Will the Solve-the-Riddle Hiring Trend Affect IT?

An anonymous reader wonders: "It's probably harder to find a good developer, than for a developer to find a job. Seems to be a Google-riddle trend; rather than caring about references/diplomas/resumes, employers are using solve-this-and-you-have-a-job approach, not even caring about any usual information. Does that give decent graduates/talented unexperienced devs/homegrown coders a chance at the corporate job, or does it alienate potential matches?"

Comments

It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[eldavojohn]

From the Wikipedia entry:

Some 9,000 people were working at Bletchley Park at the height of the codebreaking efforts in January 1945, and over 10,000 worked there at some point during the war. A number were recruited for various intellectual achievements, whether they were chess champions, crossword experts, polyglots or great mathematicians. In one, now well known instance, the ability to solve The Daily Telegraph crossword in under 12 minutes was used as a recruitment test. The newspaper was asked to organise a crossword competition, after which each of the successful participants was contacted and asked if they would be prepared to undertake "a particular type of work as a contribution to the war effort". The competition itself was won by F H W Hawes of Dagenham who finished the crossword in less than eight minutes.

Solving a crossword in under 12 minutes was the entrance exam. That's interesting. I remember reading about this in Simon Singh's The Code Book in the Chapter on Alan Turing.

I think the ability to solve puzzles is tightly correlated with the skill set desired by IT. Because it takes an inquisitive and unrelenting mind to hit the hardest puzzles. If they like to do this for fun, surely they can do it well for a living.

Perhaps it's even more important than the education because of the way IT problems arise? I constantly tell my boss that I complete the crossword everyday at work without fear of repurcussions. I feel this keeps my mind nimble and prepares me for the day.

Isn't a college degree just a symbol that says, "Look, a whole bunch of people with good reputations threw a bunch of puzzles at me. Some were hard, some were easy, but overall I did well enough to pass through these puzzles. I retained some of the information and processes but that's not really important. What's important is the fact that I'm able to solve problems and paid to do it for four years."

So, in the end, I predict this will have little or no effect on the IT world at all. In fact, I think it's a better shift towards hiring the most qualified person. For financial reasons, I went to the University of Minnesota but people on the East coast imagine a backwoods podunk frozen tundra instead of an institution of learning when I mention it. If I'm a good puzzle solver, it shouldn't matter.

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[networkBoy]

You're making too much of it.

The average network diagram is so convoluted that it can not be accurately put on paper. Having a mind that can actually grasp what's really going on is a rare thing. It's simply another puzzle to be solved.
-nB

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[Aladrin]

You hit the nail on the head there, twice.

Real IT problems aren't as easy as the Sunday crossword. The problem being that different people are good at different puzzles. But if you're bad at problem solving, it'll show up in your lack of ability to solve puzzles.

Even our small network here at the office was ugly to diagram out. I was amazed at what a pain it was. And the guy who installed the IP-based phones could not do his job until he drew it out on the whiteboard. We ended up fixing his drawing, then revising it several times as we re-ordered the office a bit for convenience. But we had to draw EVERYTHING for him. With extensive labelling. And we also had to call things by the names he learned in school. It had to be 'FQDN' and not 'domain name' or he'd be lost. (He did eventually figure that one out and start correcting us when we just said 'domain name', though.) He's exactly the sort of 'tech' the puzzles would have made sure they never hired.

Relying solely upon the puzzles is as crazy as relying on any other single part of the interview process, though. Our office is extremely smooth, and most people get along with most everyone else. A year prior to my hire, the office was not like this. Most people hated coming to work, including the owners. They instituted a personality test during the interview process and things got better quickly.

Just 1 more thing to help weed out bad apples, that's all.

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[Monkelectric]

Yes and no.

Out here in Orange County, IGN Entertainment is infamous for their tests. I went in and nailed the interview. The next level to advance to was a test. The test was to implement a small web server (GET/HEAD commands basically) in C++ using *no external libraries of any kind*. They stated the test should take 3 - 4 hours. The specs were extremely vague and any attempt I made to get clarification was met with "do what you think is best".

They also mailed me the test late on a thursday evening, and were calling asking where it was the following monday morning. Problem being I was currently working 50/60 hours a week as well, and it just happened to be the weekend I was moving :(

I ask you then, how is anyone who currently *has* a job and perhaps a family supposed to complete a test like this? It seems like the most talented candidates would *HAVE* jobs and therefore find it much more difficult to complete the test. I rushed the program together because -- what choice did I have? It did not represent me well.

Looking back, the only appropriate response on my part would have been to say "Your requirements suck, and this is not a 3 to 4 hour job. Thanks but no thanks." The entire thing was a waste of their time, waste of my time. Maybe that was the test, to see if I'd tell them to fuck off.

