The Receptionist Test (The Interview before the Interview)

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Receptionist-Test.aspx

by edw519 • 18 years ago

54 44 18 years ago

thedailywtf.com

mvid• 18 years ago

does anyone use floppies anymore?

eru• 18 years ago

Receptionists do. ;)

RavingGoat• 18 years ago

I think the usage of floppy disks is a clear warning sign of a place you don't want to work.

fallentimes• 18 years ago

Great idea. I read about this one firm that would occasionally spill drinks on candidates to gage their character.

Also, I'm glad they didn't call this the "administrative assistant test".

DaniFong2• 18 years ago

My cofounder once was interviewing someone. An earthquake struck in the midst of it. The candidate froze, bolted out the door, drove off, and was never heard from again.

My cofounder now says that he wish there were an earthquake for every interview...

edw5192• 18 years ago

"High tech" version of Henry Ford's old test. He wouldn't hire anyone who put salt on his food before tasting it.

hugh• 18 years ago

Or wore a yarmaluke.

Seriously though, Ford's test sounds silly. I'm sure he had some kind of justification for it, but I doubt it really did a good job of screening out who would and wouldn't be a good employee.

gills3• 18 years ago

Dogma vs. Data!

Do you want to hire someone that does things 'because that's what they always do', or because they collected data and acted appropriately?

I'm not saying salt is a good indicator - there are a million other ways you could test it - but I think that's the gist of it.

jumper• 18 years ago

The "salt test" is a popular and older than I am story\method, but why the name drop of Henry Ford? So far as I can tell, the evidence tying it to him is non-existent, just like all the other people\groups you hear it tied to. Regardless, why not let the method stand on it's own, and give up on the name dropping? Bah, rumors...

baltoo• 18 years ago

First time I've heard of it. Where I come from it's the other way around. Salting before tasting just means you generally like more salt than most and the host couldn't have predicted that. Salting afterwards is a (faux pas) critique.

cadalac• 18 years ago

I think you could easily ask a few indirect IQ questions to see if the guy is suitable for the job.

mileszs• 18 years ago

Sounds like theoretical versus practical. In fact, the point of the story was that many candidates could easily handle all interview questions, IQ-centric or otherwise. This is a practical exam, of sorts. It will prove someone is unworthy of the position (but will not necessarily prove someone _is_ worthy of the position).

It's a weed-out class.

mdasen• 18 years ago

Why does it seem like computer jobs require such a higher standard of competence than other jobs? I've been on interviews for both computer and non-computer jobs and most of the time, non-computer job interviews really don't give the employer much to go on. Computer jobs always have questions about algorithms, data structures, and shooting the breeze about some technologies.

Is it that there are lots of people who lie and say they're computer people when they aren't (compared to the rates in other occupations)? Is it because you can't fake computers like you can fake other jobs? Is it because computer people are used to being mistreated and undervalued in a way that is unacceptable for other people? I'm really curious if anyone has thoughts on this.

gills3• 18 years ago

It's because, like the sea, the computer is a wholly unforgiving bitch.

GrandMasterBirt2• 18 years ago

That's why I love computers. As for the sea, people were just not made to be sea-faring. We just came up with really cool ways to get around this limitation... Stupid requirement of having to do things like breath air.

GrandMasterBirt2• 18 years ago

This methodology is so simple that it is brilliant. My favorite one was the file extension problem... of course ubuntu would solve everything. No file, no problem! I am surprised he didn't tell the receptionist to roll on the floor saying hail linux while he did a witchdoctor dance. Now only if my office had a receptionist so we can do this.

As to why computer jobs require competence, it is because any engineering position (computer, or otherwise) requires competence. Would you live in a building without knowing that it won't collapse tomorrow because the construction company didn't know how to calculate the required strength of the steel beams needed to support the structure?

A company won't go under because a secretary does not know how to make perfectly formatted word files from the get-go. Where as it will fail if a software company's key product is managed/coded by incompetence.

Decibel• 18 years ago

Having worked as a EE, I can assure you that 99.9% of software is NOT engineered. It's not even close. Truth is, if you actually took the time to properly engineer software odds are your company would fail, because basically no one knows how to actually manage it. On top of that, people have grown to accept buggy software (unless it's an embedded system, and even that's eroding).

edw5192• 18 years ago

FWIW, my personal experince...

I have interviewed over 2500 programmer applicants, all having passed a "resume screening". I terminated 50% of the interviews before reaching the coding test because I knew by then that it would be a waste of time. Of the other 50%, 90% couldn't pass the simple coding test. I ended up hiring or referring less than 100.

Anyone else have similar experience with these percentages?

pmjordan2• 18 years ago

My sample size is much smaller, (I quit a few months after I started getting involved with hiring at my last job) but they sound about right.

