| ▲ | jarsin 2 days ago |
| I never understood why Big Tech never setup contracts with all the SAT and ACT test centers across the country. Even before Zoom with Codepads it would have made sense for the recruiters to send potential candidates to a test center to do a pre assessment rather than waste time with engineers sitting on prescreen calls all day. |
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| ▲ | neofrommatrix 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| What exactly are you suggesting here? A standardized test that applies to all your job applications? Or, a candidate having to drive to a test center for every company they apply to? Or something else? |
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| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | the idea is sound. create a basic standardized test targeted at tech/engineering jobs. not actually SAT -- operated by a vendor like The College Board. There are plenty of standardized test operators | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | When I'm interviewing, I'm putting about 30% of the weight towards "would I enjoy working with this person on a daily basis?", but in the context of technical discussions. Standardized testing won't be able to replicate it. | | |
| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent [-] | | you're not allowed to discriminate | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Discriminate against... a personality that will negatively impact the team dynamics? It's not that easy, to be honest, as every team has its own requirements. | | |
| ▲ | ivell 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | A stereotypical Asian interviewing a stereotypical German might find the German rude in some interactions. While another German interviewer would find it being frank. Interviews based on personal feelings have hidden biases not even the interviewer is aware of. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Here's another question - stereotypical Japanese interviewer, interviewing, back-to-back, a stereotypical Indian and a stereotypical German for the role. Both are capable and equally technically proficient. How do you choose, other than looking at the team you're hiring for, and thinking how the person would fit in? |
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| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | would you be able to document this negative fit in an impartial way when rejecting a protected class? | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You just send out a generic decline, and document it as there's a better candidate fit for the role. I'm not sure if you guys have been in charge of hiring, but there's no real alternative. In my most recent experience, we had one open position, and after interviewing 10 candidates, 3 of them were basically identical in terms of technical qualifications. How do you choose one over the other, other than the "vibes"? Anyone suggesting otherwise is either living in a weird alternate reality, or doesn't want to accept that working is a cooperative job and interpersonal relationships are very important. There always will be exceptions for different type of roles and specializations, but that's not what I'm talking about. | | |
| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent [-] | | a large company doing this (no documentation of a skills gap) who gets subpoenaed would lose 10/10 times | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo a day ago | parent [-] | | I'm curious, what are the recent cases that were brought up where the company lost? | | |
| ▲ | tonymet a day ago | parent [-] | | Meta had one around 2020 with EEOC. The Harvard Case I mentioned above (supreme court) , Activision, Dell, a few others on the top of my mind. | | |
| ▲ | tokioyoyo 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | I just looked them up, as I recalled those cases differently, and it doesn’t look like anything has to do with declining an applicant due to them not being the right fit for the team. |
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| ▲ | aleph_minus_one 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > would you be able to document this negative fit in an impartial way when rejecting a protected class? Likely. But haters gonna hate, and lawyers gonna sue. |
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| ▲ | ge96 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Is that discrimination? Somebody can en an annoying prick regardless of their background. | | |
| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent [-] | | If the candidate is a protected class and they are rejected for "cultural fit" it will be an easy case for EEOC to raise a discrimination case. This is effectively how Harvard was rejecting Asian applicants. They created a "personal fit" / cultural fit quality that Asians scored low on . Supreme Court found this to be discrimination. It doesn't matter if you are truly discriminating, it matters how well you have tangible evidence of the employee not meeting the qualifications for the role. |
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| ▲ | el_benhameen 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Would certainly make it easy for employers to differentiate themselves by saying “well, at least we don’t do THAT”. | | |
| ▲ | MathMonkeyMan 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Interviewing fads are set by these large companies that have the problem of systematically evaluating many thousands of candidates. A standardized test is all they want. Then they could do the rest like college admissions, and at a fraction of the cost. |
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| ▲ | renewiltord 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That’s what Triplebyte planned on. The truth is I don’t trust anyone else to run evals. | | |
