I agree with this article that communication with companies is getting absurdly poor. With all these communications channels available, why is it so hard to send a quick email? Don't have time because of too many candidates? Maybe you shouldn't have more candidates than you have time to handle.
I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to avoid the absurd SV-style interview). SV-style companies don't know what to do in these situations, they have an open position, I have the experience and skill set, let's have a conversation about the work I've done and what your needs are.
Problem is, nobody in the company knows how to hire for these positions and they seem to be done based on word of mouth or through the networks of the investors or other seniors in the company. In a couple of interviews at these companies, they plan for the usual all-day interview, and then I sit there in front of an interviewer who is simply at a loss for what to ask me.
On occasion they haul out a brain teaser, but I usually stop that with a "you do realize the position that you are hiring for is not one where solving brain teasers will be a reflection of the kind of work I'll be doing". This rings some alarm bells as some of the larger SV companies have found themselves on the business end of a law suit for this. Asking prospective project managers nonsense questions during an interview offers no information to the hiring committee about the suitability of a candidate. This can create a legal liability for the company if the unhired candidates feel they've been discriminated against -- especially if the company just hires somebody they know anyway -- proving that the position wasn't filled on a level playing field for all the candidates.
One other problem I've faced, I simply make too much money these days. In an interview with a now very large company that exactly matches the format in this article, I made it through the interview gauntlets and finally got to the compensation round:
"So what kind of compensation are you looking for?"
"Well, I made this much last year, I'd like to make at least that much this year and going forward."
blank stare of shock "y-y-you made how much?"
"Well, it was a mix of sources, my base was this, I made this much in bonuses and additional grants, and I was helpful in a few sales and earned this much commission. I don't expect that this job is commissionable, but I'm open to alternate mixes of compensation so long as my base stays about the same."
"y-y-you realize not even the CEO is pulling down that much base?"
"I'm afraid I'm not privy to your company's compensation packages, but I know that the CEO reported a few tens of millions in stock grants last year, I'm not expecting that much, but if you feel the need to offer a lower base, I'd like to expedite the vesting schedule by a year then"
"I-I-I.....I'll see what I can do."
And that ended that job right there. I received a very nice call with a rejection a week later.
Another anecdote, a friend of mine interviewed for a VP position with another major SV company, he got through the initial rounds based on his education (Ivy-League) and other credentials. During the interview they decided to do the equivalent of an engineering-style interview...the recruiting team had clearly dug deep into the bowels of some undergrad finance textbooks, and asked him to derive a number of finance formulae he hadn't seen or cared about in 20 years. It was utterly random and doomed to failure. He went on to other companies where we was quite successful, while that position remained open for the better part of two years before finally being filled with a friend of one of the investors.
The best places I've worked (as an engineer and otherwise) have been the ones that don't engage in this nonsense. I can see a simple fizzbuzz test being a prescreen as being useful, but just sitting down with a candidate and having a conversation about their resume seems to work best. Bonus, it's respectful of the candidate. Unlike a great many companies, you've actually taken the time to look at their resume. If you recognize something on the resume, ask them some penetrating questions and dig into what they know. If you don't recognize something, engage them to teach you about it. Competent people are competent at talking about their job. Ask them things like "can you give me examples of where you applied algorithm design or at least some complexity theory in a job?" If they give an example, probe deeper, have them talk in depth about the algorithm, see what they remember from their undergrad about big-O. Or "what was the most difficult integration you've ever faced?" followed with a "why?". Dig in, make it a conversation. Let them become a teacher during the interview, where they teach you about what they know and about their life. Ask questions like a student would. It's respectful, humble and draws unbelievable amounts of information from a candidate.
You'll quickly learn what kinds of things they know, what they don't know and what they're weak at. You'll also learn about their soft skills, like communication. Instead of playing an insipid game of cat and mouse, you'll learn about the person you're hiring. Ain't that what YC looks for?
This is a good comment. Some nits I'd like to pick:
* Companies aren't required to provide a level playing field to applicants. I think you've alluded here to discrimination against protected classes; that is, you're suggesting that someone could get an unnecessarily hard interview and use it as evidence that they were constructively rejected for their race or gender. That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful.
