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I'm having difficulty seeing how these questions would help find people who can build great software or solve problems creatively: a) I'm not sure there's a st
by philk 17y ago
I'm having difficulty seeing how these questions would help find people who can build great software or solve problems creatively:
a) I'm not sure there's a strong causal link between "being good at brain teasers" and "writing awesome code".
b) I suppose they could be viewed as measuring creativity, but it's in a stressful situation. When you're trying to solve actual problems at work you aren't going to be trying to do it in ten minutes in front of an interviewer. Also they're clearly problems with only one correct answer which seems unrealistic in comparison with reality.
c) More precisely, I suspect that this would test for people who enjoy brain teasers and have done lots of them before.
- andrew1 17y agoI think there are two ways to look at (b). I'd agree that generally the problems we all solve are not particularly time critical, when you're working on something over a week or month, there's not going to be anything which needs doing in ten minutes. On the other hand, when you're supporting live systems, there can be times when being able to diagnose and fix a problem in a few minutes, under pressure, can be a valuable skill. It's at times like that that you need people who can solve problems quickly in stressful situations. I'm not particularly saying that these types of questions will help you find those people, but if it's something you want to test for then they may be useful.
- ww520 17y agoThe puzzle questions do give the feeling - I (interviewer) am intellectually superior than you (interviewee).