Comment by jarsin
3 days ago
I never understood why Big Tech never setup contracts with all the SAT and ACT test centers across the country. Even before Zoom with Codepads it would have made sense for the recruiters to send potential candidates to a test center to do a pre assessment rather than waste time with engineers sitting on prescreen calls all day.
What exactly are you suggesting here? A standardized test that applies to all your job applications? Or, a candidate having to drive to a test center for every company they apply to? Or something else?
the idea is sound. create a basic standardized test targeted at tech/engineering jobs. not actually SAT -- operated by a vendor like The College Board. There are plenty of standardized test operators
When I'm interviewing, I'm putting about 30% of the weight towards "would I enjoy working with this person on a daily basis?", but in the context of technical discussions. Standardized testing won't be able to replicate it.
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Would certainly make it easy for employers to differentiate themselves by saying “well, at least we don’t do THAT”.
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That’s what Triplebyte planned on. The truth is I don’t trust anyone else to run evals.
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This largely misses what an interview is all about, save for entry level positions.
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Standardized plus the ability for companies to do their own test after they pass the standard one. So go get prescreened at test center then use that test to apply for jobs. Company either flys you in for in-person or sends you back to test center to do live remote interview in controlled environment.
It's been tried and failed: Sun Microsystems pushed certifications in the 90s. Pass the test on some technology, get the certification. Then they studied performance. The result? More certifications implied a worse employee. The reason was the top performing employees had no time to study for the exams, but the managers of the bottom performing employees were happy to send them off to training and testing. And then the certification fad came mostly to an end.
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That was essentially triplebyte.
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I have done interviews with Karat which just outsources technical interviews to engineers elsewhere.
All of these technical interviews still suck though! I basically never code with someone watching me and find it very difficult to do in interviews. I also find it hard to find the time to actually practice this skill
Im revisiting technical interview prep because it has been awhile and it seems like a good time for a refresher, and it is striking how similar it all is to SAT and GMAT prep these days. A pretty cookie-cutter performance that is mostly about demonstrating that you have the time and means to properly prepare. Might as well just go the extra step at that point and have it be exactly like those standardized tests… take them once at a test center, get a score that is valid for a few years that you can just send in with your application…
That maybe end up happening. Send them to a test center to do their remote hacker rank interview. Doesn’t even need to be standardized. I don’t like it but it’s one of the lower friction options.
In the US and Canada, to get into university, there is, or at least used to be, a standard entrance exam or something close to it (the SAT in the US, OAC scores if you were from Ontario, Canada, etc..).
Additionally, Undergraduate programs in the US and Canada, at least used to, despite their varied reputation, have a pretty standard program.
Maybe things have deteriorated so far at the high school and university level that new standardized exams are needed. But we also have a plethora of verifiable certifications whose exams are held in independent test facilities.
Another commenter on this called it “Licensing” but it’s more like credentialing to me.