Selecting Against Experience - Do Employers Know?

IBitOBear asks: "A couple days ago I did 'the interview loop' at that leading online retailer. Over the course of six hours I was repeatedly introduced to a guy in his early twenties, who would then ask me to write out code on a white-board for a problem that you might find in the study guide for a 200-level computer science class. I have 20 years of experience in programming and systems design. And in several cases the interviewers were vague, semantically incorrect, or self-contradictory. Interviewer blunders included not understanding that non-normal forms in databases -can be- more correct or efficient when the domain of a data is extremely limited; or choosing a leader among N candidates -is- a byzantine agreement problem. In short, the loop would have been perfect to weed out some guy getting his first job fresh out of school, but it definitely exerted selection pressure towards excluding experienced candidates. So employers, what are you doing to make sure that you are not culling out candidates with the low-ball? Job seekers, what do you do when you find yourself trapped in a sophomore study group?"

Comments

Re:20 years? So what?

[kingkade]

1) He hasn't had to reverse a linked list in 23 years.

Irrelevant, it's a basic problem.
2) There are framework functions to reverse a linked list. Who cares how they work.

See (1), it demonstrates problem-solving skills and it's not an unreasonable problem to solve. It may be insulting if you think they think you're that much of a dolt that it'd be challenging. But otherwise it's not hard at all if they give you enough time.

And let's say it is in that framework: you need to understand linked lists anyways if your problem uses lists that needs to be searched, you would know that using the list would be unwise.

And say you do "Google it". How do you verify that the code is correct? "oops this is code to reverse a circular linked list...ummmm."

I agree that you should probably not insult the guy's intelligence with such a question, or asking hm the question and giving a gameshow time limit.

And inane questions too. I had some guy ask me "what data structure would you use in designing a database application?" You just have to be gracious, don't act snobby, and "suck it up" like someone said. Joke about it later with his co-workers ;)

Since you might care... A clarification.

[IBitOBear]

I didn't get the job. And after I thought about the interview I didn't really want the job. So it was a push. I took a job offer that I had gotten from another company the day before the interview loop.

Also, I have done hiring. I appreciate the need to ask some simple coding questions because it isn't that uncommon to get people in who _can't_ write a bsearch and who cannot demonstrate a mastery of the simple language syntax. But you only really need to walk that mountaiside once in the interview process.

Then again, when you write some code on a white-board and the interviewer cannot understand it (q.v. "I don't understand... why are you checking the value of the pointer and then the contents of the pointer") and then that interviewer helps build the group decision that "we should get someone more technical", you are entering the realm of high comedy.

I actually laughed when the recruiter told me about their rationale.