People suck at technical interviews (2014)
Hiring Manager Perspective: Everyone lies, sorry.<p>As a candidate, I hate technical interviews. For the reasons above. As the poor schmuck asked to make the hiring decision, however, I&#x27;ve learned that I can&#x27;t live without them.<p>My technical isn&#x27;t complicated. A very basic SQL assignment (delivered to an audience which claims to know SQL) that is followed by a few broader database design &#x2F; data process QA questions. Entire assignment is 100% job relevant (in fact, my SVP asked for a copy of the report it generates when he saw the problem on my whiteboard). I don&#x27;t care about the details of syntax.<p>I do care, however, about candidates who produce SQL code which looks like the bastard love child of LISP and Java. About candidates who claim to know a skill but literally cannot write even basic syntax on the whiteboard. Who put &quot;certificates&quot; from Oracle on their bloody resume and break down under super gentle questioning and confess their tutor hasn&#x27;t taught them JOINS (wtf ?) yet, never mind 5 years of claimed SQL experience at a big company on their resume.<p>The coding question is most definitely not an exercise in sadism. We validated it with several new hires who were confirmed to be &quot;good at SQL&quot;. Average completion time: 2 minutes, generally with trolling about why do we waste our time with easy stuff.<p>That being said, my rejection rate from a basic coding interview is at least 50%, grading liberally and generally supported by several members of my team shaking their head about a candidate.<p>I&#x27;ve tried screening resumes, I&#x27;ve tried doing non-coding phone screens. IT DOESN&#x27;T WORK. Actually, all it does is eliminate the socially challenged and non-communicative (who actually tend to pass the whiteboard test) in favor of the liars.<p>And don&#x27;t get me started about Python. Lest I bring up the Google-Motorola &quot;I LUV Python <i>heart</i> <i>heart</i> <i>heart</i>&quot; guy who didn&#x27;t understand the difference between a list &amp; dict.