It's pretty amazing how easy it is to get a degree in compsci or game development and have no programming competence whatsoever. What amazed me too was the astounding quantity of terrible CVs, even among people who supposedly have a substantial amount of experience. I used to laugh at articles telling you to spell check your application and give other, seemingly extremely basic advice, but I swear about 80-90% of applications have glaring spelling, grammar and semantic mistakes and no discernible logical structure. Come on, how hard is it to assemble a chronological list of things you've done?

staunch• 18 years ago

I never call people in for interviews without a phone screening. It's a waste of their time and mine.

biohacker42• 18 years ago

Could it be good programmers are worse resume writers?

Perhaps if you had a different way of pre-screening candidates, something besides resumes.

Perhaps even if the pre-screening itself took much more time then scanning a resume - overall it might end up saving time?

dcminter• 18 years ago

I rather like Joel Spolsky's observation that when one is hiring one is not selecting from the population of programmers, but rather from the population of programmers without jobs. A very different prospect.

DaniFong2• 18 years ago

This style of programming interview is directly descendant from early microsoft. Some of the best minds in the business of making software engineering organizations cut their teeth on the topic (maybe microsoft isn't so stellar now, but how many organizations from that period are still making software that works at that scale?). Bill Gates pointed to the MS hiring strategy in particular as something that set them apart from their competitors.

However, there are lots of other fields that demand a certain level of competence for you to pursue them. Interviews at investment banks last all day, and they ask for pretty serious mathematics exams among other things. Lawyers must pass the BAR, which is fairly brutal. Actuaries must pass the actuarial exam. Musicians and dancers must audition. Aspiring professors must give a series of 'job talks', opening up their research and program to the criticisms of an entire faculty, after which they continue to meet one on one for hours at a time.

By contrast, the hours spent in Google interviews seem comparatively simple.

raganwald• 18 years ago

My brother is a classical musician, and the preparation he puts in for an addition with a major symphony are brutal. it's like a Y-Combinator startup for each audition plus he continues to play his regular job and teach on the side.

The simple truth is, some fields are performance-oriented. Either he is the best Tuba player auditioning for the chair or he goes home with nothing for his efforts.

menloparkbum• 18 years ago

Why does it seem like computer jobs require such a higher standard of competence than other jobs?

They don't. If you can reverse a string in place in C, or reverse the words in a string, you can get hired at 90% of programming jobs.

silentbicycle• 18 years ago

After spending years focusing on such specific skills, many developers fail to appreciate the skills necessary for other jobs.

It boggles my mind when developers seriously believe lawyers, graphic designers, chefs, etc. don't require a high "standard of competence" in their own skill sets, just because they aren't e.g. messing with pointers or refactoring.

jasonoliver• 18 years ago

how bad is it that because i work in finance, i immediately assumed the "receptionist test" meant sitting with the receptionist for 5 minutes without sexually harrassing her or trying to hit on her. so sad haha.

justindz• 18 years ago

I have a lifetime bid for a fraternity (I didn't join, probably won't) as a result of a legitimate receptionist test. I was hanging out waiting for a friend and some senior member started cursing at his laptop. He had apparently lost an essay and I was able to rescue the contents, safely transfer it to disk, help him back it up just in case and give him advice on avoiding the problem in the future. Won me some points.

bestes• 18 years ago

It is a clever test, albeit a bit deceptive.

Chocobean• 18 years ago

Am I the only one who is offended (but slightly amused) by this test? I would never work for a place that would play games like this. Are they also going to send undercover employees to talk to you about the company over lunch break as your annual review?

What's wrong with presenting the problem in a straightforward manner and see if the applicant can debug the steps, telling the interviewer what he's trying and why at each step? For starters you'd get way more out of his think flow. For "authenticity" you can add that this was a real problem that Cindy faced the other day and you may ask her questions.

People tend to try what they know first (ie: pounding ctrl-p or ubuntu), and if it happened to be the issue, they were merely lucky and may not be competent at all either.

How hard is it to ask them "What else haven't you tried? What would you have tried next if this didn't fix it? Why did you try those steps in that order?"

Dilpil• 18 years ago

Perhaps, but this does have the benefit of not making the interviewees feel pressured.

hbien• 18 years ago

I worked at my college unjamming printers for two years. The interview was pretty relaxed, they just made sure I could use Windows, Mac, and Linux (our school used all three).

nazgulnarsil• 18 years ago

stories like this piss me off when I'm unemployed.

yters• 18 years ago

And I always thought The Office was an exaggeration: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Anything-You-Can-Do-Lyle-Can...

jyothi• 18 years ago

Looking at the comments seems like I am an exception. But I really appreciate these tests especially if u are hiring at start-ups. One got to be hands on and ready to fix anything and everything.

The biggest test is that of go-getter and not be finicky about the kind of work you do.

The Receptionist Test (The Interview before the Interview)

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