| ▲ | Muromec 2 hours ago | |
I was on the interviewer side last month. We stopped giving take-home assignments because they don't produce a signal anymore. We explicitly said -- feel free to use whatever framework and AI assistant, just show us how you do it. The practical part had no leetcode too. Just build something really basic, then explain a snippet of code (3 lines) and generalize it. A trick question (with a disclosure it's a trick question) if the candidate did it fast enough that we didn't have to go into the overtime. A bit of theory about protocols, all in all an hour and we leave another 30 minutes on top to answer questions. At the end of the day we just filter out with confidently bad takes, people who can't do 2+2 and ones that can't understand the question without rephrasing it three times. The most bizzarre candidate didn't know anything at all, but was so relaxed and confident, that he spent all of the 30 minutes asking about the company and how his day would like and all that, while he clearly bombed it. The difficult part is how to not filter out a competent person who doesn't necessarily agree with all of your takes, uses all the same tools and had all of the same experiences as both of the interviewers. | ||
| ▲ | pards 2 hours ago | parent [-] | |
> people who can't do 2+2 and ones that can't understand the question without rephrasing it three times We resorted to filtering candidates in-person with 5 basic technical questions on pen and paper. And I mean _really_ basic questions. This was surprisingly effective because it filters for many non-technical skills like being able to read and write English, follow instructions, and show up to the office, on time, and appropriately dressed. The number of candidates that failed these basic skills was astounding. We had candidates show up 20 minutes late, or email 2 minutes before the "interview" asking for a Teams link even though the invitation stated the meeting was in-person (highlighted in yellow). Others couldn't write their own name legibly on the paper. A candidate that cannot answer basic technical questions has no hope of being able to prompt an AI effectively or review the code it produces. | ||