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posted by martyb on Friday November 02 2018, @12:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the pi(x)=substr("3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208",1,x) dept.

Recently there was an article discussing how poorly today's Silicon Valley approaches the question of testing their information technology candidates' intelligence.

If you were a hiring manager, how would YOU test YOUR candidate's intelligence?

I was mulling this over recently, when, for unrelated reasons, I found myself researching algorithms to be used in calculating 'pi' (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pi_algorithms).

As it so happens, there are currently 15 known algorithms for pi. At least one of the algorithms can be used to generate arbitrary digits of pi (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe_formula), and that might be relevant. (I'm not a mathematician, or a programmer, as such - I'm a sysadmin - but even those who are will likely be surprised to learn that such a thing is possible. For more information, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spigot_algorithm.)

And so I would ask my candidate to pretend that he was responsible for designing a library of math functions, and to offer me an opinion on which algorithm should be implemented, in our hypothetical library of routines, to calculate 'pi'.

Some prior experience in programming is required - you have to have written your own functions. No programming languages are required. No coding. Not even pseudo-code! No right answers. No wrong answers. Just pure thought.

You don't need to be a programmer to take this test and succeed. You don't need to do anything on a whiteboard. You just need to be somewhat mathematically inclined ... somewhat literate ... and, a nerd.

A real nerd. Not one of these fake Silicon Valley nerds. You need to have books on your shelves. Not DVDs.

Points for asking what the library will be used for. The value 22/7 might work great for roughing out the roof of a gazebo. Not so good for calculating orbits!

Points for implementing multiple algorithms and letting the user decide for themselves.

No time limit, no pressure ... but I would want to hear back from my candidates, within a day or two, via email.

Compare my test to the puerile tests involving balls, and strings, and calculating 2^64 in your head, in real time, and ask yourself which of these methods REALLY exposes intelligence?

Now, you're in charge.

What would you do?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @04:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 02 2018, @04:06AM (#756750)
    Unless you're hiring them specifically for their IQ in which case you'd do an IQ test.

    Intelligence is overrated for many jobs and only a base requirement for IT there are other important factors. For example I would also prefer them to be able to realize that making a math library that actually implements an algorithm to calculate Pi is pretty stupid. That's a heating library not a math library.

    From my experience what tends to be more important than making math or similar libraries is the candidate's ability and willingness to use/make a decent logging library. So many problems would be much easier to solve (or not even get into production) if there were useful logs. So if examples of his more complex code in his portfolio does logging in a useful way then that's more points for him.

    BTW if I was hiring an artist I'd leave blank and nonblank sheets of paper and pens and pencils in the interview room where the candidate waits and be "late" for the interview. If a sheet of paper has become something really impressive when I finally appear (and thus helps confirm the portfolio) then the rest of the interview is probably more about figuring out whether the candidate will be a good fit etc. The job could be a waste of a super talented artist (bills might have to be paid, but you may not want to crush the soul of an artist :) ).