Ask HN: Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

36 points by greyostrich 9 years ago | 55 comments

I was given seven problems to submit via an online coding service called remoteinterview.io. Three problems included HackerRank style challenges. I was able to solve everything within an hour (though, it take me closer to two hours to code the edge cases for the third one), and the time limit was eight hours. Everything was green; all tests cases were solved, minus any hidden cases I didn't know about. Next day, auto rejection.

How common is this? It's not my first time dealing with this. I find the interview process such bull crap, at the moment.

Note: I did document my entire code, which included my plan of action before writing anything and any necessary comments.

paulddraper 9 years ago |

I had 4.0 GPA, valedictorian, 2400 SAT, 800 on three SAT II tests, a varsity letter, awards in chemistry and math competitions, and 5s on 14 AP tests.

I got turned down by MIT. Yeah, it sucks but anger will hardly help.

And there are always upsides. In my case I went to state U on full-ride and saved myself $170k in tuition. In your case, you avoided being hired by a less-than-competent company.

paulcole 9 years ago | |

>I had 4.0 GPA, valedictorian, 2400 SAT, 800 on three SAT II tests, a varsity letter, awards in chemistry and math competitions, and 5s on 14 AP tests.

I used to work with students polishing admissions essays for colleges like MIT.

The one thing I learned is that a resume like you listed isn't what gets you into a school like MIT. It's those things + something that makes you a uniquely appealing candidate.

Sure, you can get into MIT with your resume, but it's also very possible to be passed over. But the kid with that resume + something special is very very unlikely to get overlooked.

MIT, Harvard, etc. can fill an entire class with outstanding academic records. But they want people who are going to be truly special in the future and the best way to do that is select people who are already there. And they have their pick.

_xhok 9 years ago | | |

In practice the "something very special" thing comes down to how well you can bullshit admissions. If you helped kids polish their essays, you know this.

The annual number of 18yos who have done genuinely remarkable things is less than the size of the Ivy league freshman list.

BillBohan 9 years ago |

If a company wants me to write code, they need to pay me for it.

I came across a similar situation where a prospective employer sent me the requirements for a complex routine and gave me 7 days to return functioning and commented code. My estimate was that it would take me 2 days to do it, so it would probably have taken 6 days.

I can envision an unscrupulous business model whereby you do the top level design and break it into routines, advertise for a programing position, and send the specifications for a routine to each applicant. You reject each applicant after they have submitted their code, take the best implementation of each routine, pack it all together and now you have a product.

I don't know that that's what they were doing but nobody will do it to me. I hope that's not what happened to you.

You may call me cynical but I've been around enough that I come by it honestly.

gravypod 9 years ago | |

This is only a practice because people are being tricked into doing it. Also, I'm not too sure you're being cynical. This is the obvious next step to an interview puzzel, isn't it?

   * I need to test my employee so I give them a test
   * A test isn't code so I give them a coding HW
   * The coding HW isn't representative of our work, so...
   * I give them a small chunk of my real work.

This is pretty stupid. I've just barely started in the working market and I think my resume is solid enough that I won't mess around with any BS like this and if no one else does then they will finally stop.

There is one proviso (as usual). I'm completely fine with coming in and doing a pair exercise with people if the job requires pair work. I mean, that's not really about the programming at that point (maybe just write a simple web scraper) together with someone you'll actually be working with to see if you can all get along. Crack a few jokes, get some work done, leave with a better understanding of the enviroment. I'd be fine with that but nothing that would take more then 1-2 hr.

jackgolding 9 years ago |

Got three examples like this:

First happened to me with Australian Department of Defence - invited to do online testing which took between 4 and 6 hours (4-6 online tests on computer theory, mathematics, logic, verbal deduction etc.) - never spoke to a person and was rejected within the week.

I interviewed for an analyst position for an ASX20 company through a recruiter which involved giving a 30 minute presentation on the results of their marketing campaigns. Never heard back from the company, the recruiter said that they decided not to hire anyone for the position.

Most recently I did 7 hours of code for a startup (100 lines SQL, 100 lines JS, 200 lines python, 20 lines R, fair bit of excel and powerpoint) for a junior manager role - got rejected from that too with a one line "you looked good on paper but no thanks" type email (mind you I put in a lot less polish than I would have if that was my job, didn't ask the reason why as I felt like they were asking too much of someone at that pay grade anyway.)

The last two cases weren't even through HR (went straight to hiring manager) - HR makes things even more difficult. I went through a bunch of standardised testing for one job interview and ended up being asked to fly 8 hours return for a 1 hour interview. When I declined, I was told by HR that this showed them I wasn't serious about the role. Of course once I told them that I already had a job offer from one their competitors they rushed me through a skype interview and gave me an offer straight afterwards.

All of this stuff really irritates me, I don't even bother writing cover letters anymore (will include a short paragraph at the most) - its much more respectful for the company to meet me in person.

flukus 9 years ago | |

I was rejected for by one for not doing TDD because I checked in the new test and code in the same commit. I suspect some of it is part of their "we can't find any Australians to fill the role" 457 requirement.

Also, if a code test takes 7 hours (some take days) then they are limiting themselves to the already unemployed, so probably not paying well.

chrisbennet 9 years ago |

I would never take a test before talking to the hiring manager. It's a two way street, how would I know if you want to work for them?

That said, it's a great signal: the fact that they aren't willing to put in the work to talk to you first lets you know that they don't respect potential employees and can't compete with companies who do. Thus they have to go for volume. You don't want to work for a "minimum effort" kind of outfit.

fspear 9 years ago |

Yes you have a right, and a duty, to be angry.

