STOP accepting Karat interviews
I started my interview last week. Cleared phone interview with Google, Stripe, Databrick, Instacart, airbnb. Yet failed all 2 Karat interviews at 2 different companies, first one I was so naive to try to explain and verbally test, solved 2 yet failed. Next one I sped up solved 3, still failed wtf??? The interview itself is fucking bullshit. It’s worse than a take home. You can’t get any signal for the company you are interviewing (yes I do care). And the way Karat conducts interview just adds another layers of speed leetcode with less communication and less thinking process - either you know the answer, copy it down quickly or you are doomed. If we all agree to the current broken interview system due to leetcode (getting harder and harder every year) we should all stop this Karat interview from spreading just like leetcode did. I’m personally declining any company tells me to interview with Karat and you should too. If they don’t think I’m worth the 45’ interview with their engineer then I just leave. Also the most bullshit question “Do you have any question for me?” No shit, fuck off, you are not from the company I’m interested in. You are a barrier, get out of my sight and my time. #tech #interview #stopkarat
Lol I still cringe at one of my first job searches where I had a karat interview and definitely didn't realize it was a third-party company, more thought it was like an interviewers platform. Anyway, the guy asks if I have any questions and I ask him about the company, what he likes other shit. He looks up from being on his phone and just goes "dude, I don't even work for them". One of the crappiest interview experiences for sure.
Solved 3 and failed? Wtf else are they evaluating then lol
I had Karat interview (and I passed). I think my interviewer was pretty bad at communicating their expectations etc. Perhaps Op solved something in non optimal way?
All optimal. That’s what I’m saying. The results are very inconsistent, you don’t know what they are looking for. I might as well failed the second company because I didn’t do well in my first Karat interview and they silently aggregate this data to fail candidates across the board?
I solved 3 and failed too lol. Never doing Karat again
What companies? They are the ones who evaluate your karat interviews so they give you the thumbs up/down
Nope not true. I contacted one of the recruiters about my experience with Karat. She let me do again with a direct engineer and I passed easily. So no, Karat fkers block you out of the loop, recruiters are less technical and just take whatever Karat throws + recruiters now can get more candidates on the pipeline so they are ok with Karat result without consulting their engineers. If you think one of the engineers at the company you are interviewing for will screen your Karat interview quickly, then that’s not the case, it just goes directly to recruiters.
Interviewers just submit feedback into the platform and an algorithm makes a recommendation. The decision to move forward or not depends on the company you are interviewing for
My karat interview was one of the most dull and scripted chats I've ever had in my cs career. I understand that as a company, it can make sense to outsource and leave the initial round to someone else without spending dev time, but from our pov, it's quite silly.
Isn't speed Leetcoding how FB judges candidates? I have read stories of people doing 2-5 problems (3-5 if they admitted they saw the problem before) in 45 minutes so not sure why you are so surprised about Karat.
Kind of. But we are mindful about the difficulty of the problems, the signal we need (for example if you are done with the 2 questions we have for you, we probably got enough signal. We don’t stress you out indefinitely and still fail you), thinking process, testing, also you are interviewing with fb engineer where you want to be so you can ask us what you want to know about fb culture. Anyway, my point is you are interviewing with someone you want to work with and have experienced the same interviewprocess as you and well trained for interview. In contrast, Karat asked previous project + 5 system problems + 3 code interview. Even if you complete them all, you still fail. They are robots, has no sympathy for candidate in term of the load they put out and the unwanted constraints candidates have such as coding language (java, c for ex are much longer to write yet very clear in typing). Just a few pros/cons there. Question for you is whether you want to interview with Karat engineer or FB engineer when you interview at FB?
yeah those are fair points. I'd not accept any Karat interview requests for sure...If a company does not have any time to use its own staff for interviewing, its not a company worth working for. Interviewing is a two way street and I would also have a lot of questions for the engineers.
Haha same experience. I just straight up told my recruiter I'm not interviewing if it's a Karat interview. She tried to convince but finally budged and made someone else from the company take my interview. Karat interviewers are effing noobs. Don't know how to evaluate. There's 5 minutes left on the clock and he throws in a follow-up problem which involved at least 15 minutes of thinking/coding. Eff them.
Same experience. I agree with you OP. Been there done that. Decline Karat interviews after two experiences and it’s pointless. Some dude sitting in russia was taking my interview with a condescending tone and asking me BS questions without any feedback. Doesn’t tell me shit about the company. Who the fuck is he to judge me, when I can’t even judge the company that guy is interviewing me for. I’m not a hobo or jobless to desperately work for them.
To answer whether to redo. Yes, you will higher chance even if you do badly. Most people I know who pass, they redid it. I think since this is outsource so their goal is to make you redo so they can earn more.
I agree, Karat is bullshit, I think it is the worst way of treating a prospective employee. Almost an insult.
True.