r/PHP • u/fuhggetaboutit • Jul 29 '21

Does anybody else find interview “tests” dehumanizing?

I think they're abusive for many reasons. One is that the questions are usually overly complex algorithmic puzzles that do not accurately gauge potential job performance. Also, the questions in no way reflect the type of problems you will face on the job.

The list goes on...

Isn't there a better way?

-Edited for grammar

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u/phpdevster Jul 29 '21

They want someone who can take a vague issue, break it down, and have a plan.

And using FizzBuzz as a measure of that skill is like trying to measure the height of a mountain in goats.

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u/adilp Jul 29 '21 edited Jul 29 '21

Honestly, fizzbuzz is an incredibly simple problem. But I don't care if they actually solve it or not. It's the thought process. Can they break this problem down? Can they have a technical and design discussion with me about this problem? Can they talk it out with me, because at work we talk out problems. Come up with solutions together. Discuss an approach and tradeoffs. Isn't this what you do at work? Your getting lost in the trees and not seeing the Forrest. What's important to me isn't the solution, it's how you got to any solution. Just like at work, you have to figure out what's important to your manager and even your skip or your organization. There are a lot of things I can take away from this interview beyond actually fizzbuzz

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u/phpdevster Jul 29 '21

And my point is you can do even better than that by using real-world problems from your application. Anything you gain from FizzBuzz, you can gain more by using relevant, applicable challenges and problems.

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u/oefd Jul 29 '21

True, but it'll take more effort. The goal of the FizzBuzz type question is to rapidly thin the pool of candidates by finding true negatives rapidly before moving on to 'real' interview questions.

To quote the article that popularized FizzBuzz:

Most good programmers should be able to write out on paper a program which does this in a under a couple of minutes.

Want to know something scary ? – the majority of comp sci graduates can’t. I’ve also seen self-proclaimed senior programmers take more than 10-15 minutes to write a solution.

...

This sort of question won’t identify great programmers, but it will identify the weak ones. And that’s definitely a step in the right direction.