| ▲ | thaumasiotes 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > The truth is I don’t trust anyone else to run evals. It's a common sentiment. But compare https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decisio... . ("People predicting the future performance of college students state that interviewing the students aids prediction, although in fact the interviews make predictions less accurate.") | | |
| ▲ | renewiltord 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Well, the people who read that are welcome to try that and outcompete me in the market. Triplebyte still exists. |
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| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | you're right there are quality issues, some probably deliberate. but the screening cost for companies is eye watering so something should be done. |
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| ▲ | Etheryte 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This largely misses what an interview is all about, save for entry level positions. | | |
| ▲ | tonymet 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | given the in-person interview is at the end of the funnel by a factor of 500-1000, standardized testing might even open up opportunity for under represented candidates. Think of how poor the screening process is at the recruiter & CTS (left side) of the funnel, and how many false negatives there are . If you could offer standardized test at that level, you may be able to keep viable candidates in the funnel longer. | |
| ▲ | krisoft 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don’t think that the suggestion is that the standarised test is the only filter. It is merely one out of many. |
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| ▲ | jarsin 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Standardized plus the ability for companies to do their own test after they pass the standard one. So go get prescreened at test center then use that test to apply for jobs. Company either flys you in for in-person or sends you back to test center to do live remote interview in controlled environment. | | |
| ▲ | AlexGizis 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's been tried and failed: Sun Microsystems pushed certifications in the 90s. Pass the test on some technology, get the certification. Then they studied performance. The result? More certifications implied a worse employee. The reason was the top performing employees had no time to study for the exams, but the managers of the bottom performing employees were happy to send them off to training and testing. And then the certification fad came mostly to an end. | | |
| ▲ | benatkin 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That was something quite different that got tried. This would be more based on aptitude rather than knowledge. Of course, they'd miss out on some good talent. But in the article where it shows the quote of someone getting rejected for not inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard, that doesn't seem like a terrible thing to test for. | |
| ▲ | jarsin 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I always felt like the Sun and Cisco certs were more about creating people that would push their products on other companies. Big Tech / Unicorn / Wannabe Unicorn prescreens are all basically standardized now anyway. |
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| ▲ | recursive 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That was essentially triplebyte. | | |
| ▲ | benatkin 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That was part of it. Another part was it being socially awkward in a way that I think outsourcing testing needn't be. | |
| ▲ | thaumasiotes 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, that was Triplebyte's marketing. Their actual product was completely different. |
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| ▲ | enmyj 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I have done interviews with Karat which just outsources technical interviews to engineers elsewhere. All of these technical interviews still suck though! I basically never code with someone watching me and find it very difficult to do in interviews. I also find it hard to find the time to actually practice this skill |
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| ▲ | arscan 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Im revisiting technical interview prep because it has been awhile and it seems like a good time for a refresher, and it is striking how similar it all is to SAT and GMAT prep these days. A pretty cookie-cutter performance that is mostly about demonstrating that you have the time and means to properly prepare. Might as well just go the extra step at that point and have it be exactly like those standardized tests… take them once at a test center, get a score that is valid for a few years that you can just send in with your application… |
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| ▲ | janalsncm 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That maybe end up happening. Send them to a test center to do their remote hacker rank interview. Doesn’t even need to be standardized. I don’t like it but it’s one of the lower friction options. |
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| ▲ | givemeethekeys 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| In the US and Canada, to get into university, there is, or at least used to be, a standard entrance exam or something close to it (the SAT in the US, OAC scores if you were from Ontario, Canada, etc..). Additionally, Undergraduate programs in the US and Canada, at least used to, despite their varied reputation, have a pretty standard program. Maybe things have deteriorated so far at the high school and university level that new standardized exams are needed. But we also have a plethora of verifiable certifications whose exams are held in independent test facilities. |
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| ▲ | ttyprintk 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Another commenter on this called it “Licensing” but it’s more like credentialing to me. |
