I sat down with CoderPad CEO, Amanda Richardson, to collect her perspective on tech interviews, cheating and AI. 

In this Q&A session, she emphasizes the importance of trust and effective interview design. She encourages recruiters and hiring managers to shift their mindset from fear to curiosity. 

Q: What would you say to hiring managers and Talent Acquisition professionals who are worried about cheating in interviews?

So many TA and technical hiring managers ask me about cheating in interviews—and I agree that cheating can be an issue. But NOT in the way most people think. 

I’d say lead with trust, not fear. Trust that 99% of candidates believe in themselves enough to show their real skills (and the other 1% was always going to be undeterred). Trust that you’re in it together: you want the right candidates for the role, and candidates want the right company to work for.

Q: How should interviewers, who are mindful of cheating, approach designing interview questions?

In the same way any interviewer should approach interview questions. Orient around giving the 99% of people who want to find the right-fit job questions that are unique and pertinent to the role at hand. 

Q: How would you recommend that recruiters react, when faced with a cheater?

Be open-minded. Curiosity will get you further than assumptions. Ask for explanations. Seek understanding without instant judgment. And see what you find out. 

Q: How can hiring managers handle the high volume of candidates for technical positions, while minimizing cheating?

Ok, it’s wild out there. The sheer number of candidates for every technical job is overwhelming. And with volume, comes a higher risk of fraud.

Getting through the volume in a way that (a) prioritizes candidate experience while (b) getting your teams the visibility they need is the real trick. But how do you do it? 

We actually recently experienced this ourselves. We posted a Director of Customer Success role and a People Manager role, both fully remote. We received over 800 resumes, in about 36 hours—for each role! 

And I know a lot of HR folks are seeing very similar application flows. So how do you quickly screen candidates and manage a funnel of hundreds of applications. I don’t think there’s just one answer.

For our Customer Success role, for example, we put together a short Excel exercise. It takes only a couple of minutes to complete and focuses on calculating net dollar retention and gross dollar retention—two key skills for the job. We added a couple of objective screening questions to ensure we’re aligned on expectations for what this leader should be able to do.

Q: What’s your take on the perception that it’s easy for candidates to cheat in technical interviews?

Recently a friend and I were talking about technical interviews. “Everyone’s cheating all the time,” she said. “It’s crazy. And it’s so easy to find question answers online.” 

I asked her how she was creating her questions for the interviews, and she is pulling questions off LeetCode.

You know what the REAL answer is? Create better interview questions.

Questions that are tailored for recent problems, unique to your business, and actually test for the skills you need. With this, you will attract and engage great candidates who are:

• Motivated by the work that you actually do and value
• Excited by your company mission and purpose
• More likely to understand how to do the work, and solve the problems you need to solve

Q: Do you consider that using AI tools, like ChatGPT, in technical interviews is cheating?

Absolutely not. 

Don’t hobble your candidates, help them! Let them use these tools. 

Technical interviews are about assessing two things: one, can the candidate actually do the job with the tools they will have, and two, will they be able to work with your team? 

For the first point, you have to give them the tools they need and will be expected to use on the job. Sure, there are things like GitHub, but there are also tools like Copilot and Stack Overflow. These are shortcuts that make developers more efficient and, in the end, help you assess whether or not they can do the job.

Q: What would you say to those who do consider that using AI tools in technical interviews is cheating?

When I hear recruiting teams talk about how using AI or ChatGPT during the interview process is cheating, I actually get concerned. It gives me the impression that they don’t fully understand the job of a developer. 

If you think a developer just pumps out a bunch of code, that is certainly a core part of the job, but it is not actually the most important part. Developers are problem solvers. 

There are often multiple ways to solve a problem. Talented developers will design a solution that is scalable, secure, and future-proof (in terms of how the product might evolve or extend). They’ll think about solving a problem for your customer. That’s the real value of developers.

Q: Why do you consider it important to allow candidates to use tools like ChatGPT during interviews?

Telling them they can’t use ChatGPT or that it’s cheating actually means you can’t assess them with the tools they’re going to use or for the resourcefulness they need to get the job done. 

You need to be able to assess whether or not they can solve problems in the context of your business and with the tools you’ll give them. 

So give them ChatGPT, see how they do, see how they perform in the interview, see if they can decipher a right answer or understand how an answer was conceived and how it could be applied to the job.

Q: What’s your advice for hiring managers who are still hesitant in regards to adopting AI within their interviews?

If you’re hesitant about letting candidates use AI in your interview process, rethink your mindset. 

Consider why it scares you and what the real problem is. Maybe turn to peers who are letting candidates use AI during technical interviews to focus on skills around future-proofing, developing sustainable products, and solving problems efficiently.

Ask them how it’s going for them.

Unlike more hands-on engineering and development roles, assessing architect skills in an interview relies much less on watching them code and more on their ability to drive software design principles and influence the organization-wide direction of software architecture. 

While they’re generally pulled from the ranks of experienced senior developers, the ideal candidate must possess a blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and strong communication skills that go beyond managing a single application.

This can make hiring one a challenge, as passing them a coding test or asking them to solve a typical sorting algorithm won’t give you any indication of their actual skills in designing scalable and maintainable systems.

In this guide, we’ll explore how you can use CoderPad Interview to help you identify the best architects for your team using what matters most: their skills.

What makes a good architect?

Before we discuss how to interview architects, it helps to know what you’re looking for!

While they may share many common traits, what makes a good software architect differs from what makes a good software developer because architects generally work at a higher level of abstraction and across multiple teams within an organization.

Here are a few key traits you’ll want to look out for when interviewing architect candidates.

System design fundamentals

This one might be obvious – it’s why you need an architect to begin with!

System design and design patterns are central to a software architect’s role. These skills are crucial because they impact software systems’ scalability, maintainability, and success. Here’s a quick look at these design skills and their importance:

1. Scalability: Designing systems to handle increasing loads efficiently ensures that the system can grow with the business without significant rework.

2. Maintainability: Modular architectures and clear interfaces make systems easier to update or extend, reducing technical debt and facilitating long-term development.

3. Performance: Ensuring the system meets performance requirements involves making informed decisions about data storage, caching, and load balancing.

4. Reliability and availability: Designing for redundancy, fault tolerance, and failover mechanisms is crucial for mission-critical systems to avoid downtime.

5. Security: Proper authentication, authorization, and encryption mechanisms protect sensitive data and ensure attack resilience.

6. Design patterns: Proficiency in design patterns like Singleton, Factory, and Observer helps create robust and flexible architectures. Knowing when and how to apply these patterns is essential in designing high-quality software systems.

These skills ensure that software systems not only meet current requirements but are also adaptable to future needs, driving business success and growth.

Ability to understand tradeoffs

It’s one thing to know how to design systems. It’s a very different – and more complex – skill to do it with the many constraints that are involved in business decisions.

System design is all about tradeoffs, like:

• Build vs. buy: Which components are worth building in-house, and which ones should you buy? How much customization do you actually need, or can existing products solve those needs?
• Consistency, availability, or partition tolerance: Per the famous CAP theorem, “any disturbed data store can only provide two of the three guarantees.” Architects should be able to reason which one they’re willing to sacrifice and why.
• Caching vs fetching from a database: Which transactions can and should be captured in a database, and which can be cached for quicker access by the user?
• Asynchronous vs synchronous processes: Slow processing can kill the user experience, but having everything done synchronously can quickly consume computing resources. Knowing which components can do which type of processing is an essential skill for architects. 

Any high-level decision-maker must also make more fundamental tradeoffs, specifically between cost, time, and scope. 

An architect should have at least a basic understanding of budgeting and project management. While everyone likes to see their company adopt cutting-edge technology, it may not be the most appropriate design consideration given the cost or time it would take to implement.

Ability to drive architectural change 

A big part of an architect’s job is driving and leading architectural change across large teams. The role requires a unique blend of technical expertise, leadership skills, and strategic vision. 

Understanding how a candidate approaches this aspect of the job can provide significant insights into their suitability for the role. Below are some key points to consider when interviewing software architects about their experience and approach to leading architectural change.

Vision and strategy

A successful software architect must have a clear vision of the architecture’s future and a strategy for achieving it. 

Ask candidates to describe a time when they had to implement a significant architectural change. How did they develop their vision? What factors did they consider in their strategy?  How did they drive this strategy across the organization they were a part of? This will help you gauge their ability to think strategically and plan for long-term success.

Communication and collaboration

Leading architecture change involves effective communication and collaboration across various teams. 

Probe into their communication skills by asking how they convey complex architectural concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders alike. How do they ensure that everyone, from developers to business leaders, understands the vision and their role in achieving it? 

Change management

Implementing architectural changes often involves navigating resistance and managing change effectively. 

Inquire about their experience with change management. How do they handle pushback from team members or other stakeholders? What strategies do they use to encourage the adoption of new architectures? 

Understanding their approach to managing change can reveal their resilience and ability to drive projects forward despite obstacles.

Technical leadership

Architects must not only lead in strategy and communication but also provide technical leadership. 

Ask about their hands-on involvement in coding and reviewing code. How do they stay current with emerging technologies and trends? What methods do they use to ensure the technical quality and integrity of the architecture? 

Their answers can shed light on their technical depth and continuous learning mindset.

By focusing on these areas, you can gain a comprehensive understanding of a candidate’s ability to drive and lead architecture change across large teams, ensuring you select an architect who can effectively guide your organization through complex technical transformations.

CoderPad features for architect interviews

Now that you have a solid understanding of what you’re looking for in a software architect, how exactly do you evaluate those skills?

While many of them, like leadership and how they develop vision and strategy, will depend on more soft-skill style interview questions, you can easily view more complex skill sets like system design and evaluation using a platform like CoderPad.

Drawing mode

With drawing mode, you can watch a candidate design a system based on your specifications or set up a system design for them before the interview and have them critique it. As they walk through the system set-up or critique, you can have them discuss their thought process, including some of the abovementioned tradeoffs. 

