I'm very glad to see that this is the top comment on the article. Honestly, these hiring processes that start with some algorithm challenges straight out of that controversial "Cracking The Coding Interview" book benefit nobody, but hurt everyone.
It reinforces the "imposter syndrome" experienced by many perfectly competent candidates and companies basically rob themselves of valuable prospective employees by insisting on taking this approach to interviewing.
As someone looking for their first frontend job... Can I solve a bunch of advanced algorithm challenges? Nope, I don't have the computer science background for that. But can I build a reusable component library, consume REST/GraphQL API's to communicate with the server and display data in a sensible way on the client-side? I sure can.
Yet, people like me are being glossed over, even though we are perfectly able of solving real-world problems.
I suppose another way to look at it each time this happens is "the trash took itself out". As in, if this is their hiring practice and they see nothing wrong with it, would I like working for that company anyway? Though, that doesn't help me get my foot in the door.
Don't worry about it too much, it's now 3 years since I made that comment. I still suck at solving these "brainteasers" that are pointlessly used at interviews and I'm working for a nice company where I'm well respected, have been told I'm approaching senior level very quickly and am involved in training juniors. I don't bother practicing brain teasers at all, in fact. I instead put my effort into learning "advanced" React features, NextJS, some AWS basics and now looking into Svelte and judging by the salary increases, it was a good idea.
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I'm very glad to see that this is the top comment on the article. Honestly, these hiring processes that start with some algorithm challenges straight out of that controversial "Cracking The Coding Interview" book benefit nobody, but hurt everyone.
It reinforces the "imposter syndrome" experienced by many perfectly competent candidates and companies basically rob themselves of valuable prospective employees by insisting on taking this approach to interviewing.
As someone looking for their first frontend job... Can I solve a bunch of advanced algorithm challenges? Nope, I don't have the computer science background for that. But can I build a reusable component library, consume REST/GraphQL API's to communicate with the server and display data in a sensible way on the client-side? I sure can.
Yet, people like me are being glossed over, even though we are perfectly able of solving real-world problems.
I suppose another way to look at it each time this happens is "the trash took itself out". As in, if this is their hiring practice and they see nothing wrong with it, would I like working for that company anyway? Though, that doesn't help me get my foot in the door.
But they need to know your skills are above average as to effectively Google search the simple solution to their "super project" needs.
100% true, I'm learning frontend, and some of these examples overwhelm me, but I still find the challenge of learning it interesting
Don't worry about it too much, it's now 3 years since I made that comment. I still suck at solving these "brainteasers" that are pointlessly used at interviews and I'm working for a nice company where I'm well respected, have been told I'm approaching senior level very quickly and am involved in training juniors. I don't bother practicing brain teasers at all, in fact. I instead put my effort into learning "advanced" React features, NextJS, some AWS basics and now looking into Svelte and judging by the salary increases, it was a good idea.