* In our experience, the resume conversation is the second-worst hiring signal, after the trivia interview we're discussing here. The ability to sound smart while talking about your experience involves a set of skills usually disjoint from those of the job. Every hiring mistake I've made in my career has involved someone who could "talk the talk"; in fact, many times, those people can also, if forced at gunpoint, "walk the walk", which makes their unsuitability all the harder to spot.
I'm an advocate for work-sample tests: have a standard set of (reasonably small) problems that are representative of the work you do and give them to all candidates so you can grade them. After we started doing this, it quickly became apparent that I didn't even need to have much insight into what reasonable or "good" solutions to our challenges were, because I could just look how good hires/candidates had solved those problems in the past.
That could happen, but most companies probably use the same terrible interview for everyone but their friends, which, while unethical, is lawful.
Wait, why is it unethical? It's frustrating and inconvenient and sucks for everyone but their friends. But, unethical? On what grounds? I don't have an obligation to give strangers the same favors I give my friends, do I?
You have an obligation not to waste people's time, especially if you are putting up the facade that they might actually be in the running. The modern interview process can take weeks or even months to get through. If you're just going to hire your friends, can you give the other candidates those weeks or months of their lives back?
The whole premise of interviewing and opening to the pool of candidates is to evaluate and give every applicant a fair chance after passing a minimum bar. If the whole point was to favor or employ someone (pre-decided or friend), then why this facade?
If you have a preferred candidate for a role and that candidate isn't being vetted by exactly the same process as the rest of the candidates, you're obligated to disclosure something to that effect. You might not come right out and say "you should know, we have a preferred candidate", but you need to say something.
I like to partition companies with products that gain traction into two groups. In the first group are technically mediodcre founders who cobbled together a product that's almost unmaintainable. The second group consists of relatively experienced founders who cobbled together a product that's maintainable.
The two groups use distinct interview styles. Since the group with nearly unmaintainable code has many more members than the latter we see their interview style far more often. This is the familiar all-day brain teaser and relentless quizzing interview style. This interview style makes sense for these companies because they need warm bodies to throw at legacy codebases. The quality to seek in employees is perseverance and obedience. And this familiar interview style tests for just that.
The second group of companies uses the more thoughtful interview style. The founders value insight, creativity, and experience more than obedience. Hence their interview style focuses on these qualities.
> The quality to seek in employees is perseverance and obedience. And this familiar interview style tests for just that.
I know some actual interviewers who ask these types of CS heavy, puzzle based, brainteaser type of questions. They say that their rationale for asking questions like this is to gauge the candidate's attitude and to see how they behaviorally respond when presented with this kind of problems. In many ways, they are testing for submission in candidates. Basically, if you up and leave when asked how many manhole covers there are in New York, their system worked perfectly: they weeded out a candidate who they think would be an entitled prima donna. Corporate environments often require foot soldiers who will do the job without complaining, hence the testing for absolute obedience.
I disagree with this tactic but unfortunately it is quite widely employed during the selection process.
If the bar for "absolute obedience" is not storming out of the room when asked a dumb question, then yay for absolute obedience.
Someone who really was the superstar candidate who shouldn't be bothered to answer pointless riddles would surely have the communication skills to tactfully change the subject to how they're the best candidate for the job.
This is why I don't respond to any solicitations anymore. It's apparently against the laws of the universe for a job candidate to initiate the discussion about money, but there are a lot of inexperienced hiring managers that don't know that people might be already making more than the position could possibly pay.
One interview in particular, I got past the phone screen, got past the technical interview and got past the interview with the CIO. He starts talking about when I can start, setting up my PC, etc. He says, "oh, oh, what do you make now?" I told him and his smile literally melted away and he said, "Well thanks for coming in."
> I made it through the interview gauntlets and finally got to the compensation round
Unless they have a rigid compensation banding structure or are on Glassdoor, recruiters/HR usually ask ballpark salary requirements at first contact to avoid this kind of thing, which I think is a legitimate inquiry. Though, if they insist on current salary they're probably looking to low-ball you.
It's almost always at the end. I wish it were closer to the beginning to save everybody time and hassle.
For regular 'ol companies it's more about seeing what you want, most places will actually try and hit your desired salary so long as they can make some money on you.
For SV-style companies it's different. It feels different. When you get to that point, it's almost like the tone of the conversation becomes "now that you're really impressed with us, and we've decided that we'll let you into our exclusive club, how low can you go? We'll reward lower salaries with more options that'll probably not be worth anything by the time we hit a point where you can exercise them. It'd be even better if you could pay us for the honor of working here."
