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Please stop the coding challenges

(blackentropy.bearblog.dev)
261 points CrazyEmi | 1 comments | 15 Nov 24 15:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | source
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fishtoaster ◴[15 Nov 24 18:07 UTC] No.42149357[source]▶
I recently ran an interview process for a relatively senior eng role at a tiny startup. Because I believe different interview methods work better for different people, I offered everyone a choice:

1. Do a takehome test, targeted to take about 4 hours but with no actual time limit. This was a non-algorithmic project that was just a stripped-down version of what I'd spent the last month on in actual work.

2. Do an onsite pairing exercise in 2 hours. This would be a version of #1, but more of "see how far we get in 2 hours."

3. Submit a code sample of pre-existing work.

Based on the ire I've seen takehome tests get, I figured we'd get a good spread between all three, but amazingly, ~90-95% of candidates chose the takehome test. That matches my preference as a candidate as well.

I don't know if this generalizes beyond this company/role, but it was an interesting datapoint - I was very surprised to find that most people preferred it!

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dahart ◴[15 Nov 24 18:33 UTC] No.42149571[source]▶
Interesting! I like the idea of choice, but as a hiring manager it makes my problem harder. How do you compare the results from different choices equitably? I find trying to compare candidates fairly to be quite difficult, even when they have the exact same interview.

Last time I did a coding interview for real, I had the choice of any programming language, and could choose between 3 different problems to solve. I liked that quite a bit, and was offered the job. Being able to choose Python, instead of, say, C++ in a time-bound interview almost feels like cheating.

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1. fishtoaster ◴[16 Nov 24 00:04 UTC] No.42152810[source]▶
Yeah, that was the explicit tradeoff: I'm losing the ability to compare apples-to-apples. I decided it was worth the risks associated with that - that I'd wind up with two candidates who picked different options and I couldn't decide between them because I got different signal between them. As it turned out, it didn't really come up - nearly everyone chose the takehome. On a larger scale, though, you'd definitely have to grapple with that.