When an almost identical interview questionnaire was posted a few months ago, I was hoping it was some sort of anomaly, or that Canonical would learn from the feedback and alter it. To see something so similar (for a different role) two months later makes it seem far more likely that they have one of the worst hiring pipeline processes I have ever seen.
I’m good at these sorts of written/verbal assessments, and even my eyes start to glaze over just reading the list of questions, let alone thinking about how to answer them. A quality response to this sort of questionnaire would take at least an hour and that’s before you even get into the actual interview process or hear a salary range.
And as dumb as questions about high school and college are for professional job interviews (unless you are hiring straight from undergrad, I just don’t see how this is relevant. And even for college recruits, I have a lot of problems with this approach.), it would be one thing if I thought the recruiter or hiring manager was actually going to read each response from each candidate. But I cannot imagine they will.
For a company that has openly expressed its struggle to hire, it’s stunning to see them double-down on such a terrible recruitment process.
The people who you want for this job probably have better things to do than waste an hour or more answering an overly-long questionnaire before they even find out the salary range.
I applied for positions there late last year. I appreciated that they were upfront about the steps of their process. It made it a relatively quick decision to not continue.
I once interviewed at Northern Trust for a programmer role. Interview was 2 hours long divided into 4 - 30 minute segments each with different interviewers.
None of the interviewers asked anything about tech. Absolutely nothing. All of the questions were in the style of “if you were a (blank), what type of (blank) would you be?”. And each interviewer asked the same questions in the same order working off the same interview sheet. By the third 30min interview I was concerned that I was stuck in some sort of time paradox. By the fourth 30min interview I just wanted to get out of there.
They ended up offering me the position but I declined. Don’t know what happened but they felt very disorganized to me.
I worked with Northern Trust tangentially for a few years (I left my role in early 2010s) in a quasi consulting role (it was actually a joint venture where we did the software, they ran it sort of thing). NT was hands down the most painfully bureaucratic company I've had the displeasure of working with. Something simple like a DNS change for a server was a 6-8 week turnaround. On top of that, they weren't exactly the best at following instructions, either, so it was often multiples of these multi month cycles to get even the smallest thing done.
Very frustrating. You likely dodged a huge bullet by declining the offer.
I noticed this last year when I applied for a software engineering job. For that position, the process is:
- Initial screening (done)
- Personal essay (this stage)
- Standardized aptitude and personality tests
- Meet and greet with an engineer
- General interview(s)
- Recruitment screen
- Technical assessment
- Role-specific interview(s)
- Hiring manager interview
- Senior leadership interview
I highly doubt the initial screening is done by a human. So they want the essays and personality tests done before you speak to a human at the company, and they are probably not even on the team you're applying for. If you're unlucky, every human involved in the process will be on a different team until you get to the hiring manager interview, which is at the very end.
Not only this but on Glassdoor I found dozens of people saying that they ghost you before the hiring manager interview so you could spend tens of hours interviewing and never speak to anyone on the team.
Wait, they have SEVEN distinct interviews? Meet/greet, general, tech assessment, recruiter, role, manager, senior leader? Holy shit. Wow. That’s insane. What a waste of everybody’s time.
These are almost always extremely discriminatory when it comes to neurodiverse populations and I'm saddened that Canonical uses the equivalent of phrenology in its hiring process.
To be clear - every application resume is screened by one of my colleagues or me, and every written interview is read by at least one of us, usually two.
I personally screened 40,000 resumes last year, and hired 100+ people into the company. It has been very exciting to see how we are lifting our confidence and aspirations as a result.
That of course will vary based on role, experience and location. We have hired people from 50+ countries which is remarkable for a company of 800. We tend not to hire in the most expensive locations because we get fantastic talent who live in less polluted, congested and occasionally self-important environments.
We do pay competitively; we have hired people out of FAANGs, and we constantly benchmark pay against our market data around the world. True remote work is worth an extra 20%, and quality of colleagues and focus is priceless. We also rigorously assess pay raises for gender equity.
* Who was the person coming up with the interview questions?
That would be me, mostly. I generally would have reviewed them, though occasionally some slip by.
Some of the role-specific questions would be from the hiring lead on the role, who is usually a senior person in that part of the business who has been through an onboarding process run by our global head of HR and me, and who handles applications for multiple jobs. These hiring leads are less susceptible to bias, and more experienced, than first-level managers, and it frees the first-level managers to focus on their teams and get good at being managers.
* What is that person's psychological profile?
If you are asking about my psychometric profile, I scored 94 on the test we use. If you really mean psychological profile, I don't know. I've been called all sorts of things over the years, but not by professionals ;)
* What is that person's biggest achievement since high school?
