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I will put people on the white board, but never quiz them about random trivia, nor do I ask them to write pseudo-code. I have them draw the main components of

I will put people on the white board, but never quiz them about random trivia, nor do I ask them to write pseudo-code. I have them draw the main components of some system they worked on and tell me a little about the role/technology on each component. Then I ask general, high level questions about some changes they claim to have made on some component. Whenever possible I have the recruiter inform the person that this will be the format of the discussion. This allows them to come prepared for the types of questions I'll ask and lets them guide the conversation towards something they feel comfortable talking about. How do you think that would have been with regards to your anxiety?

socanxdev-thrwy 9y ago
That sounds like relatively low-anxiety interview format. Knowing the specific format, and subject if possible, ahead of time would be incredibly helpful for preparing mentally. And speaking of projects that you've already done, vs speculating about something new, is a free confidence boost.
- taurath 9y ago
  I definitely second this - coming in context free and having no real idea about how to prepare is a very difficult aspect when it comes to interview anxiety (the other is the social dynamic). Even a list of data structures and alg properties one would be expected to know to pass an interview would be helpful when the interview questions could be outside of previous domain scope (web developers implementing b trees from memory, for example). Proving that you can groc fundamental things should only be part of the interview and hopefully not even the most important part. On the other hand, I’ve had take home assignments that were total wastes of time because all they really cared about was whether you coded in their particular OOP fashion. I made a functional demo which performed well but they neglected to mention that they were looking for OOP design paradigms. Mention should be given of current methods they use so that you don’t spend a week going down a path that won’t tell them how you will fit into the team.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  I've never understood the point of asking people questions about any topic they haven't specifically said they know something about. If you say you wrote a class/method to query a db, I might ask you high level questions like what is the communications mechanism between your software and the database (looking for anything that means network: socket, tcp/ip, etc.). Then if the language is java I might try to get you to tell me about using the try/catch/finally structure and why you'd do that. Basically, I don't care if you can regurgitate facts, I just want to dig deep enough to be convinced that you actually accomplished what you said you'd accomplished.

socanxdev-thrwy 9y ago

That sounds like relatively low-anxiety interview format. Knowing the specific format, and subject if possible, ahead of time would be incredibly helpful for preparing mentally. And speaking of projects that you've already done, vs speculating about something new, is a free confidence boost.

taurath 9y ago
I definitely second this - coming in context free and having no real idea about how to prepare is a very difficult aspect when it comes to interview anxiety (the other is the social dynamic). Even a list of data structures and alg properties one would be expected to know to pass an interview would be helpful when the interview questions could be outside of previous domain scope (web developers implementing b trees from memory, for example). Proving that you can groc fundamental things should only be part of the interview and hopefully not even the most important part. On the other hand, I’ve had take home assignments that were total wastes of time because all they really cared about was whether you coded in their particular OOP fashion. I made a functional demo which performed well but they neglected to mention that they were looking for OOP design paradigms. Mention should be given of current methods they use so that you don’t spend a week going down a path that won’t tell them how you will fit into the team.
Consultant32452 9y ago
I've never understood the point of asking people questions about any topic they haven't specifically said they know something about. If you say you wrote a class/method to query a db, I might ask you high level questions like what is the communications mechanism between your software and the database (looking for anything that means network: socket, tcp/ip, etc.). Then if the language is java I might try to get you to tell me about using the try/catch/finally structure and why you'd do that. Basically, I don't care if you can regurgitate facts, I just want to dig deep enough to be convinced that you actually accomplished what you said you'd accomplished.