Rant: How Most Companies Screw Up Technical Interviews

I often hear statistics such as how there’s this huge gap in terms of the talent pool for technology jobs in the states. The result is that companies have supposedly been forced to offshore to go for talent. Yet I question whether the actual talent pool is shallow or that the interview processes are skewed, which has caused numerous companies to be unable to hire the right talent.

Every company has their own methodology in terms of choosing their talent but there really isn’t a good standard. Part of the issue is that you really have two types of talent at the technical level: experienced and inexperienced. I split the two up in this manner because the divide really is about those people who have been in the workplace for at least 2-3+ years and those pretty much fresh out of school.

When it comes to those just entering the workforce, most don’t have the right skills to do a specific job right off the bat. Perhaps, they learned Java, C++ or Python in school whereas the job might require Ruby on Rails, PHP or Node. So the only way a less experienced candidate can be properly tested is by throwing at him an academic test to check out their general knowledge. At the end of the day, most programming languages are the same at least for most business cases. And usually it’s just about learning the particulars of that language and the frameworks used at the office.

For experienced workers, it becomes much tougher to gauge their ability. Part of the problem is that throwing academic tests at them really isn’t practical as people tend to forget stuff they learned in college and are more set with a certain technology or style. And there are quite a few cases where you have a large section who never studied fundamental CS in college but went straight to work as a developer. In those cases, they might have very good hard skills but lack a solid foundation. However, they still are able to contribute once they bypass the interview process and are thrown onto a project.

I feel that part of the issue is that the technical interview process lacks a general standard where people can turn to a single source of truth to be able to rightfully say, “I can do my work properly.” There isn’t a happy medium and what ends up happening is what I call a different version of hazing, as if the people at the interview chomp at the bit to impose the fact that they’ve been through hell and want to send you through the same grind.

Let me say, I’ve been there on both sides. But as I get older, I’ve come to realize that at the end of the day, this hazing process is quite useless. You really want to just see what the candidate is capable of and whether they can perform their job adequately.

I realize that every company is looking for those so-called super star programmers. Believe me, just because you get one, does not mean you really want them. Just with anything, getting someone calling themselves as top notched comes with its own share of baggage. It’s like trying to have Axl Rose perform for your kid’s birthday party; do you really want to have an exclusive dressing room, all types of cheese and specific drinks just to appease some asshole’s ego?

Part of the problem is that this syndrome partly was Google’s fault for doing the whole “Google Test” process. In the end, it utterly failed. I think in the beginning it was fine because the early Google wanted to establish a specific culture and only by hiring specific types of people could they get to their next level. But that in part was established as a result of Sergie Brin and Larry Page’s own personalities. However, over time as the company wanted to rapidly expand and scrounge for resources, it simply became impossible since all the best were taken or just a figment of people’s imaginations.

The other part is half the reprehensibility from the discourse set by vile recruiters in attempting to appeal to mainstream rhetoric in coming up with selling points for companies and job descriptions. They essentially borrowed from Hollywood (and probably The Social Network) in attempting to over glorify what really ought to be an above average menial position. Let’s be honest now; development is cool but unless you’re creating this super algorithm for solving man’s resource problems, you’re just a jabronie. But all of this is just ego driven nonsense that has made the market that much worse overall.

What is needed is a reset in expectations. Keep the interview process simple. Find out what the candidate is capable of from their personal experience. Learn what they can contribute and what they want out of a job. And most importantly figure out if they can do the basic job. Most of the tech jobs out there really aren’t difficult at the end of the day. What tends to be the biggest hurdles are poorly explained problems, lack of resources and unnecessarily tight deadlines.

Of course, the other major issue is that part of the issue is that the first wave of the dot com boom probably hurt the industry in more ways than one. You had a lot of inexperienced people with tons of expectations that weren’t met. So afterwards, business leaders became cautious in their hiring practices with good reason since a lot could come in and sweet talk their way through an interview. But again, there’s still ways of handling that without doing a stupid test that might be hurting a lot of qualified peoples’ chances.

The last remark I want to make concerns how companies should re-evaluate themselves in terms of where they stand in the scheme of things. What I mean by this is that I’ve seen companies who are so picky about their candidates that they can waste months maybe even years of searching for the perfect person for a spot. I’ve seen job descriptions up for a few years at a couple of spots. That simply is insane. From a business point of view, that’s just a waste because the department requiring the resource might be floundering. Imagine for instance a situation where everyone remained unhappy with candidates but constantly had deadlines they couldn’t meet. Wouldn’t it make far more sense to lower the requirements to get someone in rather than waste everyone’s time in this constant search? That way you get someone reasonably quick, get them started so that they can help offload the work from other people who might be overburdened.

At any rate, this is something I had to get off my chest. I realize not every company is going to change for my sake. But at the same time, I really hope business leaders re-evaluate the people who make these decisions in the hiring process. At the end of the day, if you really need to fill a spot, then fill it. But don’t be a jerk about it and don’t spend too much time and resources trying to find someone perfect. You won’t. Instead, focus on nurturing that person so that they are able to succeed rather than waiting for them to fail.

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