Drawing mode can be accessed inside any live-interview pad. To open it, click the Drawing button in the top left nav menu.

Both you and the candidate have access to open/close drawing mode at any time during the interview. 

Each participant controls their environment, meaning when an interviewer opens drawing mode, it will not open for the candidate. If you decide to close drawing mode, the contents of all participants will still be accessible upon re-opening.

That way, you can add details to the diagram during the interview to create opportunities for follow-up questions or to facilitate discussion on more complex system design concepts.

A common use case of drawing mode when interviewing candidates for architectural roles is the following : 

• Upload an existing architectural diagram to drawing mode.
• Set context on the architecture with the candidate.
• Describe a problem set for which you want to test the candidates’ skills – scalability, redundancy, etc.
• Ask them to make changes to your existing architecture in drawing mode to solve this problem set.

For more details on how to use drawing mode in your architect interview, check out our documentation.

Multifile projects and frameworks

To examine an architect’s ability to facilitate the implementation of their vision, you can have them create their ideal application design or critique an existing one. 

CoderPad Interview offers a multifile IDE in several languages and frameworks that replicate the primary working environments of the developers with whom the architect will work.

A common use case of multifile projects and frameworks to assess architectural skills is the following : 

• Drag and drop an existing project used internally – this ensures that the candidate is solving a real-world problem you are facing today within your business.
• Pose a set of questions around the design of the software.  These can include :
  • What critiques would you have for how this software is designed?
  • What design patterns would you use to improve this project?  How would their application improve this project?
  • What stands out as far as the scalability of this application is concerned?  How would you approach changing the design to address these concerns?

From there, you can use the environment to test a candidate’s knowledge of design patterns using pseudo-code or actual code, discuss potential performance and scalability issues, or any other technical skill you may want in your architect.

Check out the documentation here to learn more about setting up and using a multifile environment.

Additional helpful features

Interview review

There are four features you can use to make the most of your post-interview evaluation:

• After the interview, you can access any diagrams the candidate created for review. 
• During the interview, you’ll also be able to take private interviewer notes—visible only to you—that you can reference once the interview is over to assist you in evaluating the candidate.
• As long as the candidate opts in, you’ll have access to a time-stamped interview transcript.
• If any typing or coding was done in the IDE during the interview, you’ll have access to that in the interview playback that is available once you end the interview. 

Audio/visual capabilities

Are you hiring for a remote role or for a candidate who is currently out of the area? CoderPad has full audio and video capabilities to assist with this. This includes the ability to turn on closed-captioning for interviewers or candidates who may be hearing impaired. 

Conclusion

Interviewing software architects requires a thoughtful approach that goes beyond simple coding tests. Understanding their ability to design scalable, maintainable systems, make informed tradeoffs, and lead architectural changes is crucial. CoderPad Interview can streamline this process by providing tools that allow candidates to demonstrate their skills in real-time.

From utilizing the drawing mode to assess system design capabilities to leveraging the multifile projects feature to dive into architectural implementations, CoderPad offers a comprehensive platform for evaluating the diverse skill set required of a software architect. Additionally, post-interview features, such as interview review and audio/visual capabilities, ensure you can make well-informed hiring decisions, even for remote candidates.

By focusing on what truly matters – strategic vision, technical expertise, communication skills, and leadership – you can identify the best software architects who will drive your projects to success. CoderPad Interview empowers you to see beyond the code and into the architectural mindset, making your hiring process more efficient and effective.

I recently chatted with Nathan Sutter, VP of Engineering, about cheating, interviewing, and candidate experience. 

We put together a list of dos and don’ts to help you hire developers and prevent cheating in the “best possible way” (i.e in a way that won’t send developers running for the hills OR make you feel like an unfair, out-of-touch paranoiac). 

Related read: If you want to read more about how to prevent, mitigate and detect cheating within your tech hiring process, check this out.

The dos of cheating prevention

Do: be transparent with candidates

It can be tempting to keep candidates in the dark. 

Indeed, some recruiters worry that any information candidates receive will be used to better prepare a cheating offense. 

We disagree. 

The more a candidate knows about the hiring process, the better.

Aim to clearly communicate what you’re looking to assess and why. We also strongly recommend that you communicate, ahead of time, what tools candidates can or can’t use and why.  

“Be as clear and as transparent as possible. Candidates should know what they’re walking into.”

For example, if you consider that using ChatGPT during a live coding interview is fair game—say so! Then, go on to explain that you encourage the use of ChatGPT because you want to provide a realistic interview experience (for example). Candidates will respect you all the more for your transparency.

A well-prepared, well-informed candidate is less likely to cheat because: 

1. You’ve shown candor and started to build trust and engagement.
2. They’re confident that you’re not trying to “catch them out” or spring any surprises on them. They’re less likely to panic. 
3. They’re “onboard” with your evaluation process. They haven’t been made to feel that they’re simply “jumping through hoops”. You’ve shown that you respect their time and value skills above other, less objective, criteria. 

Do: create a realistic interview setting

Always strive to simulate your working environment during the interview process.

“Create an environment that is as close to working with this person as possible. Give candidates the tools that you would give them on the job.”

Whether it’s tools (as mentioned above), the IDE, or the space to ask questions, it’s important to provide developers with a familiar and realistic interview setting.

The more comfortable and confident they feel, the less likely they are to look for external, unauthorized support (asking someone to take the interview in their place, for example). 

Do: align and engage your hiring team

Recruitment is not a one-(wo)man show. It takes a team. 

“It’s really important that your hiring manager specifically is working very, very closely with talent acquisition, and that you’re on the same page with what cheating is.”

It’s important to define what cheating means to your organization. Clearly list expectations and decide what’s allowed and what’s not. All stakeholders should commit to this shared position. 

For example, here at CoderPad, we don’t consider that using ChatGPT as a supporting tool during a test or interview is cheating. We do, however, consider that asking a friend to take a pre-employment assessment in your place, is cheating. 

It’s just as important to make sure that anyone involved in the hiring process is fully engaged and, better still, trained in inclusivity, hiring bias and structured interviewing. Why? Because the better the interview experience, the less likely candidates are to want to cheat.  

Related read: How Talent Acquisition Can Empower Engineering Hiring Managers to Be Better Interviewers

The don’ts of cheating prevention

Don’t: over-rely on proctoring

“Adding proctoring for all assessments is not something I would recommend. In some geographies, proctoring is a norm, it’s expected; in other geographies, it’s absolutely not.”

Proctoring can be both a powerful anti-cheat tool, and a real obstacle for candidates. 

When deciding whether or not you activate proctoring for your online assessments, take into account elements such as: 

• Seniority of the role you’re hiring for
• The market and culture you’re hiring in
• Expected number of applicants for the role
• Your available internal resources

As a general rule, we recommend that you avoid using proctoring excessively. However, if you do decide to enable proctoring, you should do so for every candidate applying for a given position (per-test, not per-candidate).

Related watch: How to Prevent and Detect Cheating in Your Tech Recruitment Process

Don’t: expect memorization

Do not expect candidates to memorize everything; focus on problem-solving skills instead.

“For as long as I’ve been writing code, we’ve had tools to help us remember things. Our toolsets are becoming more complex over time, so don’t expect candidates to have everything memorized. Memorization isn’t a good indicator of how well a potential engineer will solve problems.”

Don’t: present overly complex problems

The harder the questions, the harder it is to cheat. Right?

No. Asking candidates to work on overly difficult development tasks will not get you better hiring results.

“If it’s a 45-minute interview, give them a problem they can realistically solve in 45 minutes, not something that would take two or three hours on their own.” 

Provide clear instructions, and have candidates work on something as close as possible to an on-the-job problem, that can realistically be completed in the allotted time. 

Expecting candidates to over perform in an interview setting does not set you, or your candidate, up for success.

Don’t: create an adversarial environment or an overcomplicated process

No good will come from throwing an endless amount of steps and obstacles at candidates. You may well drive the cheaters away, but you’ll drive everyone else away too. Instead, focus on enabling candidates to succeed rather than tripping them up.

“Ask yourself, how do I enable somebody to succeed, not catch somebody out.”

We absolutely recommend that candidate experience remain your north star. 

Make it as easy as possible for candidates to navigate your hiring process and, above all, demonstrate their skills.

Don’t: make rash decisions or accusations

Lastly, don’t jump to any conclusions. 

Any one indicator of unusual or suspicious behavior is not necessarily enough to label a candidate as a cheater. 

“For example, some engineers, being introverted, might not feel comfortable being on camera for the first interview. I wouldn’t take this as a red flag indicating cheating. Instead, focus on being engaged and ensuring the candidate can walk you through their solution in real time.”

Lead with curiosity, ask questions. There may well be a perfectly reasonable explanation.

You want to assess a candidate’s skills but are unsure how to design questions that accurately reflect the role and provide valuable insights.

As an interview and assessment platform, we have extensive experience in this area. We’ve spent years honing our question creation process to provide our customers with the most effective interview and assessment questions.

But whether or not you use our questions or even another interview platform, we want to make sure you get the most out of your interview questions so you can bring only the best candidates to your company.

This guide will illuminate our 4-step process for creating exceptional technical interview and assessment questions. We’ll delve into:

• Brainstorming with the A-Team: Discover how to leverage the expertise of engineers, managers, and even your non-engineering stakeholders to generate top-notch question ideas.
• Building confidence through validation: Explore the concepts of test validity and reliability and gain insights into how you can quickly vet your questions.
• Monitor candidate feedback: Grab useful feedback from your test takers and interviewees to elicit helpful insights on your question quality.
• Continuous Improvement: See how to leverage candidate data and feedback to constantly refine your question library, ensuring it reflects the ever-evolving technology landscape and your needs.

