, i don't think they'll take the time to do good work either. Perhaps that's just a horrible assumption on my part.
"... everyone we've hired never thought it was too much to ask for either." Well, that's a self selecting sample set. What about those who walked away because they were good enough to choose who they work for, and thought you were just wasting their time?
"when we ask what's their skill level is with language X ... People often don't know what they do not know." So don't ask that question then. It's a stupid question. It's the ones with the most knowledge who are most aware of what they don't know. Instead, ask about what they've done using that language. Within two to three well chosen follow-up questions you should be able to tell whether they really understood what they were doing and the level they're at.
Web Dev full-stack [LAMP] since 2005, but much heavier on the JS stuff these days.
Jack of all Stacks, Master of some.
Always looking to learn new things. Always glad to help out, just ask.
Location
Atlanta, GA
Education
B.S. in Biochemistry 2004, M.S. in Computer Information Systems 2007
Sorry, i am apparently really bad at checking notifications on dev.
To address the two items you noted.
Yes, it's a self-selecting sample set. If they felt we were wasting their time, then they don't understand our needs, so it's ok that they walked away. Those that decided to do the tests, well they seem more in line with how we think and will probably be a better fit. If you're applying for a job, it's up to you how much you are willing to do to show you can do the work. If you walk away, it tells me you weren't that interested in the first place, i don't have time to waste pursuing you further. And that's ok too.
Stop and think. I ask that question because I want to know their answer. Our industry is full of hubris [i can't say i'm not overly cocky about things some times and it's damn hard to not be when you have more experience than someone else, but it's good to learn to restrain that]
So back to what i said in the original comment. If someone claims to be a 10, is nearly immediately dismiss them for A. Lying [literally no one is a 10], and B. being too damn arrogant. C. I then look at the work samples they provided to confirm A and B before deciding for sure.
If they are experienced, you're right, they'll know how to answer that question far better.
I am a creative, passionate, full stack web developer. I love technology! Currently I'm really into Node & React but I am very experienced in PHP, Drupal 8, accessibility, CI/CD #WomenWhoCode
Also I just had a quick look at your company website and noticed that you don't have any women on the development side. I cannot believe that with that many resumes, not one woman would be a fit for the job.
It's important to remember that candidates have a right to ask questions about career development, conferences, etc to see if it's even worth working for your company. If you answer in the way you have in this response I'm not surprised that some walk away.
Web Dev full-stack [LAMP] since 2005, but much heavier on the JS stuff these days.
Jack of all Stacks, Master of some.
Always looking to learn new things. Always glad to help out, just ask.
Location
Atlanta, GA
Education
B.S. in Biochemistry 2004, M.S. in Computer Information Systems 2007
Hey Charlotte, [as with the others, sorry for the late response, didn't realize i get notifications on here]
You're right, at this time we have no female devs on the team. We have in the past extended invitations to join us and we've had some great female devs apply, but it just didn't work out for one reason or another.
Anyone who applies has the same chances at the job.
I think a lot of applicants do assume all tech companies are like apple/google/amazon/facebook and expect to get the same perks. We just can't afford them all, is all. And it's fair that some people would walk away from that.
The one thing I know we offer a ton more of is experience on the job. We dive into a large number of platforms and codebases on a daily basis so all our devs learn a lot continuously. With larger companies you tend to get shoe-horned into a position and you end up doing the same type of work on the same platform day to day with not as much variety so you learn less.
At the same time it's also higher stress and faster paced than most dev jobs and that is sometimes an attractant or a repellent depending on the person.
I would recommend newbies work for small agencies because they will learn a lot more in a lot less time than if they go straight into a corporate job. Corporate will probably pay more though. Again, it depends on the person and what they want.
There are a lot of variables in play, so yea it extends the interview process because of that. We can't afford to just hire 50 people and fire half of them in six months like a lot of large companies do. We try to find the right person in one go or in batches, which may or may not be the best approach either. I don't know, i'm not in hiring anymore. I get to focus on the work now :)
I am a creative, passionate, full stack web developer. I love technology! Currently I'm really into Node & React but I am very experienced in PHP, Drupal 8, accessibility, CI/CD #WomenWhoCode
Thank you for your response. I have actually been involved from an interviewer side too, so I do know that there are issues on that side of things and especially for smaller companies, hiring the wrong person can be very expensive.