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[EastCoastSurfer]

These kinds of tests usually tell me I don't want to work at that sort of place. If they are going to expect an interview candidate to write a web server in a few hours, then what will they want when you work there? Expect to have demands like 'we need an entire application written this week, don't worry about design or figuring out what the application really needs to do, just write something.'

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[Monkelectric]

Yea, but C++ is all about the details, and no external libraries meant you had to implement *EVERYTHING* ... no parsing tools (flex/yacc), no threading libraries, no file utilities. Not even simple things like path normalization.

In the "real" world you'd be a fool to implement any of those things.

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[rlp]

'we need an entire application written this week, don't worry about design or figuring out what the application really needs to do, just write something.'

Wow, I used to work there too! Did you know Fred?

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[nine-times]

The next level to advance to was a test. The test was to implement a small web server (GET/HEAD commands basically) in C++ using *no external libraries of any kind*.

So you had to GET/HEAD over a weekend? Was your wife allowed to help you?

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[griffjon]

Fred... Fred... He wrote that big thing with no documentation, right? Man, do you have his contact info?

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[Geoff]

Amen, brother.

I once had an interview where they handed me a few lines of abberent C code and asked what's the output. I answered that it didn't matter, because C code should never be written like that. Production C code should never look like an entry in the Obfuscated C contest.

That was the wrong answer, of course, and I didn't get an offer, but I figured a sysadmin job at a place that wanted me to be able to read obfuscated C entries probably wasn't the place I wanted to work anyway.

Geoff

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[TrebleJunkie]

If it takes you 2-3 hours to GET/HEAD, you're cruising the wrong street corners! ;)

Re:It Seemed to Work for Bletchley Park

[tricorn]

Writing a simple web server is trivial. It doesn't even need to be multi-threaded, though it wouldn't be difficult to make it serve multiple connections at once with select.

Someone who can't write the code to parse out a GET request is pretty lame. Heck, you SHOULD be able to write it all in 3-4 hours using nothing but system calls, no section (3) library calls at all. That is, you get to use socket, select, open, read, write. Write your own damned string parsing routines, most of them are about 3-15 lines long. No, you don't get to use malloc; include (and check) reasonable limits on string lengths, simultaneous connections, etc, then you won't need to dynamically allocate memory. If you insist, create your own memory allocator, using anonymous mmap to get more raw memory, but it won't be worth it. Might impress them, though.

Suggestion: create an index file mapping URL to static file to return. Look up the URL, return the file. Manage the index file manually, with Perl, with shell scripts, whatever, they didn't tell you how to administer the server. If you're feeling slightly ambitious and want to impress them, include the ability to run programs with simple arguments passed in on the command line. Heck, you could even include POST and PUT support without too much trouble, but that might take more than 3-4 hours to get it all working just right, dealing with multiple processes and pipes that can block, etc, all while also dealing with multiple sockets, any of which can close or die unexpectedly, can be a bit tricky. I'd start off writing a generic process-handler library and integrate it with the socket handler so everything can be run off of one select (or poll) call. But, if you do that, come up with a better solution than CGI.

Specifications? All you need to do is implement a subset of HTTP. If you can't look up the specs to that, I certainly wouldn't hire you. Since they didn't give you any other requirements, I'd consider the job done when a standard web browser (your choice) can connect to it and follow links. It's not like you have to implement PHP or JSP or whatever for the thing! I think 3-4 hours is reasonable. If you don't, you obviously weren't the right person for the job.

Websense

[gEvil (beta)]

Hmm. Websense blocks proveyourworth.net because it falls in the 'sex' category. Now I'm really curious about what this riddle is...

Re:Websense

[grub]

It's just the goatse pic with "How?" printed below it.

Re:Websense

[ellem]

You can't even get around websense?

I am so NOT hiring you :)

Moo

[Chacham]

Guvf vf xvaq bs fvyyl, ohg vg vf n avpr jnl gb svaq ng yrnfg *fbzr* gnyrag.

Re:Moo

[gEvil (beta)]

For those of you confused by the gibberish above, you can solve it by using the key in the subject line. The process involves adding and subtracting each subsequent character value in the key. Since 'm' is the 13th character, you start by adding 13. From there you subtract 15 ('o' is the 15th character), and then you add 15 again. This gives you a final rotation value of 13. You can then apply that to the message to decrypt it.

Answer

[kevin_conaway]

I suspect that its not necessarily that you solve the riddle this instant, they probably want to get an insight into how you think and how you solve problems.

Problem solving is a huge part of developing software and an important quality to have in a candidate

Solution

[mikeumass]

http://www.proveyourworth.net/?p=begin&mistake=lit tle

Riddles work

[grapeape]

Its how I landed my current job. Resume wise I have an unrelated degree, few certifications that are still valid but many years of experience. The companies owner saw my resume and noticed an application I had listed was a relatively obscure one that they were having trouble with. I was asked to come in as a consultant for a week and fix the problem for them. I had everything fixed in less than a day, they were impressed enough that I was offered a full time job on the spot.