Create brainstorming groups 

The first step in formulating impactful technical interview questions involves assembling diverse thinkers. You’ll want to include a mix of seasoned engineering experts, cross-functional teammates, and managerial staff to ensure a well-rounded perspective on what constitutes a relevant and challenging technical question.

Regular sessions with this team are crucial. Make it a priority to discuss current challenges and real scenarios that can be transformed into practical coding exercises. This ensures the relevance of your questions and helps in mirroring actual problems candidates might face on the job.

To broaden the scope and applicability of your questions, you can involve non-technical stakeholders in the brainstorming process. Human resources, product management, and customer service representatives can provide valuable insights into the soft skills and problem-solving abilities crucial for the role. Their perspective might highlight necessary competencies that purely technical personnel might overlook.

This inclusive approach enriches the content and aligns it more closely with the interdisciplinary nature of modern tech roles, ensuring that the questions you develop are both technically sound and reflective of real-world business needs.

Additionally, you’ll want to consider the following guidelines when working with your team to create your technical questions.

The three U’s of a good question

Every question that you use in front of candidates should answer “Yes” to the following queries:

1. Is the question Understandable?
2. Is it Unambiguous*? In other words, if you asked the question to several experts, would they agree on the answer without any hesitation? 
3. And most importantly, is it Useful? I.e., is it important for a developer in a professional setting to know this? 

*While questions with various possible answers can make good interview discussion material, unambiguity is essential in automated testing, like with a screening assessment.

Remember, no matter what kind of technical question you’re creating; you should strive to rank candidates based on their all-around coding skills, not just their memory or ability to search the Internet quickly.

Internally test and validate the question

Once you’ve developed your interview questions, it’s essential to ensure they meet professional standards through testing and validation. This process not only evaluates the question’s effectiveness but also checks for fairness, reliability, and validity.

You’ll use feedback from this internal testing phase to refine the questions. This might involve rephrasing, adjusting the difficulty level, or discarding questions that do not meet the standards.

Engage Your Internal Community

Before deploying any question, it should undergo a thorough review within your organization. Involve a diverse group of stakeholders—engineers, product managers, and even team leads—that resemble your target audience. They should evaluate the questions from two angles:

– As test takers: They should attempt to answer the questions as if they were candidates, providing feedback on clarity, relevance, and the realistic challenge the question poses.

–  As reviewers: From a reviewer’s standpoint, stakeholders should assess whether the questions effectively measure the skills they purport to test and if those skills are crucial for the roles in question.

Validation metrics

You’ll want every question reviewer to focus on three key areas during validation:

– Clarity and unambiguity: Ensure the question is easily understandable and leaves no room for misinterpretation.

– Relevance and utility: Confirm that the skills being tested are essential for the role and provide realistic insights into a candidate’s on-the-job performance.

– Candidate experience: Evaluate whether the question offers a positive test-taking experience that is neither frustrating nor discouraging.

By testing and validating each question, you ensure that your assessment tools are practical and aligned with your company’s standards and expectations. This step is crucial in maintaining the integrity and effectiveness of your interview process and ensuring the selection of the most qualified candidates.

Monitor candidate results and get their feedback

Once your questions are in use, you should continuously monitor how candidates perform on them. This involves collecting and analyzing data to ensure the questions function as intended. Key metrics to consider include:

– Success rate: Check if the percentage of candidates passing the question aligns with your expectations for its difficulty level. A mismatch might indicate that the question is either too easy or too hard.

– Completion time: Analyze whether candidates’ time to complete the question matches the allotted time limits. Significant deviations can suggest a need to adjust the difficulty or clarity of the question.

– Variability of responses: Observe the range of answers provided by candidates. High variability might indicate ambiguity in a question or that candidates misunderstand the problem.

Additionally, you’ll want to collect direct feedback from candidates when possible. It provides insights into their experience with the question and the overall assessment process. Consider implementing mechanisms for collecting feedback, such as:

– Post-assessment surveys: Quick surveys following the assessment that ask about question clarity, perceived relevance, and overall test fairness.

– Comment boxes: Allow candidates to leave comments on specific questions. This can be an excellent source of qualitative data, revealing issues not captured by quantitative metrics.

Use both the qualitative and quantitative feedback mentioned above to update your questions. This might involve refining questions to enhance clarity, reduce ambiguity, or adjust difficulty. It might also involve updating or removing questions that are fundamentally flawed or outdated. 

You’ll want to ensure a system is in place to regularly review the feedback and performance data. This should involve multiple stakeholders, including the original question designers and hiring managers, to decide which questions to keep, modify, or discard.

Consistently reassess your needs

The technology landscape continuously changes, with new frameworks, tools, and languages emerging while older technologies may become less relevant or obsolete. Therefore, you should ensure your technical interview questions remain current and are aligned with the latest industry standards.

You’ll want to establish a routine process for reviewing and updating your question library, which can easily be part of the quality review described in the previous section. This review ensures that your assessments reflect the current state of technology and the skills that are most in demand. 

To help make sure you’re continuing to meet the needs of your company, consider taking the following steps:

– Stay up-to-date on technological trends: Stay informed about industry trends by utilizing resources like Indeed Hiring Lab datasets, CoderPad’s Annual Developer survey, and tech blogs. These resources can provide useful insights into what skills and tools are becoming more or less prevalent.

– Gather feedback from technical teams: Leverage the expertise of your engineering team and technical leaders within your organization. Their day-to-day experiences can provide practical insights into which skills and tools are essential for current and future projects.

– Implement a technology request system: This allows team members to suggest new technologies or frameworks for your assessments and interviews. It makes the process democratic and ensures that your questions are relevant to the actual work being done.

Use the information you gather from those steps to develop custom questions that reflect specific needs or new technologies relevant to your company’s projects. This keeps your assessments up-to-date and ensures they are tailored to evaluate the specific skills needed for success in your organization.

Summary

Of course if you’re using CoderPad Screen, much of the heavy lifting for creating and managing technical assessment questions is already handled for you. Our platform is designed to streamline the assessment process, ensuring that you can focus more on evaluating candidates and less on the logistics of test administration.

Even when you use the example questions in CoderPad Interview, we encourage you to tailor the provided example questions or develop your own to specifically meet your organization’s unique challenges and needs. This customization allows you to assess the skills that are most relevant to the roles you are looking to fill.

While our platform provides a strong foundation for practical assessment and interview questions, the principles outlined in this guide are universal and can enhance any technical interview. Regular updates, feedback integration, and ongoing reassessment of your assessment strategy are vital practices that will ensure your technical interviews remain practical and relevant.

By adopting these best practices, you optimize your technical interviewing process and enhance the overall hiring experience. This ensures that your assessments are not just a formality but an essential step in building a competent tech team.

Some parts of this blog post were written with ChatGPT.

Is it simply a temporary, addictive-to-watch trend that will blow over? A Gen-Z thing that you don’t need to concern yourself with? 

Or, is it representative of a deeper, transformative work problem that you need to pay attention to? 

In this article, read about what you can learn from this content, and how it should impact your company’s HR practices.   

What is the viral TikTok layoff video trend?

Here’s the lowdown. 

Employees (or ex-employees, as it were) have started documenting their layoff experience on social media. Some of these videos have gone viral, raking in millions of views. 

Employees share HR emails, global company announcements, 1:1 exit interviews, and more. They share their raw and, sometimes, rather emotional reactions. A number of employers have found themselves being thrust into the limelight and seen their processes put under much scrutiny.

Indeed, not only are employees putting this content out there, others are engaging with it. Users are sharing their own stories, commenting and debating on the way things were handled, and forming opinions of the related events.

6 examples of viral TikTok layoff videos

1. Watch me get laid off from my job at Indeed 

The company: Indeed

The gist: ex-Indeed employee shares real-time, emotional reaction to being one of the approximately 2200 people laid off from Indeed in march 2023. She shares snippets from the global announcement, as well as her 1:1 interview with HR and with her direct manager.  

Number of views: over 747.8k

2. It’s the least I deserve ok!!!!!

The company: TikTok

The gist: ex-TikTok employee films as she goes into the NYC office for the last time. She shares images of different office areas and steals “company assets”, i.e snacks! She pokes fun at the experience in a light-hearted way.  

Number of views: over 3M

3. I’m having mental breakdowns every 26 minutes someone lmk if this is normal

The company: Disney

The gist: ex-Disney employee shares her “soon-after” reaction to being let go from Disney. She doesn’t share any of Disney’s official communications, however she explains the process and shares some of the concerns and questions that came up. She also includes small clips of her in tears and says “It honestly feels like a breakup that’s one-sided”. 

Number of views: over 2.2M

4. This is me 5 hours before I think I’m gonna be laid off

The company: unknown

The gist: Employee shares the countdown to being laid off in a rather sarcastic and unfiltered way. She shares the signs and clues (odd meeting invites and reporting requests, for example), and a clip from the termination interview. 

Number of views: over 3.9M

5. Pour one out for the homies who got laid off at @Discord @Google @Twitch @Audible in the last 2 days

The company: Discord

The gist: Former Discord Product Manager shares her “real-time” reaction to being let go. She shares the different communications received (global announcement, email telling her that her role has been impacted…). She voices over the actual announcement. She shares a screenshot of the email she receives, describing it as “Breakup text, through email… this is how I’m gonna go?!”.

Number of views: over 5.2M

6. When you know you’re about to get laid off so you film it this was traumatizing honestly lmao

The company: Cloudflare

The gist: Ex-Cloudflare employee films her termination interview as she is let go for “not reaching performance expectations”. She films the exchange as she pushes back and demands a data-backed explanation of the decision. She also addresses the fact that the people delivering the news are people she has never met before and critiques the fact that her direct manager has not been involved. She shares her disappointment, hurt and dismay in the face of this difficult situation.

Number of views: 2.5M

What to take away from the viral TikTok layoff trend

“Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.”

