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0 pointsbradleyjg7y ago0 comments

It turns out that interviewing is hard, and we don't know what works well. Most of us think "we" are the ones that can obviously see what's wrong and everyone else is interviewing poorly. Most of us are wrong.

Cowen’s Second Law: There is a literature on everything. Hiring is no different. Why do so many of us that say “of course you shouldn’t reimplement timsort, stand on the shoulder of giants” either make up an interview process based on gut feeling or cargo cult one based on what we heard google does?

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james_s_tayler7y ago

Because of Cowen's First Law: there's something wrong with everything.

So no matter if you've read the literature and implemented a process, there is something wrong with it.

That's why there threads persist. Every process has something wrong with it depending on who you are. Funnily enough everyone eventually manages to sort themselves into the right category.

The system isn't broken any more than armed conflict is broken as a way of settling disputes. It's works, it's just a little terrifying and awful.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse