If only that were true. I'm a U.S. national event champion in Div. C Science Olympiad (Road Scholar), and I not only have to deal with whiteboard nonsense all the time, but also, the spouse never really believes that I know how to get anywhere from anywhere else. (Sure, argue with Siri/Google, rather than allowing that I might possibly know which direction north is.)
Credentials are only as good as the trust other people put in them. And I'd guess that a good portion of interviewers are completely unaware that non-athletic Olympiad competitions exist.
And anecdotally, it seems like tech interviewers wouldn't believe you could code your way out of a paper bag even if you walked into the interview over rose petals thrown on the floor by Kernighan and the ghost of Ritchie. I've had plenty of them remark "you are the only candidate that has answered that question correctly" and then never speak to me again.
It really makes me wonder what the point of the technical portion of the interview really is. I have had only one interview where the interviewer actually cut short a technical screen because "clearly, you know your stuff". But no offer there, either.
They're not looking for good people, they're looking for cheap people. 1 good person will cost as much or more than 5 bad ones and somehow it got into managements head that 5 'B' (or even 'C') players is better than one 'A' player for the same money.
Which of course isn't true but good luck convincing people otherwise. (Source: regular clean up jobs after all the money has been spent and the company is on the skids and I get called in at a very large multiple of what an 'A' player would have cost to clean up the mess. I don't mind, it keeps me employed and brings home the bacon but it certainly does not seem to be the most efficient way to run an IT department...)
Ah, this brings back memories. I've had two interviews (many years ago) where I was told "you are overqualified for this job, you're going to be here three months and leave". I was hurting for money at the time so that wasn't great to hear.
Unfortunately, the only solution I found for this is "charge more", which seems to be psychologically difficult for programmers, with all of patio11's efforts :)
> I think "A" players are the best bargain in the world...
They are, but try explaining to your average PHB who doesn't even begin to understand the complexities of the 'simple' piece of software they intend to write that Charles here can do the job in 3 months and will cost 50K and that the five guys over there in the corner will take the job for 30K and will take a month longer (or so they think). Then, after 30K becomes 90K and the company is slowly sliding downhill that original 3 months and 50K estimate starts to look pretty good, but then the sunk cost fallacy kicks in and for an additional 10K (over the 90K) this time they'll get it right. And then finally the time will be up, the money will be gone and they'll have to shop for someone who will take on the task to fix it on a contingency basis in the next month or so.
This plays out over and over again for some strange reason.
So yes, A players are a bargain, but only after the money to pay for them has been pissed out the window.
1) The market has imperfect information. The expensive developer could be great or terrible, but the same is true for the inexpensive developer. Even if there is theoretically some way to tell the difference, most employers don't have the skills to do so.
2) Bad management is at least as likely to kill a project than bad developers, so even a developer who is 10x in theory will on average deliver much less than 10x in practice.
I did not do Olympiads, but I did score highly in math modeling competitions and won a competitive PhD fellowship.
I have had the exact same experience. I will get comments like, "That's the best submission we've seen for that take-home test" followed by literally no response of any kind after that. I've had places say, "you are absolutely perfect for our needs on Team X and you will help us meet our deadlines by the end of the year" and then make a job offer with a salary less than 80% of my current salary, worse equity, and worse benefits.
Companies sometimes want on-paper credential, but they almost never care about actual productivity or talent.
> I've had plenty of them remark "you are the only candidate that has answered that question correctly" and then never speak to me again.
Stop right there :-)
I think that's where you need to do some deep introspection.
There's A LOT more to a job than technical aptitude. It appears that you're excelling in one aspect of the evaluation but failing in another. There's a reason WHY they're not following up. Find out what it is.
Consider doing mock interviews with seasoned folks that you trust who are willing to give you honest feedback. You might discover a lot and improve your interview game.
I'm pretty sure that if a company cuts off all contact after an interview, there is at least one problem on their end that I cannot fix, no matter how hard I try.
Believe me, I have tried to find out why they vanished from the face of my planet. But there's only so much effort I can put into throwing politeness and courtesy into the void of unimaginable rudeness.
You have to do mock interviews to get real feedback. Real interviewers are so absolutely terrified of telling you even one thing that might help with your next interview that I have never heard anything, good or bad, about myself in the wake of a real interview.
This is not an occasional problem. This is epidemic in every city I have tried looking for full time employment, to the point where I am actually shocked--shocked--if someone follows up with me after an interview when they do not want to extend an offer.
