Comment by learc83 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by learc83 | Hacker News Reader

None of my engineer friends have ever had a Google style technical interview. What makes software so different?

You don't ask an electrical engineer to layout a complicated PCB on a whiteboard, you don't have a civil engineer build a bridge out of popsicle sticks.

Surely hiring an incompetent electrical engineer is just as bad as hiring an incompetent software engineer, but from talking to the EEs I know, they just get asked basic questions or go over past projects--nothing nearly as stressful as a coding interview.

If other industries can get by without them, whiteboard technical interviews must not be as necessary as they're made out to be. It seems to me they are just a damaging fad. I think the high stress technical interview could even be one of the factors contributing to the software monoculture.

Well if your job resembles writing on a whiteboard, solving problems, then they should make sure you can do that in the interview. Try going through some problems on a white board you'll probably enjoy it more than you assume!

Software engineering doesn't resemble anything like solving brain teasers on a white board while your boss watches over your shoulder.

No other engineering discipline does this, and software didn't do this until everyone started copying Google.

In fact an HR guy from Google basically said that interviews were useless. [1]

>Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship. It’s a complete random mess, except for one guy who was highly predictive because he only interviewed people for a very specialized area, where he happened to be the world’s leading expert.

Everyone else is copying Google assuming they are doing it right, but they're not. Once Google selects potential candidates and weeds out the people who lied on their resumes with basic questions, they'd probably do just as well hiring a random selection.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...

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