I had a phone interview with Bloomberg in London for a software developer role. The conclusion was that they didn't want to proceed any further. It's their decision and it's all up to them to decide. If I was on the other side of the phone I would actually come to the same conclusion based on their assessment method.
They have plenty of candidates but I experienced some drawbacks with their process:
1) I received a phone call with very bad audio quality. It was distorted and quite difficult to hear what the other person was saying. I had two other calls the same day in the same room and the audio was crystal clear. I expect such a big company to have proper equipment.
2) The interview included a live coding exercise. My impression of it was that I was expected to provide answers instantly. Every single key stroke of my keyboard was presented to the interviewer. I was given a coding task to implement a glob function. I have used such a function before but had never reflected on how to implement it. Me personally whenever I get a new task I need a few minutes to think before I type. I usually start with a small part of the functionality and then gradually build the code. With that expectation I started typing directly, thinking as I was typing and of course changing the code when I understood more of the problem. The interviewer stopped the coding exercise after around 5 min as I had not made enough progress. I always start slowly and then gradually accelerating until completion.
My point is that within the software industry it is never the case that a module of high quality needs to be produced at very high pace. We are not surgeons at a hospital where a short moment of hesitation can lead to the death of a patient. It takes time to design a solution and to cover all the corner cases. Development is done in steps and improved gradually. Assessment based on early stage of coding say little of the final solution. After the interview, I immediately started implementing the glob function and I ended up with working code for all test scenarios I could come up with.
A better approach for Bloomberg would be to give a larger coding exercise to the candidate (not just a function), based on clearly defined interfaces. It can then be connected to automated test cases which proves the correctness of the program. The candidate's every single key stroke is not monitored. Instead the solution is returned within a reasonable time frame (just like any real life task), possibly with a Powerpoint explaining the design. The interviewer then make a conclusion about the capacity of the candidate.
Thank you for reading.