Hiring is Broken: What Do Developers Say About Technical Interviews?

Does stress impact technical interview performance?

“…In practice, since most technical interviews are typically conducted by men, additional factors, such as stereotype threat [70], may further influence and degrade performance of candidates. A lack of peer parity [30] among underrepresented minorities and hostile or indifferent interviewers [8] could further influence performance.…”

“…The study identified a mismatch of candidates' expectations between what interviewers assess and what they actually look for in a candidate. Behroozi and colleagues [8] conducted a qualitative study on comments posted on Hacker News, a social network for software practitioners. Posters report several concerns and negative perceptions about interviews, including their lack of real-world relevance, bias towards younger developers, and demanding time commitment.…”

“…Although companies have been mindful to eliminate the influence of stress from their assessment procedures, some view stress as an important characteristic of the job, and should not hire candidates who cannot manage stress: "the real problem is in your head: your anxiety about job interviews is sabotaging something you're otherwise perfectly good at" [8].…”

“…If stress is an important consideration for the job, companies should consider ways to help candidates mitigate its effects, such as stress inoculation training. As such, interview candidates have been advised to practice (or "grind" [8]) on various problems and solutions in order to become immune to its effects [49]-Mekka Okereke, a senior manager at Google recommends doing at least 40 practice sessions. While stress inoculate training [64] can be effective, developers also note the immense time commitment [8] required to train for technical interviews and the disparity caused by some candidates not having the same available time or resources [54] to train as others.…”

“…Technical interviews can also give visibility to the personality of the candidate, how they interact with their future colleagues and how much they pay attention to details-such as checking all possible test cases-and knowledge of programming languages. Companies also find it important to reduce unwanted stress [8] during a technical interview, as "not everyone does their best work in fast-paced, high-pressure situations" [52]. In principle, companies should expect the technical interview process to be a sound and fair assessment of a candidate's ability, and thus yield a steady stream of qualified candidates for positions that open up in the company.…”