– Thomas Jefferson

The TikTok layoff videos serve as a reminder to employers that their policies and actions have real impact on people’s lives. 

Difficult business decisions must be made. It can’t be helped. However, you have the power to handle the worst situations, in the best possible way. 

Here’s our advice: 

1. Be transparent and organized

“Social media is holding companies accountable. If an employee exposed your people processes, would you be ashamed? Can you stand behind them, or would you go and hide under a rock?”

Ask yourself, if your termination process was exposed, could you stand behind it? Do you have anything to hide? If the idea makes you uncomfortable, why? 

Pinpoint the areas of discomfort or disagreement and address them. If you think changes are necessary, make them. 

If need be, build a case for your executive team. Share examples and data, explain the risk of a badly handled termination process (lowered workplace morale, retention difficulties, security breaches, weakened employer brand, legal retaliation, sabotage…) and put forward your suggestions on how to handle things. 

“Gone are the days where you can keep things like this ‘contained’. Social media means every constituency is an investigator reporter with a distribution platform. This means making good decisions. The first time is imperative, and being prepared to be out front immediately when things go astray.”

– Jeremy Tunis 

We also suggest you document as much of the process as possible. Keep track of communication and reasons for dismissal. This will not only provide extra clarity and transparency, but will also serve as a legal safeguard. 

2. Show empathy and offer support

Empathy in this type of situation should be a given. But we know that things can slip in the midst of a high-volume, high-pressure layoff.

Strive to be sincere and compassionate. Polish your message to avoid using any insensitive or vague language.

Don’t make empty promises, but offer any additional support and assistance you can. On top of your typical severance package, you may want to offer a letter of recommendation, a reduced deal to purchase equipment like laptops (this can facilitate an impacted employee’s job search), a LinkedIn recommendation, a resume review, etc.

“I’ve been laid off a few times. 

The things that were the most helpful to me were setting my last day at the beginning of the month, so that I had the full month of health insurance covered. Most employer-sponsored health insurance in the US cuts off at the end of the month of your termination. So if you are laid off on the 30th, in a day or two you are left without coverage. COBRA coverage is very expensive, especially if you are suddenly without income. Having a few weeks of healthcare coverage means you can get in a few needed appointments, instead of being left high and dry. I have a friend who had had wrist surgery, and was then hit by a surprise layoff a few days later at the end of the month, and lost health coverage immediately. It had big implications for her follow-up care and rehab. 

I also appreciated having some time to say goodbye to my coworkers and put together anything I needed for my portfolio, including pulling performance metrics from my work or quotes/testimonials about my work that would help me land my next role. Immediately cutting off people’s access is extremely cold. 

And lastly, both my boss and the CEO apologized for putting me in this situation and acknowledged responsibility for the business decisions that led to it. Even though layoffs aren’t typically based on performance (and mine wasn’t) you can still feel like a failure. That message went a long way towards helping me internalize that this wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of.”

– Meredith Kucherov

3. Anticipate what you can and come prepared

As a company, aim to limit the element of surprise. Transparency on goals, budgets and results will contribute to this.

In any event, performance-based decisions should never come as a surprise to employees. 

“[I don’t understand] why I’m being let go, despite constant positive praise from my manager, great meetings that I’m having, the amount of activity that I have had, it’s all been positive. I have not received any negative inclination. I have not been put on a performance improvement plan, nothing. […] Can you explain what those performance metrics are? Or is that just a vague term to give to everyone that you’re speaking to today?”

– Brittany Peach, extract from her termination interview shared on TikTok

When layoffs inevitably occur, make sure to come prepared. 

Make sure you’re properly equipped to deliver a reasonable explanation for the decision to let people go. These are not easy conversations, but it is an injustice to not give impacted employees tangible reasons for termination.

If this is a high-volume action, preparing an F.A.Q could be an effective way to answer employees’ recurring questions. A “What should I do now?” document can also prove reassuring and useful. 

As part of your preparation, be sure to inform and include the right people in this exchange. You want to avoid employees receiving this news from someone they have never met or heard of. Include the manager in this conversation whenever possible (and in 100% of performance-based departures!). 

4. Provide a smooth offboarding experience

Offboarding an involuntary departure is just as important as offboarding a voluntary departure. Build a structured offboarding process to make sure that everything is handled in a timely, professional manner. 

Related read: Offboarding Checklist: How to Offboard an Employee

In the case of an involuntary departure, it may have to be a judgment call as to whether or not you organize an exit interview.

5. Manage your online presence

Monitor your presence on both social media and review sites (Glassdoor, for example). 

While you can definitely take some things with a pinch of salt, knowing what’s being said about you as an employer will provide you with the necessary insight to adjust your processes.  

Plus, although not all content will warrant it, it may be necessary to respond. Be very careful to think before you speak, especially in viral situations with lots of visibility. You don’t want to make things worse!

Related read: How to Respond to Negative Online Employee Reviews

It’s not just layoffs

On a final note, remember that it’s not just layoffs. Any of your HR processes and policies, from screening to remote work, have the potential to be scrutinized online and made public. A few examples:

• Im at a corporate conference in Las Vegas right now and heres one of the things ive heard from a top leader in the industry… do you guys agree or disagree with her reasoning for return to office mandate?
• This hiring process is completely inappropriate and taking advantage of how desperate jobseekers are for work.
• Let’s talk about the special level of interviewing hell that is the recorded interview

As much as anything, these trends are a reminder that the work you put in to make your HR processes fair, transparent and engaging is important, impactful and appreciated.

As TA professionals, you have the power to create an inclusive interview environment for your interviewers and interviewees. Want to know how? This guide will help you.

What is “inclusive interviewing”?

Inclusive interviewing practices aim to provide fair and equal opportunities to all candidates, in an attempt to combat recruitment bias and any form of discrimination. 

For example, to hold interviews exclusively during school drop-off and pick-up times would not be an inclusive interviewing practice. This would exclude many parents, making it difficult for them to do well in the interview process. 

In short, the aim of inclusive interviews is to set all candidates up for success, regardless of their background, gender, education, family situation, disabilities, etc.

“When it comes down to it, the question you are really aiming to answer is: who aces your interview? And the work you are really aiming to accomplish is to eliminate all aspects of that answer that are not relevant to your job’s requirements.”

Sheri Soliman, Senior Software Developer at Shopify

Why should you care? 

Because it’s the right thing to do

I would argue that inclusivity is a moral imperative, or “the right thing to do”. 

Because you could be missing out on talent

Indeed, by overlooking talented candidates due to exclusionary hiring practices, companies risk missing out on valuable skills and perspectives.

You risk not meeting candidates at all (because you fail to offer flexible scheduling, for example). You also risk meeting the right person for the job, but getting an inaccurate read of their skills and potential.

Because diverse teams are better teams

It’s in your interest to make the best hires and build diverse, performant teams. Inclusive interviewing will help you do so. 

The advantages of diversity in tech teams are multiple. 

One thing I’d say to CIOs and CFOs who are skeptical of diversity is that they literally don’t know what they are missing. When everyone thinks the same way and/or comes from the same background, you get tunnel vision. I find more success when I have a diverse team whose members bring different backgrounds, experiences and voices to the table. New opportunities are found when different voices are heard.

John Bruggeman, CBTS and OnX

Because developers care

That’s right. You should care, because developers care. 

In our State of Tech Hiring 2024 survey, 17% of developers said that company values are what matters most to them when considering a job offer. 

According to CNBC/SurveyMonkey’s Workforce Happiness report, nearly 80% of respondents said they want to work for a company that values DEI.

If you don’t start caring about inclusivity, your employer brand could be damaged and your retention rates could suffer.

What can you do, as a Talent Acquisition professional, to create a more inclusive technical interview environment?

Sure, as a TA professional hiring for tech roles, you won’t necessarily be the one sitting in the tech interview. This will likely be your hiring manager and members of the tech and product teams. 

However, you are probably in charge of building a process, sourcing applicants, communicating with candidates, training hiring managers and overseeing the general interview experience. 

There are a number of things that you can do to set everyone involved up for success. Do these things to create a more inclusive interview environment, and facilitate inclusive tech interviews. 

1. Offer flexible and inclusive interview scheduling

I know, scheduling is a pain. 

It’s not easy to accommodate everyone’s needs and availability. That said, an inclusive interview process starts here, with considerate scheduling.

Imagine this: you’ve been trying to schedule a mid-week interview with a candidate—and it’s proving difficult. You’re starting to get frustrated and question whether or not this person actually wants the job. After all, other candidates are readily available.

Only, the candidate is based in France. You didn’t know, but in some European countries, children don’t go to school on Wednesdays. Indeed, Wednesdays often equate to trickier family logistics for parents. By trying to schedule your interview mid-week, you were inadvertently disfavoring this candidate based on their family situation.

Make sure to offer interview slots on different days and at different times of the day. If at all possible, the person arranging the interviews should not be on the interview panel, and should keep these arrangements confidential. 

Flexible and considerate scheduling should allow all candidates to attend interviews without being penalized or introducing assumptions about their motivations.

2. Build relevant interview panels

Put together relevant, trained interview panels. No one person should be making hiring decisions alone.

It’s widely accepted that a more diverse interview panel will put candidates at ease. Indeed, candidates are likely to feel more comfortable if they can relate to and identify with members of the panel. 

A diverse interview panel also brings different perspectives to the decision making progress and can contribute to minimizing bias. A gender diverse panel, for example, may contribute to mitigating gender bias in the hiring process. 

“42% of women said they have encountered gender-biased or inappropriate questions during a job interview, and 41% said they have felt discriminated against during a job interview, due to gender.”

2024 Women’s Workplace Experience, The Muse

However, be careful not to mandate diversity for diversity. 

Including a woman “because she’s a woman”, but in a position irrelevant to the hiring process, will most likely put her in a situation where her opinion weighs less, making this intention entirely counterproductive. 

You’re wasting your female colleague’s time and reinforcing any feelings of marginalization. 