That would depend on what one values.
As a student I helped a small newspaper in Cape Town be one of the first in the world to be online. Started a company, Thawte, that helped lots of businesses outside the US get certificates for secure trading. Sold that well, and then trained to join a flight crew on Soyuz to the ISS. Ran several experiments in space, including the first stem cell experiments, which helped shape stem cell therapy research here on earth. Started a foundation which has funded tens of social change leaders working in health, digital, civil society and environmental areas. Started Ubuntu to democratise access to open source, made some mistakes but stuck with it to help Canonical survive and now thrive. Learned not to yell at people, learned to hire, hired hundreds of people. I also have helped start some botanical gardens because I like them, and am active in helping a small country chart a course for themselves that has made a measurable difference to the lives of that population. What, I wonder, do you value?
* Who are the people working in the team?
They are generally outstanding technically and socially, from all over the world, with a strong sense of shared mission to help open source be easier and cheaper to consume, personally and professionally, for companies and individuals.
* What are those people's psychological profile?
They vary greatly, it's useful to shape teams that complement one another.
* What're their education levels?
Generally but not exclusively they have undergraduate and graduate degrees.
* What're their work experience?
That varies widely, we hire both new graduates and people who could happily retire but like what we do and how we do it.
* What're their biggest achievement since high school?
If you can get a place in the company, you could ask them yourself.
To be honest, that seems fair given that they are pretty community focused. You might view it as an unpaid internship, but my own contributions to open source and the community have always gotten me jobs. I view it as extracurricular activity... similar to what they pushed us to do in high school for getting into college.
Either that was a mistaken position by the hiring lead, or they were just shy to tell you that you were not the best candidate. Either way, my apologies.
Would not recommend working at Canonical. The CTO is incompetent, and bullies people out of the company if they disagree with him. Suggesting that the hiring process might be discriminatory may get you told that you "must live on fairy island" from where you should "send a postcard" on a company-wide email chain.
The Canonical founder was recently bemoaning the lack of available talent limiting the growth of the company. The issue really seems to be a ridiculous hiring process limiting the available talent pool and therefore limiting company growth.
I think that quote says the opposite of what you seem to imply it does.
It says that bullshit like Myers Briggs is misused by laymen. That implies that actual psychometric tests done by experts can be correctly used.
The real headscratcher though is that either Canonical thinks psychometrics work, but still bother with all the other nonsense; or they don't think they work but still leave it in in such a long hiring process...
It's not quite as much as Canonical, but it's still a _lot_ of writing to go through just to apply for a position. I considered applying there during my last job search but I just wasn't enthused about it enough to spend all that time writing before I even knew if they had any interest in me.
There's merit to the idea of having a writing sample from a candidate. If you want to know that a candidate can communicate effectively, you'll want to both hear them talk and read their writing.
That said, I'm not sure whether or not these interview processes were set up with that in mind. If they were, they should also consider that writing can take a long time to produce and so the writing sample should be adjusted to not be too long.
That’s why I show them middle finger and went and worked for MSFT. I am not going to talk about why I installed Arch linux 12 years ago, when I am applying to work on kernel.
The trend in screening toward length and complexity, IMO, is not healthy. To me it suggests little confidence on the employer's part (either in HR and in working staff-members) -- and an attempt to remedy that squirminess by methods supposedly 'scientific'. A truly more 'scientific' approach might compare the 'results' of such a gauntlet with the predictions of a tea-leaf reading and an I Ching toss.
I'd rather work for them free for a week, then let them decide, and have something to show for this goofy Wechslering.
Right? There's no way they're hiring good engineers with this BS. I ghosted them after they asked me to do the essay round because I was already nearing the offer stage with multiple companies. Reading the comments on this thread and others it seems I'm not alone in that decision.
I’d love to take a questionnaire like this. It gives me then impression they are trying to get to know the people applying as people. I know bias sneaks in. I’m not sure this is necessarily a bad thing. Ultimately we are people, and will be working together as people. You can’t make everything unbiased and precise without treating people like replaceable robot cogs. Maybe some people like this or feel it is fair. I don’t.
It's a lot of work, to still be very early in the hiring funnel and not to know what the comp is likely to be.
Plus, I personally hate writing about myself, and writing something a bit boastful about myself is probably my single least-favorite thing to write. It feels really uncomfortable and gross. It's the kind of thing I hate enough that it might prompt me to go do something else I hate, like re-painting a room, to put off doing it. Résumés and cover letters are bad enough without "please write 500 words about your accomplishments in high school".
