[jroseattle]

> Resume fraud is rampant.

So is interview fraud. The remote-interviewee-answers-questions-while-her-face-reflects-windows-popping-up-on-her-screen is tiring at this point. So, I decided to find a way to inform me if someone was being fed answers in a tech interview.

Behold, the low-tech whiteboard. Also known as a piece of paper and a pencil. With the candidates I've run into that do not pass the "smell" test -- where I think they are being fed answers -- I ask them to draw some things, on paper. It's not a true validation, but it gives me something of a clue.

I ask for a simple diagram. Different services in a network, for example. Or a mini-architecture. For their level, I'll ask for something that should be drop-dead easy.

I ask them to show me their drawing.

The responses I've received run the gamut of "I don't know" (after 5 seconds of deliberation) to "I don't understand the purpose" (after 5 minutes of silence) to "I need to shut off my screen for a while" (while refusing to explain why) to "it depends if your cloud is AWS" (not in any way remotely related to the question.) I did have a candidate follow-up with a series of questions about the drawing, which were feasibly legitimate.

This hand-written diagram is not an absolute filter (I've only used it maybe four times), but rather it can confirm some suspicions. I think I can generally gauge honesty from questions/tasks like this. And that's really what I'm after -- are you being honest with me?

It's imperfect, but it has been helpful.

[lucb1e]

Maybe easier is to just ask that they show their hands while you ask a short question until they gave the answer. Could even be up front about it and say you suspect they're looking up the answers, since it's not like you care much if they get upset at a false suspicion, or just say "to avoid looking up answers, our standard procedure involves this".

The drawing approach also sounds like a good idea, though it's not like software is not going to evolve to be able to draw answers graphically which the candidate could copy down. By having them not able to input something into the machine, the only remaining option is someone listening in and feeding the answer on screen. Plausible, but that's a level of being prepared to cheat that the helper could also prepare to draw stuff out. Or they type with their feet but that's also a scenario where I'd be happy to have them come in for a final interview and demonstrate this amazing ability!

[foobarian]

A while ago I ran across some team members so bad, I could virtually guarantee they would not have passed even the fizzbuzz phone screens we use before the stricter interview gauntlet. It made me wonder if they got a friend or paid a stand-in to do the interviews. When you think about it, who will check that it's the same person? The only person who might see the candidate in different contexts is the hiring manager, who doesn't do the actual interview.

[adamhp]

If an interviewer asked me to "show me your hands", I'd laugh in their face and immediately disconnect.

[xandrius]

Can I interview at your company? :P

I wish interviews were like this, instead most I've found are either trying to read the interviewer's mind on how to approach a vague situation and answer the way they want or have to reimplenent a full library in 30 min without any resource available that normally you'd look up, solve in minutes and move on.

I wish more took your path and literally just tested for actual industry experience: general architecture, asking questions when the situation is unclear and explaining unexpected/interesting findings from a previous project. And anyway, if they end up actually being a fraud, get rid of them after the initial probation time is up.

[hipadev23]

Glad to hear it. Whiteboards remain the ultimate interview tool, even remotely.