Riddle solving evens the playing field for those that are skilled but may not have the resume to reflect their skill level. I know most hate the old saying that "those who can do and those who cant teach" but many times book smarts doesnt translate into real world performance. Being able to display the smarts and tenacity to tackle a problem head especially after others have tried and given up instantly gives you a "value" to the potential employer. I think most that dont like the idea arent comfortable with the idea that someone with a lesser resume might actually be better in real world situations.

As long as they do it for every other employee....

[Anonymous Coward]

Manager
    "The bad news is that you failed the puzzle exam, the good news is that if you can make this power point slide animate annoyingly while playing music, you're hired."

CEO/CFO/etc.
    "Here's a knife and here's your mother, stab her and I'll give you $20."

Corporate Lawyer
    "Look outside and tell me it's raining (it's sunny). Now write the most incomprehensible sentence you can. When you are finished, Bob the CEO wants to talk to you about another test."

Accountant
    "See these two piles of cash on my table? When I turn around, you have five seconds to hide one so that I can't find it."

Marketing
    "Tell me again how this pen in my hand can cure cancer?"

Sales
    "I have several baggies of what appears to be baking soda on my desk, when I come back at lunch, they should be gone."

Intern
    "When I say it's all your fault, you say ok. It's your fault."

Technical Support
    "This button on the phone transfers the caller to another support person. Can you press it?"

Office Assistant
    "Do you have experience with the mentally handicapped or young children? Meet Bob, your new boss."

Re:I like this

[BenEnglishAtHome]

and a criminal background check that comes up negative

Is your hiring policy so brain-dead that any blot on a criminal background check is an automatic disqualifier? Or is a potential candidate given a chance to explain? We live in times when it seems that everything is illegal. No one gets through a day without doing something illegal. No one gets through a month without committing a serious crime. (Well, at least that's true if you have a half-way fun sex life.) Is your requirement for a negative background check absolute? If so, why?

It filters for one type of person

[pauljlucas]

Does [solve-the-riddle] give decent graduates/talented unexperienced devs/homegrown coders a chance at the corporate job, or does it alienate potential matches?

If I do say so myself, I'm a pretty good software architect and developer. However, I don't do well under the kind of pressure typically experienced at a job interview when asked to solve oddball problems in real-time. Often, my biggest insights come when I'm not consiously thinking about the problem, e.g., while in the shower.

Those who do well at solve-the-riddle interviews are certainly intelligent and can solve problems, but it's not necessarily true that they can solve ill-specified problems -- real-world problems that need solving aren't usually as completely specified as a riddle or puzzle.

There are other ways to conduct interviews that yield good candidates. Get the person to talk about his past work -- technical people who have done good stuff love to do this with great enthusiasm. You can then ask about trade-offs in thei designs and implementations. You can usually figure out whether the candidate was a key player in the work being discussed.

Another way is to describe a real-world problem facing your company, but without actually asking the candidate anything. A good candidate will be interested in yoru problem, ask questions, offer suggestions. If the candidate just sits there, s/he's not a good candidate.

Re:It filters for one type of person

[starfishsystems]

Absolutely.

There are certainly tech support jobs out there which consist primarily of what we might call solving puzzles.

Generally, however, a technical person needs to be broadly competent, needs to have strengths in both analysis and design, needs to communicate well, needs to be able to manage relationships effectively, needs to be able to organize and prioritize effectively under directions which can be incomplete or ambiguous.

The best technical people are not just able to address the issues in front of them, they use them to generate leverage in making progress toward larger goals. They have to articulate and negotiate for those larger goals, which means they have to be sensitive to interests of other individuals, and to the potential for alignment and conflict among them.

These requirements hold especially for more senior positions. It's fine to be able to solve puzzles, but that's not most of the job. And as anyone with hiring experience knows, it's far more successful to gain senior people by letting them rise through the ranks than it is to hire them from outside the organization. Unless you make a point of attracting and hiring people who have that potential, you can risk ending up mostly with a whole bunch of puzzle solvers.

Even scientific research, which obviously tries to solve some very hard puzzles, is mostly driven by collaboration. I've seen generations of compuer science grad students come and go, and the ones that go furthest are invariably the most collaborative. Out of the practice of collaboration they seem to have an easier time understanding their work in context, and they seem able to pick up all the other necessary management skills along the way.

Re:I've used them

[RingDev]

While I appreciate the unforgiving rock solid logic that is math, asking someone who has been out of math based education for a number of years to prove the irrationality of sqrt(2) is a bit of a stretch.

