3 ms·

Here is a tip for you - line up as many interviews as you can from companies you aren't necessarily super jazzed about. Take a full month and go through all the

Here is a tip for you - line up as many interviews as you can from companies you aren't necessarily super jazzed about. Take a full month and go through all the painful process. You will probably fail a lot, at least for the first month or so. It depends on your availability, if you can line-up 2 to 3 interviews per week that would be ideal. Then when you're done interviewing for a while with these "whatever" companies, start applying at your favorite ones. I found out that putting 2 months of preparation reading books, practicing on your own, etc. is not relevant enough. Chances are, you will get questions that aren't directly related to what you've studies. Another thing I found out is that interviewers ask the same coding questions and this happens very often! ta-da!! You know where I'm going? After a month interviewing, you'll have a chance to think about all the questions you've been asked, then you'll be able to come up with an answer next time. You'll be surprised when you'll start getting the exact same questions over and over. Don't study on your own, involved companies and real interviewers in your practice. Jump straight into the interview process and take a lot of notes ;)

alfalfasprout 10y ago
Honestly, I found the books (eg; Cracking the Coding Interview) to be decent at giving a quick overview. At the end of the day, doing a bunch of medium difficulty and some hard difficulty questions on leetcode proved to be the best preparation. By the time you get to your interviews, you've probably seen a variation on what they're asking. I didn't find doing more interviews to be much more helpful than just doing a bunch of practice questions (if you're already good at interviewing in general). Still, I think this garbage is annoying for senior developer positions or once you're at least a few years out of school. Having to practice implementing a topo-sort in 10 minutes or doing some tedious combinatorial problem gives zero insight into good software engineering practices. System design questions, on the other hand, are actually useful.
- bsvalley 10y ago
  Indeed, I'd be fine if it was only one algo question in the whole process. Unfortunately we're talking about one, sometimes 2 technical phone screens. Then 4-5 tehnical interviews onsite. You have to deal with data structures/algo crap the whole time (30 minute each) which is not only painful, but it's extremely annoying and pointless. Regarding books vs real world practice - I came a lot more confident by going through the process a few times talking to real interviewers. It's not only you and your laptop and zero stress. This make a big difference in boosting your confidence level.
jquast 10y ago
Agreed, I took notes after every interview (bombed on several in a row, like the OP), then collated common questions and prepared brief, positive, well-written answers. I went from failing every interview to acing every interview, many would say things like "that's the best answer we've heard" or "that's a very thoughtful response", well, I spent hours preparing them, unlike most other candidates! great thing about phone interviews is they won't know that you are reading from a script! Writing them and repeating them also helped me memorize them enough for in-person interviews. It also calms the nerves to feel so well prepared.

alfalfasprout 10y ago

Honestly, I found the books (eg; Cracking the Coding Interview) to be decent at giving a quick overview. At the end of the day, doing a bunch of medium difficulty and some hard difficulty questions on leetcode proved to be the best preparation. By the time you get to your interviews, you've probably seen a variation on what they're asking. I didn't find doing more interviews to be much more helpful than just doing a bunch of practice questions (if you're already good at interviewing in general). Still, I think this garbage is annoying for senior developer positions or once you're at least a few years out of school. Having to practice implementing a topo-sort in 10 minutes or doing some tedious combinatorial problem gives zero insight into good software engineering practices. System design questions, on the other hand, are actually useful.

bsvalley 10y ago
Indeed, I'd be fine if it was only one algo question in the whole process. Unfortunately we're talking about one, sometimes 2 technical phone screens. Then 4-5 tehnical interviews onsite. You have to deal with data structures/algo crap the whole time (30 minute each) which is not only painful, but it's extremely annoying and pointless. Regarding books vs real world practice - I came a lot more confident by going through the process a few times talking to real interviewers. It's not only you and your laptop and zero stress. This make a big difference in boosting your confidence level.

jquast 10y ago

Agreed, I took notes after every interview (bombed on several in a row, like the OP), then collated common questions and prepared brief, positive, well-written answers. I went from failing every interview to acing every interview, many would say things like "that's the best answer we've heard" or "that's a very thoughtful response", well, I spent hours preparing them, unlike most other candidates! great thing about phone interviews is they won't know that you are reading from a script! Writing them and repeating them also helped me memorize them enough for in-person interviews. It also calms the nerves to feel so well prepared.