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0 pointscollyw9y ago0 comments

Persistence is a pain in the arse if you have to spend 1.5 hours every Hackerrank challenge (plus you are likely to want a warm up of at least half an hour). Say you have to do ten of those. Why can't employers ask you to bring in some previous work and discuss it? Surely that is a lot more relevant than algorithmic stuff that you likely haven't used for years.

0 comments

ionforce9y ago

> bring in some previous work

Surely your prior work is under some sort of NDA? It's all proprietary (unless it is open source).

collywOP9y ago

I have side projects that I am working on, quite happy to show those - its one of the motivations for doing them so that I have code to show people.

icedchai9y ago

You'd think people would respect NDA's, right? Not so... I've had people submit proprietary code samples during the interview process.

efoto9y ago

I once persuaded an interviewer to look at my implementation of a generic linked list online and discuss it, rather than making me write one on a whiteboard. I had enough courage to say that people should not write same stuff over and over, but rather do it once properly.

I got an offer and accepted it.

gcb09y ago

previous work is fine in this case. but i worked at a place that was a pita to release open source code, so i learned to always work open source anonymously.

i wouldn't want to break that anonymity. also, i already had the displeasure of having a candidate turn his laptop to me and show his great coding a skills with a competitor online app store (yes, a major brand app store source), and i had to get involved in all sorts of annoyance from HR and legal. maybe I'm just dumb for taking those things seriously... but i think that's for the better

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