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Comment by phkahler | Hacker News Reader

Funny. I agreed with the author. It's relatively easy to gauge technical ability vs those who can pretend. I only use a simple take-home problem when I truly can't tell which type they are. The really great part is that I usually tell a faker from the resume. Maybe I should blog about this.

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I want to highlight a third possibility that isn't discussed which is people who can talk about code, but can't deliver (or can't deliver well), but really want to learn how to deliver.

It's fine if you don't want to hire that person, but I'm really annoyed that they often immediately get labeled a bullshit artist in a lot of these threads.

Considering how many shitty positions there are, it's honestly surprising we don't reflexively go "oh, you never learned to do X well because you haven't been with a good company that can teach you to do X well".

I feel the same way. Obviously I can't measure false negatives, because they don't get hired, but I can't remember having been duped before. My process is to ask them to describe their role on some projects on their resume and then keep asking them deeper and deeper questions about it until one of us hits the limit of our knowledge. I only ever ask people questions about things they claim to have done. This probably creates some false negatives with really shy people, but it's easy to suss out the bull shitters.

If you're right, demand 2x your salary, because the industry's track record on this is abominable.

There's a company that turns up here on HN sometimes that claims to find the best engines. They were looking for part time remote screeners/ evaluators. I figured I'd apply. Filled out some stuff online, and then their system wanted me to take a test on java script or something - not my language. It was then that I knew they don't really know how to interview people, so I stopped the application process.

Good to hear you say take-home problems, as I believe it's a much more realistic assessment than is whiteboarding per what the job actually entails.

Being a good dev is about being thoughtful in assessing a problem and designing/implementing a solution. This vs standing up in front a group of people and hastily trying to devise a solution to a random challenge.

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