Few days ago, I was fortunate enough to talk to a person who switched from engineer to a manager position.<p>Most of the questions that were asked included how to solve project management tasks and conflict resolution strategies. No programming tests were included in the interview.<p>We see and also personally observe how coding tests do not effectively measure a persons analytical skills. This begs the question, for engineers, can there exist a system where companies can hire them without programming tests in interviews? One seeking a managerial position isn't necessarily asked to demonstrate and perform his skills on spot, are they?
> We see and also personally observe how coding tests do not effectively measure a persons analytical skills<p>I'm not convinced of this. It's not a perfect system but a well-orchestrated coding test is a great indicator of performance. In fact I think that's a huge pain point when hiring for a soft-skill oriented role -- it's very difficult to judge candidates until they've spent ~6 months on the job.<p>So what do established companies do? They rely very heavily on pedigree and experience. Coding interviews suck but I think they're necessary for meritocratic hiring. Plus, most of the complaints I see here are the result of poorly conducting programming interviews, not necessarily programming interviews as a concept.
In 2014 I was earning ~$60,000 in my developer's salary.<p>Then I used new (other vendor's) enterprise software developer's platform to build a solution at my spare time.<p>I published an online instructional on "how to" do "good things" with other enterprise software vendor's offering.<p>"Other enterprise vendor" found my online instructional and hired me for $164,500 for a management position.<p>No bullshit coding interviews, no crap.
Today I have the best job in the best part of the city with the best manager I ever had. Seriously.<p>Just sharing my experience with some hints along the way.
I've interviewed at a few places without any technical questions. They basically talked to me about my past work and what I wanted to do. It's strange indeed.
> One seeking a managerial position isn't necessarily asked to demonstrate and perform his skills on spot, are they?<p>Actually, they are. That is the interview. As a manager, you need to have social skills. And a lot of the questions asked give a good insight into how you approach problems and social situations.<p>And that is why the better coder interviews are more about talking through a problem with a bit of whiteboard sketching/coding.
On site programming puzzles are flawed, yes, especially whiteboard programming (as interviewee you're stuck with still doing them, but there's things you can do to make it less awful: <a href="https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-puzzles/" rel="nofollow">https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-puzzles/</a>)<p>Other alternatives:<p>1. Take-home programming exercise. More realistic, if it's a good task. Biased against people with less free time, though.<p>2. Paid take-home real work. DuckDuckGo does this, as does SpiderOak I think. Doesn't work well for people who have current job, but if it ever becomes popular it'll be easier for people to quit during job hunt period.<p>3. Pair programming during interview. Somewhat more realistic than whiteboard puzzle, biased against people with interview nerves.<p>4. Debugging code during interview. Somewhat more realistic than whiteboard puzzle, biased against people with interview nerves.<p>Etc..<p>There's no magic bullet, sadly.
It used to work that way before Google messed it up. Microsoft was known to have a "difficult" process .. a cakewalk by today's unreasonable standard. Companies didn't try to emulate Microsoft in those days .. I don't know why everyone wanted to copy Google.
I show my app on the app store to the interviewer, shown him a bit of the source code of the app on how I tackled some interesting problem etc, how I handled user complain/support etc. Got offered immediately afterward.<p>This might not work for most company however.
"One seeking a managerial position isn't necessarily asked to demonstrate and perform his skills on spot, are they?"<p>Yes they are (kind of), they are asked questions/problems which are used to gauge their ability to manage and do the job expected of them; in the 'best' way achievable in a interview scenario. Just like coders are asked questions to try to gauge their ability.<p>I'm not saying either ways are perfect, but it's not like a managerial interview is easy/non-challenging.<p>[Edit: Ooops saw a similar reply below, done way earlier...will keep mine here for consistency on my part]