Also, be mindful not to burden underrepresented groups. It is not their responsibility, as a a minority group, to carry your inclusivity efforts. So, don’t overtask them.

“I believe that although personal experience can provide the empathy and skills necessary to help create workplaces that promote equity and inclusion, this effort shouldn’t be borne by minorities alone.”

Leah Ward Sears, Complex Litigation Partner, Arbitrator and Mediator

A relevant interview panel is one that is collaborative, organized, well equipped to assess the skills necessary to the job at hand, and trained in inclusivity practices and bias mitigation.

3. Create a structured interview plan and scoring rubric

Structured, standardized interviews are much more effective and inclusive than “winging it” interviews. 

“85 years of research by leadership scholars showed that unstructured interviews were ranked so low in effectiveness that they only explained 14% of an employee’s performance.”

Why Job Interviews Are Like Flipping A Coin, Forbes

And, despite what you might think, you should not be building an interview plan based on your candidate, their resume or their past experiences. 

You’ve may have done this in the past. Many of us have! We’ve asked different candidates, different questions, depending on their profile. But, how hard was it to compare them based on their answers?

“I’ll admit that I’ve done this in the past. I used to look at a candidate’s resume, and create questions tailored to their profile. Some variation of ‘I see you did this in your past experience, can you tell me more about that?’. It made for interesting conversations, but it didn’t provide me with an objective basis for comparison.” 

Mathilde Brotier, People Ops Lead at CoderPad 

Aim to build an interview plan based on the skills and competencies you are looking to assess (those that are absolutely necessary for the role). For each candidate for one same role, you should be asking the same amount of questions, worded in the same way, in the same order. 

This is something that you will need to plan in close collaboration with your hiring manager and tech team.

Here’s a quick overview of the process:

1. List and prioritize the skills and competencies you want to assess
2. Match skills to interview questions 
3. List observable candidate responses, actions and results
4. Sort candidate responses according to a number scale
5. Provide a hiring recommendation (yes or no)
6. Bonus: List the skills and competencies you do NOT want to assess

Want to add an extra safeguard? Include a reminder of what you don’t want to assess. For example, I’d recommend excluding interview questions on educational background or side hustles. 

4. Prepare interviewers

It’s TA’s job to set interviewers up for success.

This includes training, templates and setting interviewer expectations. 

“Your goal as an interviewer is not to interrogate the candidate or try to push them until they fail.”

Sheri Soliman, Senior Software Developer at Shopify

Going into an interview they should know, understand and be on board with: 

1. What inclusivity is and why it matters
2. What common interview biases they should be aware of
3. How to use the structured interview plan and scoring rubric
4. Interview etiquette

This shouldn’t be a one-time thing. Make sure to adjust and repeat your training sessions depending on candidate and interviewer feedback, as well as your own observations and hiring outcomes. 

5. Prepare candidates and offer reasonable adjustments

Inclusive interviewing is all about making candidates feel welcome and comfortable so that they can be their full, authentic selves. Put them at ease. Set them up for success. 

Be as transparent as possible with candidates going through your interview process. Inform and reassure them: 

1. Give an overview of the entire interview process (how many steps/interviews, timing, etc.)
2. Detail each interview (what type of questions to expect, what you’re trying to assess, who they will meet, how long it will last, what tools will be at their disposal, etc.)
3. Proactively offer reasonable adjustments (see inspiration below)
4. Provide links to any tutorials or sandboxes

6. Consider take-home projects

Recruiters and developers agree on the fact that live coding interviews are one of the most effective ways to assess a candidate’s skills. Technical tests with practical coding questions also appeal to everyone.

Take-homes can get some bad rep: too time-consuming, too irrelevant, too easy to “fake”… Still, in our recent survey of over 13,000 developers, respondents gave this assessment method an average score of 3.75/5, making it their top choice this year.

My bet is that candidates appreciate the flexibility, reduced pressure and added project context. Indeed, take-homes allow candidates to code in their own environment, according to their schedule, commitments, health, etc. Simply ensure that your candidate is suitably equipped.

7. Provide a performant, collaborative and considerate development environment

The development environment will make or break your technical interview.

Make sure you provide an IDE that mirrors your candidates’ work setup. Ideally, you can allow your candidates:

• Time to think
• Supporting tools (ChatGPT, libraries, shortcuts, integrated drawing board, etc.)
• Facilitated collaboration (à la pair programming)
• Clear communication (offering closed captions can greatly improve accessibility and communication)
• Comfort and familiarity

8. Share and collect feedback from candidates

So as to continuously improve your interview process and weed out any exclusionary steps, be sure to survey both candidates and interviewers.

This will, for example, help you to identify any barriers candidates may encounter and refine your list of reasonable adjustments.

I’d recommend including freeform questions as part of your survey, so as to introduce as little response bias as possible. You could then set some time apart quarterly, for example, to sort answers into bigger buckets and decide what to act on and how.

But what about you, the interviewer?

As the gatekeeper who ensures that only the most qualified candidates make it onto your team, how you act in an interview is very important.

53% of job seekers have had at least one negative experience in the hiring process in the past 12 months. And 52% of job seekers had declined a job offer due to poor experience.

CareerPlug.com

Just as you need to ensure quality on your team, your candidates are going to ensure quality in their employers. If you can’t show them you’re a great person to work with or your company isn’t a great place to work, the candidate will run faster than you can say “Glassdoor reviews.”

If you’re like most people, treating a candidate poorly isn’t in your nature. However, you might be exhibiting certain behaviors unintentionally that don’t reflect well on you or your company.

Here are the top ones you’ll want to avoid if you want to make the interview go well and your workplace a top organization to work for.

Inadequate preparation

When I was a student, I managed to get an interview for a SWE internship in the US. I was nervous as it was maybe the first time of my life that I have to speak in English over the phone, and one of my first job interview ever. That interview was a nightmare!

• The environment was noisy. Which is probably fine for a native English speaker but it was difficult for me to understand some questions. Often, I couldn’t hear the very first word, but if you don’t know if the question is about “why” or “how” or something else, it’s difficult to answer. So I asked the person multiple times to repeat. And she would repeat the question like I’m a two year old while I only needed to know what was the first word of the question . So embarrassing.
• No programming questions! Only product questions such as: what’s your favorite software? which feature would you like to add to it? I was really not prepared for these kind of questions!

And after that, no feedback at all, only a bunch of reading recommendations.

Maxime, Director of Engineering

There’s no greater sign of an unprofessional attitude than not properly preparing for an interview. 

Candidates often spend hours preparing for interviews—sending applications, personalizing resumes, writing cover letters, researching the company, and, most importantly, probably taking time off from their paid jobs.

What does it say about respecting their time when you run late or don’t have questions prepared?

It may seem obvious that you should be on time for the interview and have your questions prepared ahead of time.

Here are some less obvious ways to prepare so you’re not leaving your candidates with a sense of unease about your team’s interview process:

• Ensure all interviewers know the date and time of an interview (set multiple reminders if you need to remember). Have backup interviewers for emergencies. Keeping track of all this in a shared document may be helpful.
• In a similar vein, make sure each interviewer asks the candidate different questions so they don’t hear the same thing five times in a row.
• Ensure you and the other interviewers set aside time to prepare. It’s a good idea to make this a quick team meeting.
• Ensure you have a quiet environment in which to conduct the interview.
• Make sure you’re ready to take notes. Everyone helping with the interview should have an easy place to write down their thoughts.
• If you’re conducting a remote interview, ensure your candidate has a link to your interviewing platform and that they have any materials they need to prepare for the interview.

For example, we have templates we use for each job we post at CoderPad. Here’s a snippet of one that was filled out for a data analyst.

The document is shared between all our interviewers and contains the questions to ask and the appropriate assessment criteria for the questions.

Candidates appreciate this kind of preparation, as it shows that our care for them as applicants would extend to care for them as employees. 

If you show your candidates you can’t prepare for them before they accept the job, they’re going to think the company will be equally unprepared when they’re full-time employees. Few people aspire to work in a role where ambiguous processes and impromptu decision-making further complicate routine tasks.

Being prepared boils down to one thing: respecting the candidate’s time and effort in the interview process.

Being evasive

I was in applying for a job with a long process 4 steps and 1 case study, I was already at the third step and didn’t manage to get a clear answer on the salary from my various interviewers – they stayed evasive: it depends on the experience/profiles they were saying.

I finally got the info when they were ready to move me to the last stage. It was way under what I was earning in my previous job for the same type of mission. The way they approached it was to try and hook the candidate enough for the salary not to be important.

I turned down the job and It felt like a waste of time for everyone.

Alice, Content Manager

Some of the questions candidates ask you will be easy: What’s your tech stack? How many people are on the team? Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Other questions will be more difficult. They may enter into grey areas or have answers that may scare away the candidate.

Is the PTO really unlimited? What are the core working hours? Why did the last person leave your team?

Lying or twisting a true statement to mean something else that misleads the candidate is dishonest and unprofessional and only hurts your hiring process. At best, your candidate accepts the job and stays on for a little while until they realize you lied, and then you can expect their productivity to drop and them to start looking for a new job.

At worse, you’ll find yourself paying out unemployment and trying to find a new employee days after spending all that time hiring the one you lied to.

The solution? Be honest. The candidate can judge whether a less-than-desirable working arrangement is worthwhile for them. 

If candidates keep turning down job offers because of these uncomfortable truths, you may need to rethink your policies and processes until you can create an environment your future employees will enjoy working.

Using leet code interview questions

I did an interview for a company that wanted me to do a computer science leet code type of test. Basically this exercise: https://www.javatpoint.com/find-number-of-island-in-java

The interviewer was on a video Zoom call while I stumbled around trying to figure out what to do. He was getting visibly frustrated that I was taking so long and not making any progress finding imaginary islands from a given array of 1’s and 0’s. It must have been an hour and half later when he eventually gave up.

