Would you want to work for a company that uses a coding test to select workers, even for non-coding positions?
I'm in the midst of an interview process with an employer that insists on an "Introduction to Algorithms"-type test for all of its white-collar workers. Their claim is that it selects for "smart" people. [I'm anxious because my relevant coursework was many years ago, and there's no way I'll have time to master it again before the scheduled test - there's some age bias, noted below.]
Based on review of Glassdoor's comments about this company's interview process and demographics, what they really want is recent college graduates with fresh CIS degrees that they can abuse and use up quickly, giving them no market-relevant skills in the process. The product relies on an obscure, specialized database architecture and elderly front-end code.
However, the company is a market leader in my industry, and I'm interested in working there in a customer-facing technical liaison/project management role because the product is better fitted for task, has better support and customization, and better interoperability than anything else. There's huge R&D reinvestment as well, and the company is just that little bit more ethical in the marketplace than its competitors.
Do you believe that the ability to do sorts and permutations in code genuinely selects for general intelligence, and would you want to work with a population of people who all mastered this subject matter, regardless of their actual job title?
This is pretty misguided. Programming ability is correlated to intelligence, yes, but no more so than any other intellectual activity like playing chess, completing crosswords, or solving calculus. Here's an idea: to test for intelligence, perhaps consider having an actual conversation with the candidate, and observe how they are able to articulate their thoughts and comprehend new ideas. That'll select for intelligence just as well as a programming test without filtering out anyone without a CS background.
I'd agree, but I'm self-interested and wanted to get the consensus of a community with a high proportion of people who program for a living. I just hook up the boxes that run the programs and keep them all talking to each other. There is certainly a strain of thought which suggests I'm a mere technician.
Certainly not. I'm a programmer and have quite a few non-programmer friends, family, and acquaintances. Almost none of the more intelligent among them have any coding background whatsoever, and they don't need to know any code, either. To insist that they be able to code in order to do the work that they do--which is, to say, work that requires no code whatsoever--would be asinine at best.
Also, there are a lot of programmers who can't code or solve problems worth a damn but could go through a classic fizzbuzz problem easily. Better to test general problem solving approaches and mindset as a metric rather than relying on specific skills.
I've been in the position of wishing that non-technical businesspeople had some inkling of what it takes to deliver services - time, skilled personnel and costs... I've had to become a better communicator, teacher, logistician, negotiator in addition to the technical skillset, at the cost of maintaining the skills I'd rather be using. I can certainly empathize with people who just want to stay on the engineering side and talk only with others equally fluent in the strange-but-beautiful languages.
I definitely resent the implication that it's the only way to be smart; my industry is based on serving a population of professionals who have their own, sometimes equally narrow, definition of intelligence which has nothing whatever to do with computing machinery, mathematical logic, and programming.
I can do sorts and permutations in code, and I'm a demon-ridden idiot. Being able to code doesn't prove shit, and you've already figured out this test's true purpose: they want to limit their applicant pool to a particular demographic in a way that won't get them sued for discrimination.
Can you ID this outfit without risking yourself? I'd like to know who they are so I can tell them to fuck off if they ever make the mistake of reaching out to me.
I'll 'fess up once I have reliable data from an actual current interview for the position I'm seeking; it's technical, but not development. They have a captive college population nearby and don't recruit proactively, so I want to be sure I'm not perceiving an intentional age bias that's really only a function of geography.
My information is second-hand via Glassdoor right now. But I wouldn't have said anything if there weren't hundreds of reports on this employer's tactics, including the widespread sentiment that the algorithms portion was a significant hiring obstacle for general project managers and non-technical positions.
Don't do it if it will make it easier for malicious actors to dox you. I'm curious, but you've done me no wrong.
off topic a bit but I'm a dude who has a cs degree but doesn't have the chops to be a developer. Would still love to find an IT job that would have me writing scripts. Wouldn't mind the test myself, but otherwise it would be completely insane. I don't know anything about carpentry...why not test me and see if I know how to build a table? Just because you can do one thing, doesn't mean you can do everything.
There's a vast amount of technical IT work that doesn't require extensive coding skill; I'm coaching a co-worker on this right now. You want scripts? Try picking up the tools for Kubernetes, Vagrant, VMWare PowerCLI, Microsoft PowerShell, and all the other container/VM management tools out there - you will, in all likelihood, get to a six-figure salary in a hurry if that's what drives you.
Me, I'm a plumber, not a mason or a carpenter - all of the roles are complementary. I don't know how to lay bricks or hang cabinets, but I do know how to work with the people who do those things and collaborate in ways that facilitate their tasks or influence design.
I find your comment to be going kinda all over the place. I think I was more or less agreeing with your initial post. Testing all white collar job people on coding makes no sense.
Also, my drive isn't money so much as just coding for a living. I wanted to do it my whole life and worked really hard for my degree. Like I said though, I dont have it in me to be a developer, so any place that I COULD ameka a living from coding, I'd be more than happy to take it.
I could see how some more abstract CS-type problems might lend themselves to a test of problem solving ability, but it sounds like what you're describing is just a test of whether or not you've memorized sorts. That doesn't have anything to do with intelligence, in my experience. Especially if that sort of thing isn't relevant to the job in question, it certainly doesn't seem like a sensible test.