But that's just me. The large time commitment for only a sliver of a chance at a job granting unspecified compensation, is why it's bullshit for everyone.
Yeah I was through 4 or 5 “steps” before salary was discussed. And I ultimately think that’s why they didn’t move forward.
Lesson learned. I wasted quite a bit of applying, doing an initial interview, a second interview with a teammate, doing weird aptitude tests that had me comparing images, a personality test, a coding test while a manager watched, and finally talking to an hr person about salary requirements.
Lots of people won't do this work, it's true. But the ones who will, are much more likely to make phenomenal colleagues. They care, they are focused, they are diligent. Things work better when you are in a team with more of that. Try it someday.
Personally I'd prefer to fill this out than have someone try to interview me and scribble some notes down that I later get evaluated on. I'm a good writer but I'm not the best extemporaneous orator.
Of course if it's this and then 14 hours of interviews (looking at you, Plaid), then it's a different story.
Whenever I see an unusually obnoxious hiring process, I assume they're hoping that only desperate H1-B's apply, so they can be as abusive as they want to their workforce.
[+] [-] filmgirlcw|3 years ago|reply
I’m good at these sorts of written/verbal assessments, and even my eyes start to glaze over just reading the list of questions, let alone thinking about how to answer them. A quality response to this sort of questionnaire would take at least an hour and that’s before you even get into the actual interview process or hear a salary range.
And as dumb as questions about high school and college are for professional job interviews (unless you are hiring straight from undergrad, I just don’t see how this is relevant. And even for college recruits, I have a lot of problems with this approach.), it would be one thing if I thought the recruiter or hiring manager was actually going to read each response from each candidate. But I cannot imagine they will.
For a company that has openly expressed its struggle to hire, it’s stunning to see them double-down on such a terrible recruitment process.
The people who you want for this job probably have better things to do than waste an hour or more answering an overly-long questionnaire before they even find out the salary range.
[+] [-] manfre|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notRobot|3 years ago|reply
Maybe I'm an outlier, but it would take me way longer than that. At least a couple hours.
[+] [-] hedora|3 years ago|reply
I guess it explains the plummeting quality of the technical decisions they make.
[+] [-] JustARandomGuy|3 years ago|reply
None of the interviewers asked anything about tech. Absolutely nothing. All of the questions were in the style of “if you were a (blank), what type of (blank) would you be?”. And each interviewer asked the same questions in the same order working off the same interview sheet. By the third 30min interview I was concerned that I was stuck in some sort of time paradox. By the fourth 30min interview I just wanted to get out of there.
They ended up offering me the position but I declined. Don’t know what happened but they felt very disorganized to me.
[+] [-] hermitdev|3 years ago|reply
Very frustrating. You likely dodged a huge bullet by declining the offer.
[+] [-] _t4za|3 years ago|reply
Not only this but on Glassdoor I found dozens of people saying that they ghost you before the hiring manager interview so you could spend tens of hours interviewing and never speak to anyone on the team.
[+] [-] alistairSH|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinjlynn|3 years ago|reply
These are almost always extremely discriminatory when it comes to neurodiverse populations and I'm saddened that Canonical uses the equivalent of phrenology in its hiring process.
sigh
[+] [-] markshuttle|3 years ago|reply
I personally screened 40,000 resumes last year, and hired 100+ people into the company. It has been very exciting to see how we are lifting our confidence and aspirations as a result.
[+] [-] ww520|3 years ago|reply
* What is the salary range?
* Who was the person coming up with the interview questions?
* What is that person's psychological profile?
* What is that person's biggest achievement since high school?
* Who are the people working in the team?
* What are those people's psychological profile?
* What're their education levels?
* What're their work experience?
* What're their biggest achievement since high school?
[+] [-] markshuttle|3 years ago|reply
That of course will vary based on role, experience and location. We have hired people from 50+ countries which is remarkable for a company of 800. We tend not to hire in the most expensive locations because we get fantastic talent who live in less polluted, congested and occasionally self-important environments.
We do pay competitively; we have hired people out of FAANGs, and we constantly benchmark pay against our market data around the world. True remote work is worth an extra 20%, and quality of colleagues and focus is priceless. We also rigorously assess pay raises for gender equity.
* Who was the person coming up with the interview questions?
That would be me, mostly. I generally would have reviewed them, though occasionally some slip by.
Some of the role-specific questions would be from the hiring lead on the role, who is usually a senior person in that part of the business who has been through an onboarding process run by our global head of HR and me, and who handles applications for multiple jobs. These hiring leads are less susceptible to bias, and more experienced, than first-level managers, and it frees the first-level managers to focus on their teams and get good at being managers.