I said “Well. I suck at finding islands but I can show you how I build WordPress sites which is what I do in my day job.”

His sense of humor was about as good as I was at depth first search algorithm exercises.

Russell, Marketing web developer

Leet code questions – also often known as “whiteboard” questions – measure a candidate’s ability to remember how to implement algorithms and theories from computer science courses rather than their ability to perform the real on-the-job needs of the role.

In other words, they’re tedious and boring and don’t really tell you how a candidate will perform as an employee of your team.

While they may be useful with the most junior candidates, they will absolutely annoy higher-level candidates, and you’ll see them regularly turn down your job offers.

We’ve written whole articles on how to design great technical interview questions, but it can be summed up like this:

• Use a question that reflects an actual business task.
• Use an appropriate IDE for the candidate to code in.
• Make the question instructions readily available.
• Make the question collaborative.
• Allow the candidate to ask clarifying questions.

Pressure tactics 

I was in an interview, facing a tandem of interviewers – the first is conducting the interview and the second one is never talking or responding when I answered questions, never engaging with me.

I had the impression to be in a bad cop/good cop situation. I later learned that it was a posture he adopted on purpose to see how candidates reacted to pressured/uncomfortable situation. Nothing to do with the set of skills I needed for the job at the time.

Alice, Content Manager 

As an interviewer you should be focused on eliciting information and insights, not on persuasion like a car salesperson.

Trying to see how your candidates work under pressure or forcing them to accept the job with an unreasonable deadline will likely backfire. Unless you’re interviewing for a police officer or firefighter, there is no need to put your candidates in a stressful situation to see how they’d respond.

Some “popular” tactics to create high-pressure situations in the interview process:

• Giving the candidate a very short deadline to accept a job offer.
• Asking intimidating questions.
• Asking multiple difficult questions.
• Testing under severe time constraints.
• Panel interviews.
• Making the candidate wait before the interview and in between interview steps.
• Being intentionally rude to the candidate.

Other than being completely off-putting—and candidates will spread this message about your company—it’s also a great way to eliminate great candidates from your talent pool.

Some people are great creative and problem-solving minds, but they need time to think over their solutions. Others will see how ridiculous a high-pressure interview for a software developer position is and run in the other direction. Some are just not good interviewees, and the high-pressure situation just makes them even more flustered.

Your goal as a hiring manager is to bring out the best in your candidates. You won’t do that by stressing them out unnecessarily.

Unclear expectations

Developers really appreciate getting an overview of the whole interview process, from the get go. I like to be aware of how many rounds there’s going to be, and a rough timeline. When is the company looking to hire by? What kind of coding challenges am I going to be doing? It’s hard to come in and be put on the spot with no context around what you’re doing and the aim of the exercise […] Just give us a little time to prepare mentally.

Ricardo Tovar, Software Engineer

Extract from our Webinar “What Developers Hate Most About the Hiring Process & What Recruiters Should Do Instead“

If you assume your candidate knows all the rules of completing a technical exercise, you’re expecting your candidate to be telepathic.

Can they use ChatGPT, Google, or third-party libraries? Is there a time limit? Can they exceed the time limit if they are close to a solution?

Likewise, even if you think your job listing fully explains the job’s duties, you’ll find that there are many ways to interpret them, especially if they’re couched in ambiguous language.

Is the list exhaustive? Will duties be added to my job role without notice? Will I be compensated for additional job duties not listed? Does “supervise employees with minimal coding yourself” mean I’ll code for 2 hours a week? 10 hours?

You need to be as clear as possible in your communications with candidates. Otherwise, you may make them feel like they’ve been misled. Getting several sets of eyeballs on the listing is a good idea to ensure you’ve covered everything.

Additionally, removing ambiguity in your sentences will save you hours of correctional meetings or – curses to you if you spring this on an employee because of your communication mistakes – a performance improvement plan (PIP).

Contradictory information

During the interview (with the CEO), there was double talk about my junior status.

Sometimes, the employer would say that I was useless as a beginner, that I wouldn’t be efficient and that I’d be a burden on the company. This argument was used to negotiate down my salary and push me into taking the job, making me realize that I was already lucky to be offered anything at all.
On other occasions, the employer would say that the company was going through a crucial period in its development and that I was going to have to give my all to learn extremely quickly, because all the team’s strengths were needed and there was a lot at stake! (not very consistent with his idea that I was going to be useless for a year…)

Emilie, Junior Developer

There needs to be consistency between team members when describing the job to candidates.

This is often not intentional. If you or your HR team are reusing job templates, for example, and you forget to update some of the information, you may find yourself in this situation.

Like the unclear expectations above, this can be solved by proofreading your job listing and having a few other people review it to ensure the information is correct and up-to-date. 

Other times, though, this “tactic” is done to get candidates into the application process and then hope they don’t mind the bait-and-switch. Don’t do that.

If you’re struggling to get candidates because of policies that turn them away, raise that issue with your management and solve it rather than mislead the applicants.

Bad attitude

When I was looking for my first role, I went through a very long interview process. It took about eight interviews. It consisted of two initial, “get-to-know-you” interviews […] and then we transitioned into four different live coding interviews […] and then it ended with another two interviews where I met members of the team. I was finally told to wait for about a week to get a response and to see if I was a fit for the company. A week went by, I sent a follow-up email, got no response. A month went by… nothing.

Ricardo Tovar, Software Engineer

Extract from our Webinar “What Developers Hate Most About the Hiring Process & What Recruiters Should Do Instead“

This one is simple.

Interviewing is often another thing that takes up time you don’t have, and it’s tempting to think of it as a burden.

However, if you treat interviewing like a chore rather than an exciting (if possibly exhausting) process, your bad attitude will make candidates extremely worried about working with you.

This goes for all aspects of the interview. Are you being polite when introducing yourself? Do you make them feel like a burden when they ask questions? Do you ghost candidates when they request application statuses?

Yes, finding well-qualified candidates can be challenging. But bringing a bad attitude to your interviews will only make that quest even harder.

No conversation

I was interviewing for jobs in SF before I actually moved there.  I had flown up to interview with this financial services company with a very famous CEO, and was pretty excited about it.  When I got to the interview, the first session was pretty easy, but the second session was the dreaded whiteboard interview, this time with a kid who couldn’t have been more than 1 year out of college.  His task: implement a LISP parser on the whiteboard… which sounds tough but really should just be some stacks/queues management.  Anyways, I couldn’t handle it in the moment and got zero help from my interviewer.  When it was over, he walked out of the room and talked to the person who was waiting outside to interview me for the next session, then they walked away.  A few mins later the recruiting coordinator told me I could go home.

Jonathan, Principal Engineer 

Building your product is a collaborative process that involves regular stakeholder feedback. So why would you have a technical interview where you’re just watching your candidate code?

Every interview you conduct should be an exercise in collaboration with the candidate. They will see you take a genuine interest in helping them do their best work, which goes a long way when it’s time for them to accept your job offer.

Remember: you’re not just interviewing them; they’re interviewing you, too. In addition to working with them through the interview questions, you’ll also want to ensure they have ample time to ask their own questions and that you have ample time to respond.

Asking inappropriate questions

No matter where you live, there’s a good chance there are a set of laws that bar discrimination against applicants based on their appearances or lifestyle choices – maternity status, religion, race, gender preference, and sexuality, to name a few.

If you ask the wrong questions in interviews about these areas, you can open your company up to many lawsuits. 

Apart from the legal ramifications, it’s just bad form to ask people questions about things (like their private lives) that won’t have any impact on their job performance.

It’s wise to avoid questions like:

• How old are you?
• When did you graduate high school?
• Are you married?
• Are you pregnant? Do you have kids?
• Do you have any health issues?
• What political party do you support?
• Are you religious?

An interviewer’s job isn’t to analyze the private lives of their candidates; it’s to ensure that their skill set and working style are the right fit for your team. 

To sum up

The interview is not just a test for the candidate but also a reflection of your company. You should avoid poor preparation, evasive answers, irrelevant questions, excessive pressure, unclear expectations, inconsistent information, negative demeanor, and a lack of interactive dialogue. These errors can dissuade potential hires and damage your company’s image.

It’s a great idea to continue refining your interviewing approach, even if you already feel well-prepared, transparent, relevant, clear, consistent, positive, and engaging. Using candidate feedback, you can create a more attractive and effective recruitment process. This approach will help you identify the right talent and portray your company in a favorable light, making it a desirable place for top candidates to work.

Organizations worldwide are actively seeking platforms to help them conduct remote interviews without compromising on anything that traditional face-to-face interviews bring to the table. 

But what are the best platforms to use for remote interviews? And how can we augment the interview experience when hiring for specific skills, such as development skills?

General video platforms

Let’s discuss four primary virtual interview software platforms that most people will have heard of: Zoom, Skype, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meets. 

It’s worth highlighting that these straightforward platforms aren’t explicitly designed for interviews. So, while you can use them alongside other tools, such as questionnaires or tests, they won’t integrate seamlessly. 

Zoom: A ubiquitous choice

Familiarity and user-friendliness

With an eye-watering 300 million daily meeting participants, Zoom’s greatest asset is its widespread familiarity and massive user base. 

With the pandemic pushing the adoption of video conferencing, most people have had some interaction with the Zoom platform. Its user interface is highly intuitive, requiring almost no learning curve. 

This is especially helpful for interviewers and candidates alike, as the focus can remain on the interview itself rather than navigating the software.

Audio-visual quality

Zoom offers high-definition video and crisp audio quality, even in less-than-ideal network conditions. 

Its ‘Touch Up My Appearance’ has helped many-a people look presentable when they’ve just got out of bed.

Screen sharing & annotation

While Zoom doesn’t offer specialized interviewing features, its screen-sharing function allows candidates to present portfolios, answer technical questions on a shared document, or even participate in rudimentary coding exercises. 