The only reason I can think of for this is that someone out there is actively counseling companies and HR managers to conduct their interviews in this manner. Perhaps it is to cut costs. Perhaps it is to minimize liability exposure to workplace discrimination laws. Perhaps I am on some sort of blacklist. Maybe something on my credit report is bad. There is literally no way for me to find out, because I am already blackholed by the time I might get a chance to ask, and I have no expectation that they would answer honestly if they would even answer at all.
Yes, a serious problem but not insurmountable. It is something that you can at least address with yourself if you understand what it is.
It is true that you can't expect actionable feedback in a real job interview. Mock interviews when done with the right person really help. Of course it means that you have to be open to criticism and handle it with grace. Some folks have reported success with a career coach for this stuff, but that will cost you.
There's also another way to get some feedback. If you develop some rapport with a 3rd party recruiter who sets up interviews with their client, you _might_ be able to get debrief on how it went and what your strengths/weaknesses were.
Good advice. I know I've turned down candidates that aced the technical questions but were so opinionated that it seemed unlikely they'd able to work as part of the team.
Maybe they're not all that opinionated in real life. They just get nervous in interviews, and unconsciously feel the need to show their individuals in ways that they otherwise (under less confrontational circumstances) do not.
It appears that you're excelling in one aspect of the evaluation but failing in another. There's a reason WHY they're not following up.
If he failed some other part of their interprocess -- that's fine, they can send a polite and professional rejection letter. Even a soulless form letter will do.
But to not follow up in any way with the candidate, after that? Unless the candidate vomits in the interviewer's lap, or something similar -- that's just pure rudeness, on the company's part.
I'm pretty sure the parent poster was talking about things like the IOI, IMO, etc., which are ridiculously difficult and prestigious and are competitions that occur on an international scale. Each nation only sends a handful of competitors. Not the "Division C Science Olympiad," which is US high-school based.
Well, doing a high school olympiad didn't get me into the university I wanted, so why would a university-level olympiad get anyone into the job they want?
It doesn't work as a credential unless it actually produces results.
Uh.... the IOI/IMO/etc. are for high schoolers. Doing well on the IOI (bronze or higher medal) will get you into any university you want. Doing well on the IOI is something that you'd also put on your app if you were applying to a PhD in mathematics.
Ah. I see what the problem is. The IOI started in 1989. The US first participated in the IOI in 1992, and has sent a total of 65 contestants. The first opportunity I might have had to be selected would have been 1993. My AP Computer Science teacher was the baseball coach, who presumably wasn't looking to sponsor any other extracurricular activities.
I had therefore never heard of it before this thread, despite it being around for 27 years now.
At the time I was in high school, US Science Olympiad, Indiana Academic Super Bowl, and the Rose-Hulman Math Competition were about the only games in town. And it was a big school. We might have had a US Chemistry Olympiad team if the chemistry teacher wasn't a few moles short of a balanced reaction, if you know what I mean. The biology and physics teachers were the Science Olympiad sponsors.
I'd think that even just being on the IOI team would be enough to get you accepted anywhere, given that you would have to be one of the top 4 students in the US for that year (by the best screening process that several university professors can manage).
Look basically none of the top tech schools or Ivies blink an eye at Science Olympiad especially in comparison to IMO or IOI or IPhO - besides the actual difficulty of the events you have to consider the relative sizes of the pool they are drawing from as well.
That's true. I got rejected from at least one top tech school for not being great enough on paper, despite all the medals from my high school non-athletic competitive extracurricular activites clinking on my chest. If I ever become even mildly successful, I eagerly await the opportunity to throw that back in their faces.
But for now, and the foreseeable future, it would appear that their decision has been validated. Although I'm not entirely certain whether that is because I am not actually good enough as a person to claw my way into the upper middle class on my own merits, or because my accumulated credentials are not prestigious enough for a gatekeeper to lower one of the ladders low enough for me to jump for it.
Like it or not, there may be people out there blackholing my resume just because it doesn't have the right university name on it, or because the year I graduated is in the wrong millennium, or because it doesn't have the right company names on it.
There's nothing that any of us can do about it individually. Stopping that kind of useless credentialism by employers is squarely in the domain of a cartel enforcer--union, professional association, or government--and even then it might not stick.
Credentials are only as good as the trust other people put in them. And I'd guess that a good portion of interviewers are completely unaware that non-athletic Olympiad competitions exist.
And anecdotally, it seems like tech interviewers wouldn't believe you could code your way out of a paper bag even if you walked into the interview over rose petals thrown on the floor by Kernighan and the ghost of Ritchie. I've had plenty of them remark "you are the only candidate that has answered that question correctly" and then never speak to me again.
It really makes me wonder what the point of the technical portion of the interview really is. I have had only one interview where the interviewer actually cut short a technical screen because "clearly, you know your stuff". But no offer there, either.