I'd much rather go with a series of standardized logic questions (pattern recognition, basic math story problems, etc...) and one question buried in the test that is intentionally vague or poorly worded. Because well defined problems are easy, it's the problems that are not well defined that really test us in IT. Seeing how a potential employee handles themselves in a confusing situation is just as critical as how they handle themselves in a well defined situation. I would stay away from anything that depends on a complex understanding of any given topic, because at this point, we're not looking for someone who has the quadratic formula memorized, we're looking at someone who can look at a situation and pull values from that situation to plug into a formula.

-Rick

Some more relevant questions:

[192939495969798999]

1. Sales has agreed to build a system, and the client's already signed off on a fixed price payment. You have 1 month to build it until the budget runs out. There is no spec, no design document, and no way to confirm any given feature. What do you do?

A. Build as fast as possible and hope for the best.
B. Cry and whimper like a baby, because you're completely screwed.
C. Pitch a fit to management/slashdot/etc about what sales did.
D. Burn the place down.
E. All of the above.

College is a game

[nuggz]

Isn't a college degree just a symbol that says, "Look, a whole bunch of people with good reputations threw a bunch of puzzles at me.

No, it's mostly proof that you can play the game.
There are two games.
1. The technical education which is the following game.
They ask a question.
You determine what the real question is.
You find the right book.
You read how to answer the question.
You answer the question.

2. The People game.
You learn how to make people happy and play the politics and admin game. I think this is the real reason most education administrations are described as a nightmare, it's actually part of the learning experience.
Later you play the sales/job interview game. They're pretty much the same, only the product changes.

Re:College is a game

[Knara]

All of which are applicable to a corporate job.

But if you think you can get through a good CS program without learning puzzle solving or problem analysis, you're either an idiot or you went through a really bad CS program (which admittedly, are probably not in short supply).

Just when I thought interviewing techniques...

[Quiet_Desperation]

...couldn't get dumber. This is flavor of the week type of stuff, folks. I'm lousy at riddles, but I win design award after design award plus bonuses in my engineering job. I have several patents. I'm sorry, but I just have very little patience for these Grand Unified Theories Of Everything when it comes to dealing with human beings. It just strikes me as HR people looking for ever lazier ways to hire the talent.

Also, Our IT people have that site blocked. I wonder what that riddle means?

Re:It's a good filter

[ewhac]

What does this do:
POP EBX
INC EBX
PUSH EBX
RET

More often than not, crashes the machine.

Schwab

Re:Thought Processes

[Monkelectric]

I disagree heartily. Saying "it cant' be done" could equally be the response of a battle hardened veteran who isn't willing to go into a battle he has no hope of exiting.

That was what I learned about myself during the test. That *I* ignored my own good sense that the task was not reasonable, and that a true master would not have.

Re:Thought Processes

[Sancho]

Exactly. They may not have actually wanted a complete working product.. they probably wanted to see what you thought of their task, see what assumptions you made, see if you could convince them that their timeline was infeasible, etc.

I knew a guy who went into an interview and was asked to solve some intractable problem. He was able to point out that their request wasn't feasible and provided some alternate options. This story wouldn't be interesting, of course, if he hadn't gotten the job.

I suspect that even if a person couldn't have written a webserver in C++ in 4 hours, they might still have had a shot at the job depending upon how they approached the problem.

My 'puzzle' experience

[digitalamish]

I was taken to a conference room, given a hardcopy chunk of code, and told to figure out what it did. On the way out one guy said, "Oh there might be an error in there too". So I did my 'Russell Nash' thing and ran the program step by step in my head and figured the program out. I ran a few more calculations, and I determined there was a problem given a certain numeric precision. The guys came back in about 30 minutes after they left. First they asked to see any scrap paper I used determining the solution. I told them I didn't have any, except for a couple of numbers I wrote on the code pages. They were stunned, but I explained exactly what the program did, which one of them confirmed. Then I explained the error I found. At this point they got very defensive. It seems this piece of code was pulled from their production systems, and "didn't have any errors". I explained what I found to them, and one of them wandered off.

Oddly I didn't get the job. They said I lacked the ability to document. Funny since I graduated with a degree in technical writing. Maybe they just wanted people to come in an debug for them in interviews.

Battle-Hardened Veteran

[theunixman]

The Battle-Hardened Veteran would explain to the potential employer/customer why the problem was impossible, and while perhaps not providing a formal proof, would present enough evidence that he would be seen as a Veteran. And he would still make an attempt to do it anyway, just to be sure. Watching how a person discovers why something is not possible is far more revealing than listening yet again to someone state quickly that it cannot be done.

Re:I think you overestimated what they wanted.

[digidave]

Does it have to be a network web server? Maybe you just run the executable and it prints an HTML string if the first arg is GET.

Or maybe you use ASCII art in the source code to draw a picture of a waiter serving some HTML code on a platter.

How about an idea from Star Trek?

[speckledpig]

"How many lights do you see?"