<story><title>Hiring without whiteboards</title><url>https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nherment</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re in Denmark and currently hiring.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure why there is such &lt;i&gt;extreme&lt;/i&gt; hate for the whiteboard. Yes it has plenty of caveats when it comes to actual coding and recruiters should not expect any candidate to write precise code on that medium.&lt;p&gt;I do use the whiteboard for trivial CS questions limited to 5-10 minutes. Think fizzbuzz and string reversal. Candidates have the option to use my laptop (not ideal because the keyboard has a US layout) but they are welcome to use their own computer as well (if they thought about bringing it). It weeds out candidates who can&amp;#x27;t even produce basic code. And yes, a candidate with 2+ years of experience should be able to write a basic function on a whiteboard, a napkin, or whatever. If not, the interview is not lost but the candidate will have to prove his skills another way.&lt;p&gt;For most candidates, we also give a longer technical test which is to be done at home and takes 2 to 4 hours to complete. Candidates are given as many days as they want to complete it.&lt;p&gt;Whiteboard is an excellent medium however when discussing architecture and higher level ideas. It&amp;#x27;s also a tool that I&amp;#x27;ve used during day to day activities with colleagues. Software based tools don&amp;#x27;t come even close.</text></item><item><author>jonasvp</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate&amp;#x27;s work experience and interesting problems that she&amp;#x2F;he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing&amp;#x2F;CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that&amp;#x27;s being done.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;m always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they&amp;#x27;re proud of.&lt;p&gt;We worked with an HR consultant to develop a interview guide in the form of certain questions that we make sure to hit during the interview in order to be able to compare between candidates and make an informed decision.&lt;p&gt;However, we&amp;#x27;re small and not in the US. Anyone have experience with other companies in Germany&amp;#x2F;Europe? How does the typical interview work over here?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>muse900</author><text>I believe the hate comes from unprecedented and hard CS questions asked on the whiteboard.&lt;p&gt;I recently went to an interview that asked me to balance a binary tree on a whiteboard. It can be done, and I can do it. Thing is when you go to interview for that company that has 2 developers(small team, small company) and ask you that kind of question it puts you off thinking that those guys won&amp;#x27;t be great to work with (arrogance etc comes in mind).&lt;p&gt;I am fond of simpler questions, like you said fizzbuz etc. Obviously if you are interviewing a guy that has 2+ years of experience, he has to be able to pass the fizzbuzz test.
When you are interviewing someone with 5+ years of experience for a higher up position I guess you do have to ask some harder question, but I personally think just speaking to the guy and asking him stuff about his past projects etc will give you a hint on if he has the skills he is talking about or not. Asking him to outline a hard task he took part and how he solved it is an amazing start. As a 5+ years guy personally would rumble about a few things and it would take me days talking about them. (That will give you an understanding if I&amp;#x27;ve worked before or not on the things outlined on my CV).</text></comment>
<story><title>Hiring without whiteboards</title><url>https://github.com/poteto/hiring-without-whiteboards</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>nherment</author><text>We&amp;#x27;re in Denmark and currently hiring.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not sure why there is such &lt;i&gt;extreme&lt;/i&gt; hate for the whiteboard. Yes it has plenty of caveats when it comes to actual coding and recruiters should not expect any candidate to write precise code on that medium.&lt;p&gt;I do use the whiteboard for trivial CS questions limited to 5-10 minutes. Think fizzbuzz and string reversal. Candidates have the option to use my laptop (not ideal because the keyboard has a US layout) but they are welcome to use their own computer as well (if they thought about bringing it). It weeds out candidates who can&amp;#x27;t even produce basic code. And yes, a candidate with 2+ years of experience should be able to write a basic function on a whiteboard, a napkin, or whatever. If not, the interview is not lost but the candidate will have to prove his skills another way.&lt;p&gt;For most candidates, we also give a longer technical test which is to be done at home and takes 2 to 4 hours to complete. Candidates are given as many days as they want to complete it.&lt;p&gt;Whiteboard is an excellent medium however when discussing architecture and higher level ideas. It&amp;#x27;s also a tool that I&amp;#x27;ve used during day to day activities with colleagues. Software based tools don&amp;#x27;t come even close.</text></item><item><author>jonasvp</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m responsible for hiring developers at our company based in Berlin, Germany, and found it best to have a guided interview about the candidate&amp;#x27;s work experience and interesting problems that she&amp;#x2F;he solved. I never understood the whiteboard hazing&amp;#x2F;CS trivia that are so widely discussed on HN since it seems extremely disconnected from the actual work that&amp;#x27;s being done.&lt;p&gt;That said, I&amp;#x27;m always surprised how many candidates cannot even point to one problem they worked on they found interesting or one solution that they&amp;#x27;re proud of.&lt;p&gt;We worked with an HR consultant to develop a interview guide in the form of certain questions that we make sure to hit during the interview in order to be able to compare between candidates and make an informed decision.&lt;p&gt;However, we&amp;#x27;re small and not in the US. Anyone have experience with other companies in Germany&amp;#x2F;Europe? How does the typical interview work over here?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwaway_374</author><text>It took me 5 minutes on my laptop at home to code out a problem that I danced around for an hour on a whiteboard being stared down at by 2 engineers in silence. Yes, I had the benefit of hindsight, but unless you&amp;#x27;ve actually done a whiteboard interview yourself where your livelihood is on the line for an hour, don&amp;#x27;t act like a trivialising nonce.</text></comment>