I'm not at all saying to cut out tests, but that there should be some flexibility with the types of tests.
It's great that you're paying for people to do the longer process, I think things like this make a big difference in the interview experience. If you imagine a developer might have to go through a good amount of tests, for multiple companies then that's a huge time investment. At the end of the day, people looking for a job will be making you lots of money if they get the job.
Large corporations also have many people involved in the hiring process and I do not believe that they cannot do more to make it more inclusive just due to the amount of applications.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
I see a lot of these posts from the "interviewee" point of view.
I don't disagree with how everyone feels about these processes. The algorithm questions are hated universally and we don't do those at all. Anyone can google how to do a bubble sort, anyone asking you to write that on a white board doesn't know what they're interviewing you for.
Here's the view from the other side [it's a long one bear with me]:
**
TL;DR: The hiring process for developers is freaking hard as a ton of people apply and the skill ranges vary extremely and not all experience is useful experience depending on the job.
**
I participated in the hiring process for my company for a while, and it's been a year or two so things have changed a bit, but here's one version of the process we went through back then.
We tried recruiting companies, most of them suck and just shove every applicant your way whether they're even remotely a good fit or not, so we opted to do it ourselves.
Anyway, once our admin filtered those out and got to the ones with actual dev info we had a secondary set of filters. eg. Look for those with these languages [languages we used at the time PHP/HTML/CSS/JS] and experience with certain platforms and what not, but still keep some if they have many years of experience, and could potentially be lead devs on a team or a project lead [teaching someone to filter for those is damn hard] or any PM experience, etc. These things make good developers too.
THEN, we get to the first calls and have to deal with questions like "Do you adhere to these specific standards? no, i'm not interested" and "I have ten years experience doing web dev, but i only know dreamweaver and html/css" => note: that makes you practically useless today as a frontend dev for any company, let alone a small one.
How about the "You guys don't pay for conferences, i'm not interested" Sorry, a conference on mobile tech we never use just because you're interested in it is not in our budget when we don't even know if you can code yet.
The best ones are when we ask what's their skill level is with language X and the response is "I'm a 10, I know it inside out" and we look at their portfolio and it's rubbish. People often don't know what they do not know.
THEN we get past that first round and have maybe 20 candidates who seem like a decent fit [note, this is probably per week, so like 2800ish resumes, this is a little exagerated, but i'm on a roll]
We get them on that 2nd call with a Project Manager.
The PM will ask more specific questions related to technical skills and experience and then decide if we would like them to come into the office.
If the first call was immediately impressive and their portfolio was immediately impressive we may request they come in for an in-person interview right away. Gotta act fast, people move on quick, especially if they are good.
We may also request they do a 2-4 hour developer test on their own time. If you're interested in working somewhere, this is hardly a massive request, we think and everyone we've hired never thought it was too much to ask for either.
So say 2nd call and in person go well, then we're competing with companies like amazon and google when offering a job to the interviewee who is also looking at other companies and may be receiving offers from others at the same time especially if they're good.
For frontend this can lead to a hire directly, for backend devs we often have a second harder test to see their skills in action. We generally pay for these additional tests because it's only fair to do so.
We pursue the ones we think would work out, but even then we are still gambling on finding a good developer, because we will not know if they can actually do the job until they start working.
Let that sink in when you're asking why interviews can be such a long process.
Also, imagine companies like google and amazon who probably get 100,000+ applications every day.
From your response, I can hear that you are frustrated with the candidates you see.
However, there should be a better way for you to phrase something like this (for example):
"and we look at their portfolio and it's rubbish"
Please don't take this as criticism.
If you are open to feedback: the way you respond to something is just as important as the content of your response. (If not, just ignore this)
Hopefully this is not generally representative of your company.
Let me rephrase [sorry for the late response], I have my opinion when i see people's resumes and code. I might sugarcoat it and go "That looks unpolished" or as i do in my head "it's rubbish, it's crap, it sucks" and so on.
I NEVER say that to an applicant. I know words can hurt. I also know how fickle everyone is these days and how insecure and how nerve-wracking interviews can be. Saying that to someone could really break them and make them feel like crap. I don't do that.
