[ryan-duve]

My startup got acquired last year so I haven't interviewed anyone in a while, but my technical interview has always been:

- share your screen

- download/open the coding challenge

- you can use any website, Stack Overflow, whatever, to answer my questions as long as it's on the screenshare

My goal is to determine if the candidate can be technically productive, so I allow any programming language, IDE, autocompleter, etc, that they want. I would have no problem with them using GPT/Copilot in addition to all that, as long as it's clear how they're solving it.

[shaneoh]

I recently interviewed for my team and tried this same approach. I thought it made sense because I want to see how people can actually work and problem solve given all the tools at their disposal, just like on the job.

It proved to be awkward and clumsy very quickly. Some candidates resisted it since they clearly thought it would make them judged harsher. Some candidates were on the other extreme and basically tried asking ChatGPT the problem straight up, even though I clarified up front "You can even use ChatGPT as long as you're not just directly asking for the solution to the whole problem and just copy/pasting, obviously."

After just the initial batch of candidates it became clear it was muddying things too much, so I simply forbade using it for the rest of the candidates, and those interviews went much smoother.

[mmh0000]

Over the years, I've walked from several "live coding" interviews. Arguably though, if you're looking for "social coders" maybe the interview is working as intended?

But for me, it's just not how my brain works. If someone is watching me, I'll be so self-conscious the entire time you'll get a stream of absolute nonsense that makes me look like I learned programming from YouTube last night. So it's not worth the time.

You want some good programming done? I need headphones, loud music, a closed door and a supply of Diet Coke. I'll see you in a few hours.

[Aeolun]

What are you supposed to ask chatGPT if you can’t just ask it the answer? That’d confuse me too.

[layer8]

Did you tell them that you “want to see how people can actually work and problem solve given all the tools at their disposal, just like on the job”? Just curious.

[raincole]

> "You can even use ChatGPT as long as you're not just directly asking for the solution to the whole problem and just copy/pasting, obviously."

No, it's not "obvious" whatsoever. Actually it's obviously confusing: why you are allowing them to use ChatGPT but forbidding them from asking the questions directly? Do you want an employee who is productive at solving problems, or someone who guess your intentions better?

If AI is an issue for you then just ban it. Don't try to make the interview a game of who outsmart who.

[946789987649]

I've had a few people chuck the entire problem into ChatGPT, it was still very much useful in a few ways:

- You get to see how they then review the generated code, do they spot potential edge cases which the AI missed? - When I ask them to make a change not in the original spec, a lot of them completely shut down because they either didn't understand the code generated well enough, or they themselves didn't really know how to code.

And you still get to see people who _do_ know how to use AI well, which at this point is a must for its overall productivity benefits.

[skinner927]

Maybe come up with a problem that isn’t so simple you can just ask it to ChatGPT. Create some context that would be difficult/tedious to convey.

[bagels]

If you really don't penalize them for this, you should clearly state it. Some people may still think they'll be penalized as that is the norm.

[b112]

I'd be fine with the GPT side of things, as long as I could somehow inject poor answers, and see if the interviewee notices and corrects.

[cpursley]

That's actually a horribly awesome idea.

[htrp]

the trick is to phrase the problem in a way that GPT4 will always give the incorrect answer (due to vagueness of your problem) and that multiple rounds of guiding/correcting are needed to solve.

[hibikir]

There's more than one possible AI on the other end, so crafting something that will not annoy a typical candidate, but will lead every AI astray seems pretty difficult.

[staticautomatic]

I did this while hiring last year and the number of candidates who got stuff wrong because they were too proud to just look up the answer was shocking.

[prisenco]

Is it pride or is it hard to shake the (reasonable, I'd say) fear the reviewer will judge regardless of their claims?

[random_walker]

I love these kind of interviews. This would very closely simulate real world on-job Performance.

[dalmo3]

If I had to do real world on-job coding while someone looks over my shoulder at all times (i.e. screensharing), I'd be flipping burgers.

[silasdavis]

I don't care how you're good at it so long as I can watch.

[yieldcrv]

> I would have no problem with them using GPT/Copilot in addition to all that, as long as it's clear how they're solving it.

Too many people are the opposite that I would literally never tell you

And this works.

what can we do to help that?

I’ve had interviews where AI use was encouraged as well.

but so many casual tirades against it dont make me want to ever try being forthcoming. most organizations are realistically going to be 10 years behind the curve on this

[pnathan]

Screen share or in person are what I think the best ways are. These are not the best options.

I do not want AI. The human is the value add.

I understand that people won't feel super comfortable with this, and I try not to roast the candidate with leetcode. It should be a conversation where I surface technical reality and understanding.

[blazing234]

im not doing any coding challenges that aren't real world

if i see anything remotely challenging i dip out. interviewing is just a numbers game nowadays so i dont waste time on interviews if they seem like they're gonna burn me out for the rest of the day. granted i have 11 years experience

[hibikir]

The difficulty of your questions have to change drastically if they are using good tooling. Many a problem that would take a reasonable candidate half an hour to figure out is 'free' for Claude, so your question might not show any signal. And if you tweak your questions to be sure to not be auto-solved by a strong enough AI, then you better say it's semi-required, because the difficulty level of the question you need to ask goes up quite a bit.

Some of the questions in our interview loop have been posted in github... which means every AI has trained on them specifically. They are, therefore, useless if you have AI turned on. And if you interview enough people, someone will post on github, and therefore your question will have a pretty short shelf life before it's in training and instantly solved.

[evilduck]

It's pretty obvious when someone's input focus changes to nothing or when their mouse leaves the screen entirely, or you could just ask to see the display settings to begin. Doesn't solve for multiple computers but it's pretty obvious in real time when someone's actual attention drifts or they suddenly have abilities they didn't have before.

Either way, screen sharing beats whiteboards. Even if we throw our hands up and give up, we'll be firing frauds before the probationary period ends.