I've completely turned away from getting another job. Recent scenario: After giving in detail my 14 years development/engineering experience, they ask: "Ok, here is a logic riddle: You have 3 circles A, B, and C. A depends on B, C...." and by that time I've already lost interest. What the fuck does a riddle have to do with anything.
Next.
I'm working my existing software engineer job while I build up my customer base on my side businesses. Your interviews and shit riddles can fuck right off.
The best part is when the riddle (perhaps their explanation) doesn't make sense, or the coding test doesn't work because there is a firewall on the guest wifi that prevents it, etc.
Riddles, sure, those are stupid questions to ask. Always assuming something is a riddle can be dangerous though. I've had a few candidates basically challenge my question before that this was just a puzzle and they likely wouldn't ever run into this normally and the question was literally from our code base.
Did companies do this before the media glamorized Google's job application process? I had to do some of those stupid riddles when I was starting out but hopefully I won't have to ever again (I'm working on a side business too).
MSFT did it .. sure .. but my first half-decade of software engineering jobs seem like coffee chats compared to the crap we have today. I think I got my first job after a 45 minute chat (was supposed to be 30 mins but we were having a fun, geeky convo and lost track of time). What's crazy is I would leave with offers in hand. This is until 2004. Google copied and one-uped microsoft. The Googlers went out and replicated their process and suddenly, most decent software engineering jobs require you to bend over.
I had a startup interview last year where they were a well-funded start up full of PhDs. Had a hiring screen (with non-trivial code), a full day of interviews over the phone/etherpad, a conversation + coding interview with the frickin CTO. This was to decide weather to fly me to the Bay are for the actual interview (was on the East coast). I had a full-time, high workload job at the time (constant crunchtime) ... so this was brutal on me. Never doing this again.
Well at the peak dotcom era you often could get away with spelling HTML without stuttering and you were hired. Microsoft could afford to discern however, being the top employer at the time.
I am with you though in principle. Some fizzbuzz-like test is OK, I understand they want to know if you can code at all. Something like code review where you think aloud is fine too. But take home assignments, whiteboard coding, huh.. An acquaintance of mine had to conjure a working spreadsheet application in one and a Space Invaders clone in the other. Mind you, none of the jobs had anything to do with spreadsheets or gaming.
If my living would depend on it I'd do it, no question. But in a relatively liquid job market of today I'd ether pass or offer to do it at a competitive hourly rate.
Indeed. I'm not sure I would put up with a riddle now. That or being asked "what are the pillars of OOP" or some dumb meaningless memorization based quiz. Interviewing is incredibly difficult, yet so often the people who do it put no effort into improving their skills, nor do they even appreciate they have a problem. But this should be the bread and butter of any business. Being good at finding high quality candidates is a magnificent competitive advantage.
Next.
I'm working my existing software engineer job while I build up my customer base on my side businesses. Your interviews and shit riddles can fuck right off.