I have however said to applicants "Your code just isn't at the skill level we require at this time". And I've had further discussions with some who then said "Well, can you tell me what I need to improve on". And i do wish them well and better luck at their next interview, but the general thing is that they need to practice more before they apply to the next one.
Some portfolios ARE utter rubbish though. eg. Missing any useful urls to ANY work at all. Any dev should at least have something online you can look at. Or how about not having an email or phone number, so we have no way to contact them? There are worse examples, and these are completely unrelated to their actual dev skills. Some people just don't take the time to make a good resume, and if they're not doing that, i don't think they'll take the time to do good work either. Perhaps that's just a horrible assumption on my part.
"... everyone we've hired never thought it was too much to ask for either." Well, that's a self selecting sample set. What about those who walked away because they were good enough to choose who they work for, and thought you were just wasting their time?
"when we ask what's their skill level is with language X ... People often don't know what they do not know." So don't ask that question then. It's a stupid question. It's the ones with the most knowledge who are most aware of what they don't know. Instead, ask about what they've done using that language. Within two to three well chosen follow-up questions you should be able to tell whether they really understood what they were doing and the level they're at.
Sorry, i am apparently really bad at checking notifications on dev.
To address the two items you noted.
Yes, it's a self-selecting sample set. If they felt we were wasting their time, then they don't understand our needs, so it's ok that they walked away. Those that decided to do the tests, well they seem more in line with how we think and will probably be a better fit. If you're applying for a job, it's up to you how much you are willing to do to show you can do the work. If you walk away, it tells me you weren't that interested in the first place, i don't have time to waste pursuing you further. And that's ok too.
Stop and think. I ask that question because I want to know their answer. Our industry is full of hubris [i can't say i'm not overly cocky about things some times and it's damn hard to not be when you have more experience than someone else, but it's good to learn to restrain that]
So back to what i said in the original comment. If someone claims to be a 10, is nearly immediately dismiss them for A. Lying [literally no one is a 10], and B. being too damn arrogant. C. I then look at the work samples they provided to confirm A and B before deciding for sure.
If they are experienced, you're right, they'll know how to answer that question far better.
Also I just had a quick look at your company website and noticed that you don't have any women on the development side. I cannot believe that with that many resumes, not one woman would be a fit for the job.
It's important to remember that candidates have a right to ask questions about career development, conferences, etc to see if it's even worth working for your company. If you answer in the way you have in this response I'm not surprised that some walk away.
Hey Charlotte, [as with the others, sorry for the late response, didn't realize i get notifications on here]
You're right, at this time we have no female devs on the team. We have in the past extended invitations to join us and we've had some great female devs apply, but it just didn't work out for one reason or another.
Anyone who applies has the same chances at the job.
I think a lot of applicants do assume all tech companies are like apple/google/amazon/facebook and expect to get the same perks. We just can't afford them all, is all. And it's fair that some people would walk away from that.
The one thing I know we offer a ton more of is experience on the job. We dive into a large number of platforms and codebases on a daily basis so all our devs learn a lot continuously. With larger companies you tend to get shoe-horned into a position and you end up doing the same type of work on the same platform day to day with not as much variety so you learn less.
At the same time it's also higher stress and faster paced than most dev jobs and that is sometimes an attractant or a repellent depending on the person.
I would recommend newbies work for small agencies because they will learn a lot more in a lot less time than if they go straight into a corporate job. Corporate will probably pay more though. Again, it depends on the person and what they want.
There are a lot of variables in play, so yea it extends the interview process because of that. We can't afford to just hire 50 people and fire half of them in six months like a lot of large companies do. We try to find the right person in one go or in batches, which may or may not be the best approach either. I don't know, i'm not in hiring anymore. I get to focus on the work now :)
Thank you for your response. I have actually been involved from an interviewer side too, so I do know that there are issues on that side of things and especially for smaller companies, hiring the wrong person can be very expensive.
I'm not at all saying to cut out tests, but that there should be some flexibility with the types of tests.
It's great that you're paying for people to do the longer process, I think things like this make a big difference in the interview experience. If you imagine a developer might have to go through a good amount of tests, for multiple companies then that's a huge time investment. At the end of the day, people looking for a job will be making you lots of money if they get the job.
Large corporations also have many people involved in the hiring process and I do not believe that they cannot do more to make it more inclusive just due to the amount of applications.