Reading 02: Job Interviews

Overall, I’d say that my job interview process has been relatively successful, but I would also say that it is not very enjoyable and almost unnecessarily stressful. I interviewed for a number of different companies, and between those companies, there was a lot of variety in the types of interviews they gave. I did interviews that were purely behavioral and tested no computer science skills whatsoever (strangely enough for a STEM role), interviews that were both behavioral and had a case study (some even not engineering related), interviews that required online evaluations (some of which, still not requiring any actual testing of computer science skills), and of course, the classic whiteboard interviews. I think the most surprising part of this process for me was how, aside from those with whiteboard interviews or online coding tests, a lot of the companies I interviewed for did not test my computer science skills very much if at all even for roles that are in IT or Cybersecurity. Honestly, this annoys me quite a bit because I’ve been working hard towards a computer science degree, so I would like to be tested on what I can do with what I’ve learned more than just having a conversation about “what my biggest failure was.” To be fair, I do understand why behavioral and case interviews exist: to evaluate whether the candidates would be a good fit for the company, good to work with, reflective, communicative, and for case interviews, great at quickly evaluating a situation and coming up with a solution given what you know and can glean. However, if the goal is to give the best real world impact, while yes these things are important, wouldn’t you want someone who has actually proven to you that they have an aptitude for some of the work you may expect them to do? Strictly behavioral interviews especially seem geared towards “who’s the best talker” rather than “who would be the best performer.” To be honest, the interviews that excited me and the ones I actually had fun with were those that tested my computer science abilities because it lets me show off my passion. Due to the nature of the different kinds of interviews I faced, I prepared a number of different ways. For behavioral, I had a list of commonly asked questions and made sure I had an answer for all of them. For case, sometimes I did some practice case interview problems, but sometimes I didn’t really do anything for them. Interview itself aside, knowing that my preparation for these types of interviews didn’t require any technical preparation at all irked me. For online tests and white board interviews, I prepared by sifting through old lecture slides from Data Structures and Programming Challenges as well as doing some practice problems on sites like HackerRank. Overall, I did pretty well on most of my interviews, but I’m not going to lie, while I loved talking about algorithms during whiteboard interviews, I hated interviews in general. I think the biggest hurdle for me was getting over the stress and trying not to let whatever they ask me feel intimidating because stress will make you much more self conscious and unsure of yourself and your abilities. That stress can make what appears a false reflection of what you know you’re actually capable of. Overall, I’m not really sure I find the general interview process to be that great of a system. Is it efficient? Efficiency I think depends on which company it is as some are more proactive with their candidates than others. Is it effective? I’m not so sure about this. I’ve already touched on why I think companies not testing any technical aspect during their interviews for technical roles is silly. With regards to white board interviews and online evaluations themselves, I agree when Larson says, “The problem is that writing algorithms on a whiteboard has almost nothing to do with modern software development. In real life, you would rarely just whip up an off-the-cuff algorithm from memory in the middle of a coding session. You are almost always going to use an existing library, which has its own test suite, and has survived the scrutiny of other developers” (Larson). Figuring out and learning about these algorithms are cool, but after working the past few summers, I never felt that having that very specific knowledge I studied for white board interviews was particularly useful in real work. I really liked the idea of audition projects presented by Jeff Atwood: “The most significant shift we’ve made is requiring every final candidate to work with us for three to eight weeks on a contract basis. Candidates do real tasks alongside the people they would actually be working with if they had the job” (Atwood). This kind of process would have a candidate showcase what a company is actually looking for: whether or not they have good production during real world work. Unfortunately, this is not the most practical solution especially for university students, but the idea is a good start. With regards to humaneness, I would say it is hard not to make people feel like a number or piece of paper especially in the pre-screening process because a lot of companies do have so many candidates. It is impractical to go through a full evaluation process with every candidate, so they do need some trimming somewhere, as unfortunate as that may be. With regards to ethicality, it’s hard to say. Obviously diversity in tech is a big issue, and I’ll be honest, I had never really thought about how “The fact is that as human beings, we tend to prefer what’s comfortable, and what’s most comfortable of all is … well, People Like Us” (Atwood). I don’t think that preferring people like us only because they make us comfortable is right, but I also don’t know how intentional it usually is.

Ayala Ethics Blog

Blog for CSE 40175 Ethical and Professional Issues

    Alejandro Rafael Ayala

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    Ayala Ethics Blog
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