* What is that person's psychological profile?
If you are asking about my psychometric profile, I scored 94 on the test we use. If you really mean psychological profile, I don't know. I've been called all sorts of things over the years, but not by professionals ;)
* What is that person's biggest achievement since high school?
That would depend on what one values.
As a student I helped a small newspaper in Cape Town be one of the first in the world to be online. Started a company, Thawte, that helped lots of businesses outside the US get certificates for secure trading. Sold that well, and then trained to join a flight crew on Soyuz to the ISS. Ran several experiments in space, including the first stem cell experiments, which helped shape stem cell therapy research here on earth. Started a foundation which has funded tens of social change leaders working in health, digital, civil society and environmental areas. Started Ubuntu to democratise access to open source, made some mistakes but stuck with it to help Canonical survive and now thrive. Learned not to yell at people, learned to hire, hired hundreds of people. I also have helped start some botanical gardens because I like them, and am active in helping a small country chart a course for themselves that has made a measurable difference to the lives of that population. What, I wonder, do you value?
* Who are the people working in the team?
They are generally outstanding technically and socially, from all over the world, with a strong sense of shared mission to help open source be easier and cheaper to consume, personally and professionally, for companies and individuals.
* What are those people's psychological profile?
They vary greatly, it's useful to shape teams that complement one another.
* What're their education levels?
Generally but not exclusively they have undergraduate and graduate degrees.
* What're their work experience?
That varies widely, we hire both new graduates and people who could happily retire but like what we do and how we do it.
* What're their biggest achievement since high school?
If you can get a place in the company, you could ask them yourself.
[+] [-] cuddlybacon|3 years ago|reply
Can the title be updated with the other half of the sentence?
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|3 years ago|reply
Maybe it should be renamed to something more succinct, e.g. "Canonical's bulls*t Hiring Process"
[+] [-] klyrs|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] latchkey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markshuttle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dekadetera|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markshuttle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
But the kinds of people this filter likely selects for doesn't seem like what I'd be interested in, just strange.
[+] [-] tssva|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lmc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ntoskrnl|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychometrics
> such measurements are often misused by laymen, such as with personality tests used in employment procedures.
[+] [-] cedilla|3 years ago|reply
It says that bullshit like Myers Briggs is misused by laymen. That implies that actual psychometric tests done by experts can be correctly used.
The real headscratcher though is that either Canonical thinks psychometrics work, but still bother with all the other nonsense; or they don't think they work but still leave it in in such a long hiring process...
[+] [-] autarch|3 years ago|reply
It's not quite as much as Canonical, but it's still a _lot_ of writing to go through just to apply for a position. I considered applying there during my last job search but I just wasn't enthused about it enough to spend all that time writing before I even knew if they had any interest in me.
[+] [-] lmc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justin_oaks|3 years ago|reply
That said, I'm not sure whether or not these interview processes were set up with that in mind. If they were, they should also consider that writing can take a long time to produce and so the writing sample should be adjusted to not be too long.
[+] [-] version_five|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metadat|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hshshjjj|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|3 years ago|reply
I'd rather work for them free for a week, then let them decide, and have something to show for this goofy Wechslering.
[+] [-] andrewstuart|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sosodev|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manofmanysmiles|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corrral|3 years ago|reply
Plus, I personally hate writing about myself, and writing something a bit boastful about myself is probably my single least-favorite thing to write. It feels really uncomfortable and gross. It's the kind of thing I hate enough that it might prompt me to go do something else I hate, like re-painting a room, to put off doing it. Résumés and cover letters are bad enough without "please write 500 words about your accomplishments in high school".
But that's just me. The large time commitment for only a sliver of a chance at a job granting unspecified compensation, is why it's bullshit for everyone.
[+] [-] nix23|3 years ago|reply
>>Describe your familiarity with Linux performance debugging and tuning
Don't use snap and add more cpu's and ram.
[+] [-] t_sawyer|3 years ago|reply
Yeah I was through 4 or 5 “steps” before salary was discussed. And I ultimately think that’s why they didn’t move forward.
Lesson learned. I wasted quite a bit of applying, doing an initial interview, a second interview with a teammate, doing weird aptitude tests that had me comparing images, a personality test, a coding test while a manager watched, and finally talking to an hr person about salary requirements.
[+] [-] latchkey|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markshuttle|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bin_bash|3 years ago|reply
Of course if it's this and then 14 hours of interviews (looking at you, Plaid), then it's a different story.
EDIT: for these kind of numbers? no way: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Canonical/salaries/Software-E...
[+] [-] phendrenad2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markshuttle|3 years ago|reply