<story><title>Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/microsoft-new-developer-interview-process-2018-12</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kluyg</author><text>Yeah, if only it was all unicorns and rainbows. What you describe is how I imagine they interview for director &amp;#x2F; VP positions. With hundreds (thousands?) of applications per day for software engineering positions, all with perfect resumes, what you describe just doesn’t scale. Software engineers do 1-2 interviews per week each, it’s part of the job. I might be a minority, but I would refuse to spend two of my evenings per week interviewing people. I’d rather spend time with my family instead. I think asking candidates to get a day off for interviews, which happens like once per year or even less often for each candidate is more reasonable than asking your employees to work evenings each week.</text></item><item><author>solatic</author><text>Dogfooding their process is going to give them adverse results here: Microsoft is paying them to take all the time they want, but good candidates won&amp;#x27;t be so willing to spend so much time. Already, they&amp;#x27;re up to a full day of interviews, which is ridiculous. One of the worst parts of current FAANG interviewing is how long it takes to get to the day of interviews, needing to take off from work to attend the interview day, and then getting rejected nonetheless. Not only does this process ask for too much commitment on the part of candidates, it selects for candidates for whom such a commitment is less relatively costly - i.e. people who are currently unemployed, students, etc, and while there are many such people with great talent and potential, respectively, they&amp;#x27;re also less likely to be strong candidates than people who are currently employed.&lt;p&gt;One of the key issues in recruiting is how to make hiring decisions quickly. Good candidates don&amp;#x27;t have the patience for your internal politics to resolve over a month or two to figure out whether they&amp;#x27;re getting an offer or not; they&amp;#x27;re just going to interview with other places in the meantime who will beat you to the punch.&lt;p&gt;Take a resume off the pile. Email or text to schedule a call. During the call, talk about relevant experience &amp;#x2F; past projects, what each side is looking for, etc. Make a decision during the call whether you want to invite the person for a two-hour interview, and schedule it during the call, first offering an evening time slot for the interview. In the first hour, talk about culture, problem-solving and teamwork approaches, engineering attitudes. In the second hour, pull out an actual current problem and solve it collaboratively. If all goes well, send an offer, and offer to set up a dinner to talk about &amp;#x2F; negotiate the offer.&lt;p&gt;It should not take more than a few hours to make a decision on someone; it should not require a candidate to take paid time off. Your hiring pipeline&amp;#x27;s average lead time should be measured in days.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>solatic</author><text>&amp;gt; Software engineers do 1-2 interviews per week each, it’s part of the job. I might be a minority, but I would refuse to spend two of my evenings per week interviewing people.&lt;p&gt;Why are software engineers doing interviews at all? What makes software engineers qualified to interview people (especially when you consider the need to avoid hiring bias, problematic statements by interviewers that expose the company to legal suit, etc.)?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not saying that companies should go to the other extreme and have all interviews conducted by HR - that presents its own set of problems in that HR doesn&amp;#x27;t know how to evaluate candidates for technical skill. But expecting hiring managers to open up a few evenings per week in the irregular and relatively uncommon circumstance (if it&amp;#x27;s common, then you have problems with churn on that team, and you should consider firing the manager) in which positions open up on their team to evaluate potential direct reports is not even remotely unreasonable.</text></comment>
<story><title>Microsoft changed how it interviews software developers</title><url>https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/microsoft-new-developer-interview-process-2018-12</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kluyg</author><text>Yeah, if only it was all unicorns and rainbows. What you describe is how I imagine they interview for director &amp;#x2F; VP positions. With hundreds (thousands?) of applications per day for software engineering positions, all with perfect resumes, what you describe just doesn’t scale. Software engineers do 1-2 interviews per week each, it’s part of the job. I might be a minority, but I would refuse to spend two of my evenings per week interviewing people. I’d rather spend time with my family instead. I think asking candidates to get a day off for interviews, which happens like once per year or even less often for each candidate is more reasonable than asking your employees to work evenings each week.</text></item><item><author>solatic</author><text>Dogfooding their process is going to give them adverse results here: Microsoft is paying them to take all the time they want, but good candidates won&amp;#x27;t be so willing to spend so much time. Already, they&amp;#x27;re up to a full day of interviews, which is ridiculous. One of the worst parts of current FAANG interviewing is how long it takes to get to the day of interviews, needing to take off from work to attend the interview day, and then getting rejected nonetheless. Not only does this process ask for too much commitment on the part of candidates, it selects for candidates for whom such a commitment is less relatively costly - i.e. people who are currently unemployed, students, etc, and while there are many such people with great talent and potential, respectively, they&amp;#x27;re also less likely to be strong candidates than people who are currently employed.&lt;p&gt;One of the key issues in recruiting is how to make hiring decisions quickly. Good candidates don&amp;#x27;t have the patience for your internal politics to resolve over a month or two to figure out whether they&amp;#x27;re getting an offer or not; they&amp;#x27;re just going to interview with other places in the meantime who will beat you to the punch.&lt;p&gt;Take a resume off the pile. Email or text to schedule a call. During the call, talk about relevant experience &amp;#x2F; past projects, what each side is looking for, etc. Make a decision during the call whether you want to invite the person for a two-hour interview, and schedule it during the call, first offering an evening time slot for the interview. In the first hour, talk about culture, problem-solving and teamwork approaches, engineering attitudes. In the second hour, pull out an actual current problem and solve it collaboratively. If all goes well, send an offer, and offer to set up a dinner to talk about &amp;#x2F; negotiate the offer.&lt;p&gt;It should not take more than a few hours to make a decision on someone; it should not require a candidate to take paid time off. Your hiring pipeline&amp;#x27;s average lead time should be measured in days.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>em-bee</author><text>if i am looking for a different job, i&amp;#x27;ll not just interview with one company, but several. even more so if i still have a job and i really need to weigh the options to decide if the new offer is really better.&lt;p&gt;there is only so many days i can take off. with two weeks holidays, i might spend all of my holiday budget for this year.</text></comment>