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These interview training programs seems to be really reminiscent of coding bootcamps and appear to have grown rapidly in a very short period of time. I think I'

by Kephael 10y ago

These interview training programs seems to be really reminiscent of coding bootcamps and appear to have grown rapidly in a very short period of time. I think I'd almost prefer interviewees being judged based on the schools they attended and companies they worked at. I'm not sure that I find the ability to cram for data structures and algorithms questions to be indicative of intelligence and problem solving skills. Schools attended and companies worked at could be a very strong potential signal of applicant performance and not involve several rounds of "implement that algorithm from memory". Are interviews becoming more difficult as a result of the proliferation of all the interview test prep material?

askAwayMan 10y ago
Maybe if you've been fortunate to have attended an elite school. For the rest of us no name state school alumns, there's the nice illusion of meritocracy either way.
kristopolous 10y ago
Algorithms and elite schools doesn't tell me whether you'll use the right-sized solution for a problem and be able to prioritize and focus on tasks accordingly. It doesn't tell me if you can perceive and extract requirements well and have a process of communication and a professionalism of management in how you go about getting to solutions that work for the humans that will be using it. It also doesn't tell me about your personal value system and whether you are passionate about creating good user experiences or if you are just interested in a technical playground or if you are a social climber or what. It also doesn't tell me if you are highly opinionated and want to do things your own way or if you are flexible enough to deal with the imperfections of the real world. I don't know whether you value the mantra that the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. No, none of these brain teasers or abstract bootcamp style things tell me that - and those are the actual things that will make or break a company and determine whether your product will hit the market on time. Those are the things that will get you a customer base and will create a company culture of productivity and not something that doesn't lead to results. Until interviews become more about how people approach work and their ethic and process of conducting it (which is a major part of classical engineering), these are ineffective tools for finding the right people. --- [1] although as a disclaimer, I strongly prefer companies of under 20 employees. If you have 200, then the employees can be more insulated from the exposure to these types of risk and the necessity of this type of vertical thinking. But it's an "insulation" - everyone is working either directly or tangentially on something that is intended to be used by something in the world (usually humans).
unimpressive 10y ago
>I think I'd almost prefer interviewees being judged based on the schools they attended and companies they worked at. I'd be surprised if you're saying this as somebody who doesn't have a track record of working at big name companies who went to a big name school, but you probably are so.
MaulingMonkey 10y ago
> I'm not sure that I find the ability to cram for data structures and algorithms questions to be indicative of intelligence and problem solving skills. I liked the interview approach of my last job - they had me debug some simple code. This was C++ for gamedev, so they showed me - a class violating the rule of 3 leading to a double delete, some multi-threaded code without memory barriers - or even volatile - and another example that escapes me at the moment. I was able to blitz through that. I floundered slightly when asked to explain the observed behavior of the buggy code pre-fixes - the exact behavior of the multi-threaded code before fixes surprised me, and I couldn't figure out the probable cause in my own head - but that segued easily into a discussion of the disassembly (at which point I was able to explain the behavior) when I suggested I'd look at the disassembly when asked how I'd go about finding out. They asked about basic usage and design on a broader range of topics as well - I failed to remember to store a salt (doh!) for the simple user DB example schema, and floundered a little on my 3D math skills (in what to apply to solve a problem, not to recite the exact math - an area I admitted up front I was weak in) but otherwise did okay. Also a lot of discussion about previous problems I'd tackled and how (I've got a file of notes I keep called "War Stories".) I ended up getting the job at the price I named - they didn't even try to negotiate me down, perhaps I should've asked for more? :3
Apocryphon 10y ago
At this rate, no matter how coding interviews change, there will be a new bootcamp or training program created to assist applicants to pass them.

by Kephael 10y ago

askAwayMan 10y ago

Maybe if you've been fortunate to have attended an elite school. For the rest of us no name state school alumns, there's the nice illusion of meritocracy either way.

kristopolous 10y ago

Algorithms and elite schools doesn't tell me whether you'll use the right-sized solution for a problem and be able to prioritize and focus on tasks accordingly. It doesn't tell me if you can perceive and extract requirements well and have a process of communication and a professionalism of management in how you go about getting to solutions that work for the humans that will be using it. It also doesn't tell me about your personal value system and whether you are passionate about creating good user experiences or if you are just interested in a technical playground or if you are a social climber or what. It also doesn't tell me if you are highly opinionated and want to do things your own way or if you are flexible enough to deal with the imperfections of the real world. I don't know whether you value the mantra that the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. No, none of these brain teasers or abstract bootcamp style things tell me that - and those are the actual things that will make or break a company and determine whether your product will hit the market on time. Those are the things that will get you a customer base and will create a company culture of productivity and not something that doesn't lead to results. Until interviews become more about how people approach work and their ethic and process of conducting it (which is a major part of classical engineering), these are ineffective tools for finding the right people. --- [1] although as a disclaimer, I strongly prefer companies of under 20 employees. If you have 200, then the employees can be more insulated from the exposure to these types of risk and the necessity of this type of vertical thinking. But it's an "insulation" - everyone is working either directly or tangentially on something that is intended to be used by something in the world (usually humans).

unimpressive 10y ago

>I think I'd almost prefer interviewees being judged based on the schools they attended and companies they worked at. I'd be surprised if you're saying this as somebody who doesn't have a track record of working at big name companies who went to a big name school, but you probably are so.

MaulingMonkey 10y ago

> I'm not sure that I find the ability to cram for data structures and algorithms questions to be indicative of intelligence and problem solving skills. I liked the interview approach of my last job - they had me debug some simple code. This was C++ for gamedev, so they showed me - a class violating the rule of 3 leading to a double delete, some multi-threaded code without memory barriers - or even volatile - and another example that escapes me at the moment. I was able to blitz through that. I floundered slightly when asked to explain the observed behavior of the buggy code pre-fixes - the exact behavior of the multi-threaded code before fixes surprised me, and I couldn't figure out the probable cause in my own head - but that segued easily into a discussion of the disassembly (at which point I was able to explain the behavior) when I suggested I'd look at the disassembly when asked how I'd go about finding out. They asked about basic usage and design on a broader range of topics as well - I failed to remember to store a salt (doh!) for the simple user DB example schema, and floundered a little on my 3D math skills (in what to apply to solve a problem, not to recite the exact math - an area I admitted up front I was weak in) but otherwise did okay. Also a lot of discussion about previous problems I'd tackled and how (I've got a file of notes I keep called "War Stories".) I ended up getting the job at the price I named - they didn't even try to negotiate me down, perhaps I should've asked for more? :3

Apocryphon 10y ago

At this rate, no matter how coding interviews change, there will be a new bootcamp or training program created to assist applicants to pass them.