Ask HN: Are there any fair interview processes people have encountered?

1 point·big_bad_sean··2 comments

We've seen lots of talk of the dystopian nature of interviewing for Software Engineering jobs.

So what interview processes actually seemed fair?

That is, in the real world, how does a hiring manager make a fair decision about an engineer in just a few hours time?

We at UpSkillie.com take a lot of interviews to screen developers. We found that it is tough to gauge someone's ability to get the job done. What we would often find is that guys often fail at the conventional interviewing methods like DS & Algo questions or even timed tests but excel assignment tasks. Most often these guys are self-taught programmers and can get the job done but lack the fundamental knowledge of things.

They are always the toughest to decide upon, as you feel like you don't want to lose them but they also exhibit a lack of knowledge that might impact their problem-solving skills in future. So what we experimented with was giving a times University Style Paper Submission upon a topic they might learn a lot on or need to learn. If they turn the paper in say the next 24 or 48 hours they are in. As they have exhibited diligence and ability to learn quickly. It always gets us the best of the candidates. It might also stem from my wish to give people a chance to succeed even if they have neglected things previously.

Thanks for the response. A paper submission is a really interesting idea. The longer I've been at this, the more important writing skills seem to me. So I really like this idea.

how much guidance do you give?

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