Comments on: The Case for “Normal” Interviews http://www.webgrrls.com/blog/2010/08/16/the-case-for-normal-interviews/ Insight, Information and Inspiration on women's careers, business, technology and the Industry. Sat, 09 Mar 2013 18:31:12 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Elena Strange http://www.webgrrls.com/blog/2010/08/16/the-case-for-normal-interviews/#comment-1920 Elena Strange Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:45:50 +0000 http://www.webgrrls.com/blog/2010/08/16/the-case-for-normal-interviews/#comment-1920 @bwc, great point about microsoft! The whole write-code-on-the-board interview pretty much started with them, I think, many moons ago. @bwc, great point about microsoft! The whole write-code-on-the-board interview pretty much started with them, I think, many moons ago.

]]> By: bwc http://www.webgrrls.com/blog/2010/08/16/the-case-for-normal-interviews/#comment-1916 bwc Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:16:38 +0000 http://www.webgrrls.com/blog/2010/08/16/the-case-for-normal-interviews/#comment-1916 I know right! What is the point of technical interviews and are they as good or better at predicting the interviewee's success at the job? In the company I worked in, my VP boss never gave anyone a technical interview because he expect you to be able to learn on the job and not be dumb. So far in his 30 years in the same company, there was only 1 or 2 hires out of 40 or so that he hired, didn't work out after 1 year.. that's a 95% success rate. He did it by looking at their degree and experience, summing up the person behaviorially AND see if they are a fit. That's it! A 95% success rate without technical interviews and these are programmers who are either majored in Comp Sci, MechE, CivilE, Aerospace Engineers who coded non-trivial software which other professional Engineers use to design the car which you and I use, the airplanes which transport you AND also F1 formula Racecar engineers used it to redesign the chassis to make the air flow efficient.. (not to mention pace maker blood flow and other stuff). So why other industries which doesn't have this mission critical software requires stupid technical interviews. Take Microsoft for example. Their software is not mission critical and their software CONTINTUES TO CRASH AND HOG MEMORY! Yet they still have intense technical interviews. What's the point then! Since they had intensely interviewed these candidates, shouldn't the software be flawless and not crash nor hog memory?! This just shows that technical interviews are not a good predictor of success. Or maybe it's majority of the people in my company has AT LEAST a MS degree?. I know right! What is the point of technical interviews and are they as good or better at predicting the interviewee’s success at the job?

In the company I worked in, my VP boss never gave anyone a technical interview because he expect you to be able to learn on the job and not be dumb. So far in his 30 years in the same company, there was only 1 or 2 hires out of 40 or so that he hired, didn’t work out after 1 year.. that’s a 95% success rate. He did it by looking at their degree and experience, summing up the person behaviorially AND see if they are a fit. That’s it!

A 95% success rate without technical interviews and these are programmers who are either majored in Comp Sci, MechE, CivilE, Aerospace Engineers who coded non-trivial software which other professional Engineers use to design the car which you and I use, the airplanes which transport you AND also F1 formula Racecar engineers used it to redesign the chassis to make the air flow efficient.. (not to mention pace maker blood flow and other stuff).

So why other industries which doesn’t have this mission critical software requires stupid technical interviews. Take Microsoft for example. Their software is not mission critical and their software CONTINTUES TO CRASH AND HOG MEMORY! Yet they still have intense technical interviews. What’s the point then! Since they had intensely interviewed these candidates, shouldn’t the software be flawless and not crash nor hog memory?! This just shows that technical interviews are not a good predictor of success.

Or maybe it’s majority of the people in my company has AT LEAST a MS degree?.

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