The annotation feature also enables both parties to highlight or draw on the screen for clearer explanations. So, it’s better equipped for interviews than most standard video conferencing platforms. 

Security

Zoom has ramped up its security features recently, offering end-to-end encryption and password-protected meetings, which is crucial for maintaining the confidentiality of the interview process.

Cons

The platform lacks specialized tools for pre-employment testing and has limitations on free usage, which includes a 40-minute time cap on group meetings.

Skype: The veteran 

Skype was the dominant video conference platform for decades and still remains a staple choice. 

Multimodal communication

Skype offers more than just video conferencing – it includes voice calls and instant messaging. 

This is useful for pre-interview coordination or when the video connection may be unstable.

File sharing

The Skype platform allows for easy sharing of files and documents within the chat interface, enabling real-time review of portfolios, resumes, or coding tests.

Cons

The most significant drawback is requiring both parties to have Skype accounts and the application installed. 

Additionally, older versions of Skype are often incompatible with newer updates, causing technical difficulties. 

Microsoft Teams: Business-centric

Microsoft Teams was relatively niche until the COVID pandemic and quickly grew into one of the most well-known video conferencing tools for businesses. 

Seamless integration with Office 365

For organizations already using Microsoft’s suite of productivity tools, Teams may be a great fit. 

Documents from SharePoint, Planner, and OneNote can all be easily accessed during an interview, providing plenty of innovative interviewing opportunities. 

Customizable interface

Teams allows organizations to customize the platform according to their specific needs, which can be particularly useful for creating a branded interview experience.

Group interviews

Teams supports extensive group meetings, with video conferencing capabilities that can host up to 10,000 viewers in a single session. 

This makes it exceptionally useful for panel interviews.

Cons

Teams’ multitude of features can make the platform feel overwhelming to users unfamiliar with the Microsoft ecosystem. 

It’s also less likely for candidates to have it already set up and ready to go compared to other options.

Google Meet: Simplicity meets efficiency

Google Meet’s integration with Gmail and Google Workspace has seen the platform rocket in popularity. 

There are few remote workers who don’t already use Google Workspace tools, which makes Meet the de-facto choice in many cases. 

User experience

Google Meet offers a streamlined, browser-based interface that doesn’t require any software downloads. 

It has over 300 million monthly users and is ideal for quick meetings with little to no setup hassle. 

Meet’s integration with Google Calendar makes scheduling interviews straightforward, with automated reminders and easy rescheduling options.

G-Suite integration

For businesses that utilize Google Workspace, Meet integrates effortlessly with apps like Google Drive, allowing easy access to shared files, spreadsheets, or slide presentations during the interview.

Cons

Meet is perhaps less robust than Teams or Zoom for large calls with hundreds of participants.

GoToMeeting: A corporate approach

GoToMeeting is a lesser-known video conferencing platform offering advanced features that could benefit recruiters. There’s no harm in trying it if you’re not entirely satisfied with the other options. 

Mobile accessibility

With its robust mobile app, GoToMeeting interviews can be conducted or joined from anywhere, offering added convenience for remote or on-the-go candidates and interviewers.

Advanced features

Some of GoToMeeting’s more advanced features include recording sessions and automated transcription services, which can benefit post-interview assessments.

Cons

The platform is more business-centric, offering many features that may not be required for hiring. 

This might be a deterrent for smaller businesses or individual recruiters.

Specialized remote interview platforms

When it comes to more specific requirements, such as conducting technical interviews, generalized platforms like Zoom and Skype may not cut it. This is where specialized platforms come into play.

Online interview platforms designed specifically for recruitment offer tools that vastly simplify the interview process. 

HireVue for skills assessments

Video interviews and beyond

HireVue primarily focuses on video interviews but takes the experience several steps further. 

Apart from traditional Q&A sessions, the platform allows for on-demand interviews where candidates can record their answers to preset questions, providing both parties flexibility in time and schedule. 

Skills assessment

HireVue also incorporates technical and skills assessments. These range from coding challenges to numerical reasoning tests, which helps organizations screen for hard skills. 

Diverse question library

The platform’s extensive library of interview templates and questions allows recruiters to tailor their interviews specifically to the job role in question, from customer service to software engineering.

Cons

HireVue went through an existential crisis in 2021 when it discontinued an AI face-scanning feature. Some candidates may harbor skepticism about the platform or perceive it as overly intimidating or intrusive. 

Codility for development screening

Codility is designed specifically for hiring developers. It offers an innovative platform with purpose-made tools for testing coding and development skills. 

Coding challenges

Codility is explicitly built for tech recruitment. It enables recruiters to set up coding challenges and tests that candidates can solve in real time. These can range from algorithmic problems to full-stack development tasks.

Real-time monitoring

Codility allows you to monitor candidates as they work on their coding challenges. This offers insights into their problem-solving approach and coding style, which static code reviews might not reveal.

Collaboration and feedback

Codility allows for a shared coding environment where the interviewer can also participate, write comments, or provide hints. 

This collaborative approach enables recruiters to understand how candidates deliver their solutions. 

Cons

While exceptionally powerful for tech interviews, Codility might be over-specialized for roles that require a balanced assessment of technical and soft skills. 

Moreover, pricing can also be prohibitive for smaller companies or individual recruiters.

CoderPad for comprehensive tech interviews

CoderPad offers an innovative platform for coding-centric screening without compromising other features. 

If you’re looking to hire engineers or tech-savvy individuals, you’ll likely require more than just a Q&A session to adequately evaluate their skills. 

The CoderPad platform is built to be clear, fair, and easy to use for all involved, enabling recruiters to deliver the exceptional candidate experiences that make their organizations shine. 

Learn more about candidate experience benefits and best practices here. 

Real-time coding environment

CoderPad offers an interactive coding environment where candidates can write, execute, and test code just like they would in a development setting. 

This real-world scenario makes for a far more effective assessment than merely discussing algorithms or reviewing resumes. 

Language support

With support for over 40 language environments, including Python, Java, and C++, CoderPad allows candidates to code in a language they are comfortable with, ensuring a fair evaluation process throughout. 

CoderPad is ideal for screening all types of development and coding skills at levels from beginner to expert. 

Collaboration

The interviewer can also code along, fix tests, or ask candidates to debug existing code. 

This makes the interview more of a collaborative experience, enabling a deep dive into a candidate’s problem-solving approach.

Playback feature

CoderPad’s playback functionality allows you to revisit the coding process, offering insights into the candidate’s coding style, thought process, and problem-solving abilities. 

Easy integration

CoderPad can easily be integrated with applicant tracking systems (ATS) like Greenhouse and Lever, making it easier to track interviews and evaluations.

Recruiting developers has never been easier

Remote interviews have become integral to modern recruitment.

While general video conferencing tools like Zoom and Skype can handle basic interviews, specialized video interview solutions provide the specialized features required to screen for more technical roles.

CoderPad delivers cutting-edge remote hiring tools for screening and interviewing, delivering fair and engaging tests, challenges, and skills assessments that benefit both recruiters and candidates. 

With its real-time coding environment, support for multiple languages, and collaborative features, CoderPad provides candidates and interviewers with a platform that closely simulates real-world working conditions. 

Sign up for free and discover more. 

Enter the one-way video interview. 

A one-way video interview allows candidates to respond to interview questions via a video recording platform. Recruiters and hiring managers can review candidates’ answers at their convenience.

This method seems like a win-win – employers get to assess candidates without aligning schedules, and candidates get to put their best foot forward without the nerves that come with real-time interactions.

However, upon closer inspection, the advantages of one-way videos are diminished by several limitations and drawbacks that make them far less effective than they appear. 

In this article, we’ll delve into why this form of interviewing is less promising than it seems and explore alternative methods that offer a fairer, more realistic approach to hiring.

Why one-way videos are ineffective

One-way videos seem like a reasonably hassle-free means of sorting candidates based on short video clips, but what’s the cost?

Favoring self-marketing abilities over more relevant skills

These pre-recorded interviews amplify specific skills, such as self-marketing ability and persuasion, which may be completely irrelevant to the job at hand. 

“Many developers miss out on their dream careers not because they lack the necessary skills, but because they fail to effectively market themselves.”

Jahdunsin Osho, Tech Lead at Edubaloo 

Providing an impersonal and disconnected candidate experience

One-way video interviews eliminate the interactive aspect of two-way interviews. The candidate records their answers in a vacuum without immediate feedback or the opportunity to clarify misunderstandings. 

This lack of interaction can make the experience feel dishearteningly impersonal. In fact, a one-way interview often feels more like an assignment than a dialogue.

Denying the opportunity to “sell” the company

One-way videos deny the opportunity for recruiters to “sell” the company. Not only do you need to assess candidates, candidates need to assess you as an employer. 

“I think the hardest part of landing really great candidates is being really great at the pitch for the company and the team. I really don’t think that’s talked about enough. Candidate experience is something I feel very strongly about. Yes, you need to assess skills and assess fit, but you also really need to actively sell the experience in the company. I want to put that in bold and capitals.”

Nathan Sutter, Global VP of Engineering at CoderPad

Perpetuating inequality and bias

One-way video interviews are just as unengaging for recruiters and they are for candidates. 

If someone is flicking through tens or even hundreds of videos, there’s a solid chance they’ll start subconsciously assessing submissions based on superficial information, such as presentation, rather than the depth and quality of responses. 

While one-way video interviews might appear as a convenient and cost-effective hiring tool, they inadvertently perpetuate various forms of inequality.

What you should do instead

Luckily, there are many alternatives to one-way interviews that will deliver an enhanced candidate experience and superior results for recruiters.  

Live video interviews

Virtual live interviews offer a middle-ground solution that maintains the logistical advantages of online interviews while reintroducing real-time human interaction.

This ensures the interview is indeed an interview, not a self-marketing video. 