You could do things like consultants, and ask a binary "Do you have budget of at least $XXX,000" up front, particularly if you have the flexibility to not worry about chasing away marginal prospects.
I only know of a few that I've heard of through my personal network, but don't have any specific citations I can point at. Even if the candidate loses the lawsuit, the cost of handling them is probably more than any company is willing to take on, just easier to drop the riddles instead.
I've reached a point in my career where I'm not interested in engineering positions anymore (a great motivator has been to avoid the absurd SV-style interview). SV-style companies don't know what to do in these situations, they have an open position, I have the experience and skill set, let's have a conversation about the work I've done and what your needs are.
Problem is, nobody in the company knows how to hire for these positions and they seem to be done based on word of mouth or through the networks of the investors or other seniors in the company. In a couple of interviews at these companies, they plan for the usual all-day interview, and then I sit there in front of an interviewer who is simply at a loss for what to ask me.
On occasion they haul out a brain teaser, but I usually stop that with a "you do realize the position that you are hiring for is not one where solving brain teasers will be a reflection of the kind of work I'll be doing". This rings some alarm bells as some of the larger SV companies have found themselves on the business end of a law suit for this. Asking prospective project managers nonsense questions during an interview offers no information to the hiring committee about the suitability of a candidate. This can create a legal liability for the company if the unhired candidates feel they've been discriminated against -- especially if the company just hires somebody they know anyway -- proving that the position wasn't filled on a level playing field for all the candidates.
One other problem I've faced, I simply make too much money these days. In an interview with a now very large company that exactly matches the format in this article, I made it through the interview gauntlets and finally got to the compensation round:
"So what kind of compensation are you looking for?"
"Well, I made this much last year, I'd like to make at least that much this year and going forward."
blank stare of shock "y-y-you made how much?"
"Well, it was a mix of sources, my base was this, I made this much in bonuses and additional grants, and I was helpful in a few sales and earned this much commission. I don't expect that this job is commissionable, but I'm open to alternate mixes of compensation so long as my base stays about the same."
"y-y-you realize not even the CEO is pulling down that much base?"
"I'm afraid I'm not privy to your company's compensation packages, but I know that the CEO reported a few tens of millions in stock grants last year, I'm not expecting that much, but if you feel the need to offer a lower base, I'd like to expedite the vesting schedule by a year then"
"I-I-I.....I'll see what I can do."
And that ended that job right there. I received a very nice call with a rejection a week later.
Another anecdote, a friend of mine interviewed for a VP position with another major SV company, he got through the initial rounds based on his education (Ivy-League) and other credentials. During the interview they decided to do the equivalent of an engineering-style interview...the recruiting team had clearly dug deep into the bowels of some undergrad finance textbooks, and asked him to derive a number of finance formulae he hadn't seen or cared about in 20 years. It was utterly random and doomed to failure. He went on to other companies where we was quite successful, while that position remained open for the better part of two years before finally being filled with a friend of one of the investors.
The best places I've worked (as an engineer and otherwise) have been the ones that don't engage in this nonsense. I can see a simple fizzbuzz test being a prescreen as being useful, but just sitting down with a candidate and having a conversation about their resume seems to work best. Bonus, it's respectful of the candidate. Unlike a great many companies, you've actually taken the time to look at their resume. If you recognize something on the resume, ask them some penetrating questions and dig into what they know. If you don't recognize something, engage them to teach you about it. Competent people are competent at talking about their job. Ask them things like "can you give me examples of where you applied algorithm design or at least some complexity theory in a job?" If they give an example, probe deeper, have them talk in depth about the algorithm, see what they remember from their undergrad about big-O. Or "what was the most difficult integration you've ever faced?" followed with a "why?". Dig in, make it a conversation. Let them become a teacher during the interview, where they teach you about what they know and about their life. Ask questions like a student would. It's respectful, humble and draws unbelievable amounts of information from a candidate.
You'll quickly learn what kinds of things they know, what they don't know and what they're weak at. You'll also learn about their soft skills, like communication. Instead of playing an insipid game of cat and mouse, you'll learn about the person you're hiring. Ain't that what YC looks for?