Seriously who is coming up with these software developer interviews?

zimspy

zimspy

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A little while ago I applied for a developer position at Discovery. Before getting told how much I would even get paid, I was hit with a 51 question aptitude test. It had absolutely nothing related to software development at all, just a BS IQ style test.
How on Earth does that have anything to do with writing code and who came up with that test?

I also applied for a job with DVT. Before getting told how much I would be getting paid, I was hit with a technical interview challenge. No biggie, I will check it out. And oh my gosh I was so disappointed.
They required me to create a weather app using the OpenWeather API. To show how much they don't even care, they ask job seekers to create accounts with OpenWeather and Google Places and add banking information to get API keys! It's like the company isn't even bothered to make their own proper technical interview.

The task itself is also too much work. It requires you to design the app flow, implement the screens, consume the APIs, cache local data for when there's no internet connection. That much work at my own job would be broken down into tasks with requirements among different people or stretching several sprints.

There's been more companies like Ikhokha who apparently don't know what MVVM is but I digress.

I'm not being tone deaf here. When the chips are down, you do what you must to put bread on the table.
At the same time though, giving this much work to every candidate is ridiculous.
I'm also not a junior. I have 7 YOE and an extensive person portfolio. I get there are fakers but I don't see someone faking it for that long and have so much to show for it.

This is turning into a rant, but yeah, who the heck is coming up with these job interviews?
 
Unless you're being headhunted, expect a bit of a challenge. The main reason for a test like this is not just to get your capability with coding, but your attitude to a challenge and how you handle pressure. I've had people bail at the sight of a challenge which has made my job as a recruiter easier. The only thing I would say is to put a time frame to it, don't make candidates spend all day on an interview, that's doff. Just say like 1hr30 or something. I don't care if candidates finish, it's really just a hurdle that some dont get past. That helps me weed out the ones I dobt want to start with.

It's surprising the lengths scammers go to these days, especially in the online interviews...
Check it out

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podcasts.google.com podcasts.google.com
 
lkpat said:
Unless you're being headhunted, expect a bit of a challenge. The main reason for a test like this is not just to get your capability with coding, but your attitude to a challenge and how you handle pressure. I've had people bail at the sight of a challenge which has made my job as a recruiter easier. The only thing I would say is to put a time frame to it, don't make candidates spend all day on an interview, that's doff. Just say like 1hr30 or something. I don't care if candidates finish, it's really just a hurdle that some dont get past. That helps me weed out the ones I dobt want to start with.

It's surprising the lengths scammers go to these days, especially in the online interviews...
Check it out

Google Podcasts is no longer available

podcasts.google.com podcasts.google.com
Click to expand...
You could say you are challenging candidates but if I see a task as demanding as the one from DVT I bail.
Look at it this way, I am putting in my time to do unpaid work in a very short space of time.

If your task or challenge can't be completed by an experienced developer in 3 to 4 hours, you're just pushing away developers like me who know the value of their skills and wouldn't do this. I'm not saying I'm a super developer, just that I know unreasonable tasks when I see them.

Also also, you think you're weeding out scammers. If I wanted to I could have just hired cheap developers on Fivr or whatever to do the DVT task. I could spend 100 USD on Fivr, get a 20,000 Rand pay bump from DVT and be good.
The only reason I don't do that is actually because I don't think I would enjoy working at a place that has this kind of culture.

So yeah think about that for a second.
 
cguy said:
Still can’t beat a whiteboard and some coding+algo questions.
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See. The company is also actually putting in their time into the recruitment process, not just dumping all the effort onto the candidates.
 
lkpat said:
What do you have to show for it?
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I have a Google Play portfolio with 30 apps, 1,5 million downloads and 150K monthly active users.
I also have my work history and my educational qualifications.
If all that counts for nothing, then I may as well switch to somewhere else where there aren't such hiring shenanigans.
 
The interview process is as much a test of "fit" as it is of whether or not you can do the job.

From what you say, it is clear that you and Discovery aren't a good fit for each other.

(As an aside, I'd be curious to know what apps are yours.)
 
Priapus said:
I used to work for DVT. Know the weather app challenge you speak of well. I also worked for discovery. Both in mobile development. You dodged a serious bullet with Discovery. It’s hell on earth.
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That disaster of a app that for months couldn't order cronic meds on it and had to go into the pharmacy. The app that is more worried about the insurance and other addon crap than the medical aid section. Yea i think the Op dodged one there
 
Curt889 said:
That disaster of a app that for months couldn't order cronic meds on it and had to go into the pharmacy. The app that is more worried about the insurance and other addon crap than the medical aid section. Yea i think the Op dodged one there
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I worked on the insurance section of the app. But the app is OK it’s the environment that’s toxic.
 
cguy said:
Still can’t beat a whiteboard and some coding+algo questions.
Click to expand...
I like these, very difficult to do remotely though.

My current method doesn't have any tests at all. I get on a phone call with the candidate and have a "chat". I like to think I get a pretty good gut feel of a candidates competence just through this. If that goes well, my partner and I have a joint chat with the candidate. If we're both feeling good, we make an offer with a 3 month probation period and take it from there.

Granted we're a small team of 15 so this probably wouldn't scale very well but it's worked good enough. Only let one guy go during the probation period so far.

That all said, I only ever reply back to super high quality CVs
 
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zimspy said:
This is turning into a rant, but yeah, who the heck is coming up with these job interviews?
Click to expand...

The sooner more developers grow a pair and start saying no to these take home projects/hackerrank tests the quicker industry will get the message.

If we're going to interview each other we can both invest the time and there's also no reason to stretch it beyond 2-3 rounds.

Get a white board, ask me questions, let's discuss your questions/my answers and see what happens.

But if you are desperate and/or keep doing these tests you're not helping.
 
Harmonic said:
I like these, very difficult to do remotely though.
My current method doesn't have any tests at all. I get on a phone call with the candidate and have a "chat". I like to think I get a pretty good gut feel of a candidates competence just through this. If that goes well, my partner and I have a joint chat with the candidate. If we're both feeling good, we make an offer with a 3 month probation period and take it from there.

Granted we're a small team of 15 so this probably wouldn't scale very well but it's worked good enough. Only let one guy go during the probation period so far.

That all said, I only ever reply back to super high quality CVs
Click to expand...
Yes, you'd likely need to tweak it a bit as you scale. You could have the team broken down into sub teams as you grow, with each doing it's own hiring.
Remember being a leader is not just being the person making all the important decisions, but also mentoring someone else to be able to make those decisions.

That said, how companies go from "People can add bloat on CVs so we won't even read the CVs but we'll give them take homes and read the hundreds of lines of code instead" is illogical.
Filtering through CVs and calls is easier than reading people's code. Reading other people's code is a pain.
 
Hamster said:
The sooner more developers grow a pair and start saying no to these take home projects/hackerrank tests the quicker industry will get the message.

If we're going to interview each other we can both invest the time and there's also no reason to stretch it beyond 2-3 rounds.

Get a white board, ask me questions, let's discuss your questions/my answers and see what happens.

But if you are desperate and/or keep doing these tests you're not helping.
Click to expand...
We're still quite young as an industry. I think when we form some sort of unions like teachers and writers and actors, we'll be able to take less of certain treatment.
We should unionize.
 
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