While linguistic abilities and access to technology come into play, recruiters should be willing and able to accommodate candidates however possible. Where possible, implement interactive and objective tests, games, and puzzles to deliver equal opportunities to everyone. 

Virtual interviews can be tailored to different job roles and skill demands. 

What’s more, video interview platforms simplify the virtual interview process by integrating tools to make recruiters’ jobs easier: 

• ChatGPT integration
• Digital whiteboards
• ATS integrations
• Interview transcript and private notepad

Structured interviews

Structured interviews are a systematic approach that aims to reduce bias and subjectivity.

Interviews are conducted based on a predetermined set of guidelines to ensure a consistent, equitable experience for all candidates. 

It’s a formulaic yet highly effective method designed to improve the validity and reliability of your hiring decisions.

A structured interview involves asking every candidate the same questions, to assess the same identified skills, and evaluating their responses using a standardized scoring system. For example, you could use a 5-point scale to rate responses, clearly defining each point so interviewers know precisely what to look for. 

This ensures that interviewers focus on candidates’ skills rather than being swayed by personal biases or irrelevant factors.

“Structured interviews are 81% more accurate in predicting job performance than unstructured ones.”

Jenny Jongejan, Senior Recruiting Consultant

Multi-method assessments

A multi-method assessment combines various evaluation forms. 

While this takes longer to execute than other forms of assessments, it also provides an in-depth read of a candidate’s soft and hard skills, an exceptional candidate experience. 

Types of Assessments to Consider

• Psychometric tests

These scientifically designed tests can be helpful in gauging various cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, and personality traits. They can provide invaluable insights into how a candidate thinks, feels, and interacts with others.

• Task-based assessments

These are practical tasks or simulations closely related to the responsibilities of the job role in question. For example, a coding test for a software developer role or a writing assignment for a content creator.

• Panel interviews

Incorporating structured panel interviews into your process can offer diverse perspectives, reducing individual bias and making the assessment more robust and fair. 

One-way videos might seem like the quick and dirty way to get screening and interviews done, but they’re by no means an answer-all. 

Sometimes, speed is not everything – recruiters should be aware of what they’re sacrificing by making the application and screening process as quick as possible. 

They can feel impersonal, limit the scope for thorough evaluation, and perpetuate inequalities in the hiring process. 

For intermediate roles, the interview questions need to be carefully calibrated. They should be challenging enough to test their deeper understanding of backend systems and architectures, but not so advanced that they are better suited for senior-level engineers. The focus should be on evaluating their proficiency in key backend technologies, their ability to design more complex systems, and their problem-solving approach in more nuanced scenarios.

In this blog post, we will introduce two carefully selected coding interview questions. These questions are specifically crafted for intermediate backend software engineers, striking a balance between complexity and practicality.

By using these questions, hiring managers and interviewers can gain a deeper insight into the candidate’s technical capabilities and problem-solving methods. More importantly, these questions offer a window into the candidate’s readiness to tackle the challenges typical of an intermediate role and their capacity to grow into more advanced positions within the dynamic landscape of backend development.

The questions below are written with Python and Go/Gin. However, you can easily tailor them to suit your own backend frameworks.

Question 1: Create a family tree API

Add read endpoints to an API and search through the database with Gorm.

Instructions

Part 1

This Family Tree application stores people. Each person is defined by a name, an age, and two parents. To simplify things, the name is a unique text field, there is no “first name” and “last name”.

The parents are two fields which references two other persons. The database contains only one table, which has links to itself. The two parent fields can be null.

The database is already populated with some test data; you currently have only two API endpoints to access this data:

• /persons/ will give you all the data from the table.
• /persons/:id (where :id is an integer) will give you the data of one person.

For example, a GET request to /persons/5 will return the following JSON:

{
    "CreatedAt": "2023-10-27T18:13:48.645234Z",
    "UpdatedAt": "2023-10-27T18:13:48.645234Z",
    "DeletedAt": null,
    "ID": 5,
    "Name": "Miles Hatsue",
    "Age": 53,
    "Parent1ID": 2,
    "Parent1": null,
    "Parent2ID": 3,
    "Parent2": null
}

Your first task is to modify the endpoint `/persons/:id` to make it output only the useful fields: ID, Name, Age, Parent1ID, Parent2ID.

Then, add an endpoint /orphans/, that will output the IDs list of all the persons who have their two fields, Parent1ID and Parent2ID, equal to null.

The request to /orphans/ should output this data: [1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 22].

Part 2

Now, add another endpoint named /grandparents/:id, which will output the list of grandparents of a specific person. Obviously, the maximum size of this list is 4.

For example, the request /grandparents/8 (Grigor Vaughan) should output this data (order is not important):

[
    {
        "ID": 2,
        "Name": "Grozdan Hatsue",
        "Age": 78,
        "Parent1ID": null,
        "Parent2ID": null
    },
    {
        "ID": 3,
        "Name": "Diarmaid Yuuto",
        "Age": 78,
        "Parent1ID": null,
        "Parent2ID": null
    },
    {
        "ID": 1,
        "Name": "Vienna Gesine",
        "Age": 77,
        "Parent1ID": null,
        "Parent2ID": null
    },
]

Part 3

Modify the base request so that we can also get the monoparentality of a person. A person is considered a monoparent if he/she has at least one child, who has one of his/her parent fields equal to null.

If the query parameter monoparental is set to 1, the request must return the monoparentality.

For example, the request /persons/20?monoparental=1 should output this data:

{
  "data": {
    "ID": 20,
    "Name": "Usha Sólja",
    "Age": 71,
    "Parent1ID": null,
    "Parent2ID": null,
    "Monoparental": true <-- additional field
  }
}

But the request /persons/2?monoparental=1 (Grozdan Hatsue) should output some data with Monoparental equal to false.

Part 4

Add another endpoint sisbro/:id that will return the siblings of a person.

This endpoint accepts two optional query parameters:

• type:
  • When undefined or set to null, will output the persons whose two parents are the same as the requested person.
  • When set to half, will output the persons with only one parent that is the same as the requested person.
• age:
  • When set to older, will output only the siblings whose age is strictly higher than the age of the requested person.
  • When defined to younger, will output only the younger siblings.
  • When undefined, will output all the siblings without any filtering on the age.

For example, the request /sisbro/5?age=older should output this data:

{
    "ID": 4,
    "Name": "Apolena Hatsue",
    "Age": 55,
    "Parent1ID": 2,
    "Parent2ID": 3
}

Part 5

There is one big inconsistency in the test data. Something that can not happen in real life. Can you find it? Would you be able to add an endpoint that would return all these sorts of inconsistencies?

Evaluation criteria

1. Which files is the candidate editing, and which are they leaving alone? Are they able to comprehend boilerplate code versus code that needs to be enhanced or fixed?

The candidate may take a quick look at the boilerplate code, just to be sure they corresponds to the standards, but should not spend much time on them.

2. How are they implementing the data processes? The particularity of this exercise is there is only one table (Person), but some parts requires to search data step by step.

An expert candidate should try to build a single database query, containing some joins inside the table Person. A single query optimizes database calls, and execution time. It gets harder and harder to complete the exercise parts with single queries, which may help you evaluate to what extent the candidate is an expert.

3. A knowledgeable candidate should ask the interviewer what is supposed to be done in case of errors: should we output a detailed message? a specific HTTP error code? some examples of expected values?

4. One of the existing function in the code was created only for debugging purpose. The function is a bit dangerous and should not exist in a production context as it may impact performance or lead to data leaks.

A careful candidate should express some concerns about this function, and should remove it or modify it to output paginated data.

Question 2: Sort dates with different format and timezones

There are three lists containing dates with different format (dd/mm/yy, etc) and timezones. Convert everything to UTC, merge in a global list, and sort.

Instructions

In the starter code, you have three lists containing couples of two fields: an identifier and a string defining a date.

The date formats and timezones depend on which list they are in:

•  In the list “facebooom_events”, the timezone is “UTC”, the format is dd/mm/yy HH:MM AM/PM.
•  In the list “tastewine_events”, the timezone is “Europe/Paris”, the format is dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM
•  In the list “vwyz_events”, the timezone is “America/Los_Angeles”, the format is m/d/yyyy HH:MM:SS

You have to merge this data and output a list whose each element is a tuple of three sub-elements:

•  the string “facebooom”, “tastewine” or “vwyz”, defining the input list
•  the identifier
•  a string containing the date, converted to the timezone “UTC”, with the format ISO 8601: yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS

As an example, the first four elements of the output list would be:

    ('facebooom', 4834, '2023-10-27 10:11:00')
    ('tastewine', 4828, '2023-10-27 11:01:00')
    ('tastewine', 3687, '2023-10-28 03:45:00')
    ('vwyz', 730298095, '2023-10-28 09:08:29')

The output list must be sorted chronologically.

The timezone “Europe/Paris” is 1 hour ahead of UTC, or 2. It depends on the period in the year (summer time or standard time). The timezone “America/Los_Angeles” is 7 hours behind UTC, or 8. But the transition between summer time and standard time is not made on the same day as “Europe/Paris.”

It’s rather complicated. You should not code these timezone conversions by yourself, but instead use a library of your choice.

All the dates in the input lists are valid and not ambiguous (they are not at the end of daylight saving time). So, you don’t have to handle any exceptions or particular use case.

Evaluation criteria

1. How well does the candidate know their libraries? Data parsing is labor-intensive, and has often already been solved by others in the form of libraries. If the candidate is converting the timezones with their own homemade code then it may show a lack of knowledge about the language they’re using. In this instance, it may be beneficial to remind them that they can use Google or other search applications to find libraries they can use for this task.

2. How does the candidate deal with handling exceptions? The statement explicitly says that the input data is safe and are not ambiguous regarding daylight savings time, so the candidate does not have to handle any exceptions. However, it’s worth asking them how they’d handle exceptions if the input data was not safe.

Some parts of this blog post were written with the assistance of ChatGPT.