Hi guys. Today, I am going to review a blog named, “Technical interview performance is kind of arbitrary. Here’s the data.” (http://blog.interviewing.io/technical-interview-performance-is-kind-of-arbitrary-heres-the-data/). From the blog, I found parts that could be mention while some could be a critique. Overall, the blog is structured well. However, it can improve.
The blog talked about how a technical interview is arbitrary. It separated the argument into three different points. Performance from the interview can be volatile, odds of failing an interview based on past performance, and the author’s opinion in the interview. The blog showed failure is still a possible chance despite the interviewee’s performance can be consistent or not. As a result, technical interviews seem to be somewhat arbitrary that spreads out to every interviewee that took interviews.
The blog did stand arguing about technical interview performance is arbitrary by showing many different types of data and points. The blog shows the statistic on interviewees’ consistency in their performance, mean technical performance, the result of interview stimulation by mean score, and the probability of failing a single interview by mean score. From the statistic, it proves that even an interviewee with consistent performance can fail an interview. The author also realizes some part of the statistic is missing information, so he decided to put it into an appendix. For the blog to succeed in its argument, it needs to have points. As its points, the failing percentage and consistency are about the same for the interviewees. Even more, the blog research on statistics from companies with famous engineer brand, which makes it more trustworthy as a point.
As there is a part where I would want to praise, there is also a part I would critique. I believe this blog is too informal in some sections. For example, the last few paragraphs changed the argument to personal opinion, which weakened the strength of the blog. The blog can stand stronger if the points stand more as fact instead of a single perspective opinion. Another example that I would also want to critique is the blog used swear words to empathize that technical interviews are bad. As an audience, I could understand why the author used such strong words. But the author should calmly display the statistic as it has and argues. If the blog improves in these two points, it would be a much stronger argument towards the technical interview.
In conclusion, as the blog is talking about the technical interviews being arbitrary, it can still be improved by the formality of the blog. The purpose is to show how convincible the argument to the audience. If the consistency in writing drops, the audience could take that as untrustful or offensive. Despite the formality, it does show statistics about how the interview is biased toward arbitrary. Therefore, I would believe this blog argued well about technical interviews.