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

at "that" online retailer, they probably know

[yagu]

They probably know they are leaning towards fresh blood, and probably will pass on more experienced and stronger candidates. I know quite a few people who work "there", and inside, they are one of the top IT shops, bar none.

Also, there are a few things to be aware of... part of the interview process intentionally (from talking to insiders there, and at Microsoft) introduces vagueness, incorrectness, and other troubling aspects to problem solving. One of the things they're trying to observe is how a candidate deals with the obstacles.

A friend at Microsoft told me if a candidate got flustered and angry at an intractable "problem" he (or she) was pretty much disqualified on the spot. At Microsoft, you could tell your job was "no go" if it didn't last the entire day. (Mine did, sigh... and I got the job, sigh again.) Typically they "nice" way was to tell the candidate the next interviewer got caught up in some responsibilities, and that would be that.

My personal opinion, not that it amounts to a hill of beans for these companies, they sell themselves more short than they might realize. Business is about numbers games and businesses play the curve within one sigma, that's it.

As for what to do when trapped in a sophomore study group, that sophomore group pretty much holds all of the cards. Candidates would be wise to suck it up, be friendly, and at least pretend not to be bothered by their seeming snobbery. (Also, by the way, the snobbery at Microsoft is real.)

Some are better than others selecting excellent candidates (that online retailer comes to mind), but I think there's a slew of mediocre companies out there that would be better performers with a bit more appetite for investing in "old timers". Of course, coming from an old timer, I'm probably introducing my own bias.

(ASIDE, and By The Way... you said over the course of six hours you were repeatedly introduced to a guy in his early twenties... If management had any of their wits about them, they'd consider getting rid of that guy... he should have been recognizing you by the 2nd or 3rd introduction. Sheesh.)

Re:at "that" online retailer, they probably know

[Skreems]

I agree with most of that. I'm basically one of the 20 year olds the story is complaining about. I ask retardedly easy questions when I interview people, and on occasion I will be a bit vague on purpose, to see if they will ask clarifying questions or just fumble around for a half hour (guess which one gets you hired?). The problem is, I've interviewed people who claim to have been working in industry longer than I've been alive, and you'd be amazed how many of them can't code what basically boils down to a double nested for loop. I've had people go up to the white board and fumble around for 30 minutes only to wind up back where they started. You have to ask those retardedly easy questions because half the candidates can't answer them, even the ones who've been full time workers for decades.

As for incorrect knowledge of some algorithmic stuff... there's two options. One is, they may know the correct answer, but are waiting to see if you do, and if you'll correct them. In one of my interviews coming out of college, a person said something about the problem I was working that was blatantly incorrect. He'd been working on a similar system for months, so I'm convinced that he was just seeing whether I'd correct him, or defer to him as "the authority". I corrected him, and I got the offer. The second option is that he doesn't, in which case you should stand up to him anyway. Even if he doesn't know you're right, most people will respect someone who isn't afraid to contradict them. If you just blandly defer to everything they say, how do they know what it would be like to try to design a system with you?

Not all of the impressions of snobbery at Microsoft are real, though. I found them very friendly in my interviews, and very down-to-earth. Probably depends on the group you're interviewing with, but there's a lot of people who are just good at what they do, and want you to show them that you're good at it as well.

Walk away.

[Spazmania]

Job seekers, what do you do when you find yourself trapped in a sophomore study group?

Walk away. An interview is a two-way street: they're evaluating your ability to do the job but you're also evaluating their ability to provide a worthwhile work environment. If they fail your test, walk away.

20 years? So what?

[zer0man]

20 years experience doesn't mean much. I have heard/seen candidates bullying interviewers with their credintials (I've got a PhD in Computer Science) or experience (I've been coding since you were in diapers) and yet still fail to reverse a linked list in-place, or fail to explain the basic idea of hashing.

It bothers me, as an engineer with some experience, to be subjected to the humiliation of 'the interview loop', yet having been involved in hiring I absoluately see why it is needed -- people, well, inflate their credentials when it comes to looking for work. So companies essentially ignore past work experience and ask questions relating to specific engineering problems to try to see what kind of developer you are. Sometimes the interviewer is bad, but that's why it's a "loop" there are at least 4 of them, and one of them should be a more 'senior' interviewer who holds more sway (that is if i'm guessing correctly at your 'leading online retailer').

True, the system isn't perfect. You could be a brilliant engineer, but can't reverse a string. But with the amount of money that is invested into an engineer by the company as high as it is, they company doesn't want to be wrong.

Re:20 years? So what?

[tgd]

The problem with the position you described in your reply is that its not really applicable to software development.

An engineer with 20 years experience knows a few things:

1) He hasn't had to reverse a linked list in 23 years.
2) There are framework functions to reverse a linked list. Who cares how they work.

Questions like that are VERY age-biased. Because only someone right out of school, or someone with their head so buried in the code would remember that on the spot. Experienced engineers will tell you how to manage the development process, how to write code that is engineered to be testable, can actually explain software architecture and will do a FAR better job solving real world problems.

Why? Even if you DO need to reverse a linked list in a situation where you can't use framework functions to do it, an experienced engineer can pretty easily punch in a few google keywords.

No amount of googling will give a kid out of school an understanding of how you really engineer software in the real world.

The only time I would consider asking questions like that to an experienced engineer (and I ripped off a similar one I got asked at Microsoft way back when during an interview today) is if I've already decided someone isn't a fit for some totally unrelated reason and I need a quick way to quantify that.

Re:As an employer ...

[IBitOBear]

Actually, I showed no disdain at all. I carefully and cheerfully complied. I even kept the mood up and remained positive through the entire process. It was the odd post-interview feedback that got my goat a little bit. 8-)

I actually like working with younger people as a general rule as it keeps the mind sharp and provides a continuous influx of fresh eyes to stave off the dogmatic ossification I often encounter in my peers.

There is nothing wrong with going back to first principles. I just found the failure to transcend first principles (and the fact that a couple of the guys got all grumpy when they didn't understand my solutions to their problems as stated and as revised) to be something of a warning flag.

The "ask a question of sublime simplicity" approach can only prove effective if the questioner can understand an answer of sublime subtlety.

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.