The Mental Impact of Tech Interviews (Heartifacts 2018 Edition)

It's time to refactor tech hiring. Lengthy technical interview processes frustrate tech workers and can have a negative impact on mental health. While it is almost universally recognized that technical interviews are broken, the impact they have on tech workers are not being recognized.

Transcript

1. The Mental Impact of Tech Interviews By Zack Zlotnik Twitter: @eanx
2. The opinions and views expressed in this presentation are solely my own and do not represent those of my employer
3. Content Warning: Discussion of mental health disorders, technical interviews, etc.
4. Overview
5. Job interviews are a universally stressful experience
6. Coding interviews are broken
7. Mental health is a growing problem in the tech community
8. Impostor syndrome is real
9. The dreaded coding interview
10. What is a coding interview?
11. A timed skill assessment wherein a candidate solves a problem by writing code in real time
12. Why are these done?
13. Companies want to ensure that candidates have the necessary skills for the job
14. Coding interviews attempt to measure problem solving ability as a predictor of success
15. But...
16. Candidates must undergo a large number of interviews at an individual company
17. High false-negative rates
18. Candidates are intensely and exhaustively interviewed
19. Coding interviews are not accurate, objective, predictive, unbiased nor consistent
20. Coding interviews are often adversarial instead of collaborative
21. Many companies do not have formal training requirements to become interviewers
22. Technical ability takes precedence over everything else
23. Very little time for candidate questions
24. Coding interviews favor those who can devote significant time to study, practice and preparation Source: https://triplebyte.com/blog/how-to-pass-a-programming-interview
27. Outcomes are arbitrary and random Source: http://blog.interviewing.io/after-a-lot-more-data-technical-interview-performance-really-is-kind-of-arbitrary/
28. Stress negatively impacts performance on tasks requiring high cognitive load Source: http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov/flightcognition/Publications/IH_054_Staal.pdf
29. What if other jobs had similar interview processes?
30. Auto Mechanic
32. Plumber
34. Locksmith
36. Accountant
38. What do these interviews accomplish?
39. They put candidates under synthetic stress and pressure for no benefit
40. They cause candidates to make mistakes they normally wouldn’t
41. They cause candidates to become mentally blocked
42. They cause impostor syndrome
43. What don’t these interviews accomplish?
44. They don’t provide an accurate skills assessment
45. They don’t provide repeatable and dependable results
46. They are not predictive of success
47. They don’t determine if someone is pleasant to work with
48. Why should we fix things?
49. 25% of US adults have a mental health issue Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealthsurveillance/fact_sheet.html
50. 50% of US adults will experience a mental health issue within their lifetime Source: https://www.cdc.gov/mentalhealthsurveillance/fact_sheet.html
51. What is impostor syndrome?
52. “Impostor syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize their own accomplishments.” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
53. In mentally healthy individuals, impostor syndrome is a temporary annoyance
54. In mentally unhealthy individuals, impostor syndrome can be devastating Source: https://qz.com/547641/theres-an-awful-cost-to-getting-a-phd-that-no-one-talks-about/
55. 70% of Millennials have experienced impostor syndrome in one form or another Source: http://thehustle.co/why-70-percent-of-millennials-have-impostor-syndrome
56. What does this have to do with tech?
57. Mental health is a growing problem in tech
59. Open Sourcing Mental Illness (OSMI) conducted a survey in 2016 Source: https://osmi.typeform.com/report/Ao6BTw/U76z
60. 42% indicated they have a mental health disorder Source: https://osmi.typeform.com/report/Ao6BTw/U76z
61. 73% have a diagnosed mood disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, etc. Source: https://osmi.typeform.com/report/Ao6BTw/U76z
62. 61% have a diagnosed anxiety disorder Source: https://osmi.typeform.com/report/Ao6BTw/U76z
63. Mental health disorders are often comorbid Source: https://www.nami.org/Blogs/NAMI-Blog/January-2018/The-Comorbidity-of-Anxiety-and-Depression
64. What does this have to do with coding interviews?
65. We all experience insecurity around our technical skills
66. Examination of those skills and abilities is often distressing
67. Doubly-so in an adversarial environment, such as an interview
68. Grueling interviews often leave interviewees feeling worthless, demoralized, etc.
69. Good candidates are self-excluding themselves from bad interview processes Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/googles-nit-picky-interview-process-123007099.html
70. How do we fix things?
71. Admit it is broken
72. Emphasize unconscious bias awareness, empathy and candidate experience in interview training
73. Incentivize interviewing
74. Anonymously test new evaluation techniques on current employees
75. Do not use automated coding assessments
76. Take-home coding assessments (if used) should have sensible limits for scope, complexity, time and deadlines
77. Ask your candidate to do a code review
78. No live coding (from scratch)
79. Interviews should be structured and graded with a rubric
80. Limit number of interviews
81. Raise the soft skills bar
82. Communicate decisions promptly, diplomatically and professionally
83. Be respectful
84. Ghosting is unacceptable
85. Collect and monitor interview metrics and statistics
86. Ask candidates for feedback
87. Remember...
88. Your interview process should do no harm
89. The goal of an interview is to have a conversation
90. Not an interrogation
91. Not a deposition
92. Lastly...
93. Each and every one of you are awesome and deserve a fulfilling tech career
94. Thank you
95. Slides: goo.gl/M6ke9t