I say duty because it's our fault for not massively speaking up and demanding a radical change. We let companies get away with this, and it's not going to stop until we do something about it.

paulcole 9 years ago |

>Am I right to be angry about the interview process?

You have the right to be angry about it. But ask yourself if that anger is doing you any good? If not, why bother getting worked up?

Are you in a position that allows you to decline interviews? Do you feel strongly that interviews should be conducted in a certain way? Feel free to turn down any that don't meet your requirements.

But don't expect any company to accommodate your desires in their interview process. It's just the way it is.

fspear 9 years ago | |

>It's just the way it is.

And if we don't take a stand then it's going to be like that forever. We can't let companies continue to get away with this.

In the end they need devs more than we need them.

urahara 9 years ago | |

Being angry in terms of raising your voice againat these practicies is doing a lot of good for sure, it's pretty obvious. And of course people should not only start to expect companies to accommodate their desires in the hiring processes, but also actively advocate for it and insist on changing current practices of disrespectful candidate's time wasting. Very obvious, no?

bcbrown 9 years ago |

I've had a similar experience. I will now decline all online take-home coding evaluations. I want the process to require a symmetric amount of effort from both sides.

rcymerys 9 years ago |

Are you angry about wasting 2 hours of your time or not getting the job?

Keep in mind that a lot of companies use automated tests to filter candidates, not necessarily in the most fair way. They're simply not able to do a whole interview with everyone as it's extremely time consuming.

I'd say don't worry about it too much. If you have the skills you'll find plenty of good companies that will want to work with you.

Unfortunately, job interviews are not as predictable as how code works. Even the best devs I know get rejected once in a while. :)

Think about it - there's 2-3 people (interviewers) trying to asses whether a person has the skills for a job and is a cultural fit for the company. All of these during an 1-2 hour long chat. That's virtually impossible to do right, they can only guess.

graphememes 9 years ago |

I think personally they should provide feedback for rejections on request, I personally want feedback so I can improve and better myself during a failure often times companies won't tell me so it makes it hard to understand what went wrong in their eyes.

vitaminbandit 9 years ago |

Very common. I no longer do these tests.

Basically, I refuse any interview that has me invest disproportionately more time than the interviewer. You're interviewing the company as much as they are interviewing you.

bsvalley 9 years ago |

Right now, the job market is super over crowded. There are a lot of jobs out there but too many people applying... You get a rejection on a 99/100 score (one tiny mistake and you're out), actually, even a 100/100 score sometimes will lead you to a rejection because other candidates were stronger than you. Too many people are applying from everywhere at the moment.

icedchai 9 years ago | |

This is the opposite of my experience, both as a candidate and a hiring manager over the past couple of years. There are many openings, not enough competent people to fill them. We are essentially at peak employment for tech.

fenwick67 9 years ago | | |

It's funny how companies / hiring managers always say they have trouble finding good candidates, and the people looking for jobs always say they are no jobs.

It's probably an axiom of some sort.

greyostrich 9 years ago | | |

Unfortunately, I've been trying to find my first job of university. I wish I knew how to be competent enough. What do you look for?

kosma 9 years ago |

Have you actually asked them about the specific reasons for rejection? FWIW, there's a multitude of reasons why one could get rejected, ranging from automated systems to the position just getting filled to being too good for the job to bad references to human error. Until you ask and get an actual human response, you're completely in the dark.

greyostrich 9 years ago | |

It's a no-reply email. Here's what the actual email said:

"Thank you for your interest in Company. We have reviewed your resume, experience, and responses to the Code Challenge. At this time, we have decided to move forward with other candidates in the process. We wish you success in your job search."

Sounds to me like they read my resume AFTER I passed the coding challenge. Seems to me like a waste of terrible time if I'm spending my time just to get rejected by my resume.

desireco42 9 years ago | | |

It seems really strange that you are applying to a position and get challenges, yet you have no-one to talk to.

Companies have recruiters, other recruiters pitch you to them, there were times when I had an agent.

danpalmer 9 years ago |

Was it definitely "auto rejection" or did a human read your code?

I ask because we have a coding test that most people solve (that we invite to do it) but we reject most on code quality. The purpose might not have been to solve the task, but maybe to do it in a good way?

flukus 9 years ago | |

Why do you expect clean code from a code test? It's going to be thrown away anyway and there are time pressures.

greyostrich 9 years ago | |

It reads like an "auto rejection" but the email says they read it. I wish I knew what kind of code quality they looked for. I already read Clean Code, so I'm aware of certain things.

numinary1 9 years ago |

Never ever take any kind of test before talking to a person, preferably the hiring manager. Not even for fun or practice.

rick_perez 9 years ago |

With big companies, it's pretty common. There is probably something about your contact info or education/experience that was auto-flagged as a rejection.

greyostrich 9 years ago | |

It was a small company you never heard of. But yeah, probably something else. The rejection said based on my experience, answers, and resume. If so, it's disturbing that I had to do this challenge in order to get them to read my resume.

khedoros1 9 years ago | | |

> If so, it's disturbing that I had to do this challenge in order to get them to read my resume.

I'd read that more like "after considering all data points...". I'm sure they read your resume beforehand. Maybe the discussion on their hiring team was "Well, if he pulls out some magic in the coding challenge..."

You never know. It's not helpful to be angry about it, although it's natural and understandable. It's not even necessarily your fault. Maybe they just found someone that would slot into the position easier, just because of differences in their experience, education, or personality.