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I also want an answer to this. Being a top CS student at a top CS school does not mean that you are naturally good at technical interviews. I'm not saying tech

I also want an answer to this. Being a top CS student at a top CS school does not mean that you are naturally good at technical interviews. I'm not saying technical interviews are good or bad. I just think it's a different skill from what a student generally learns.

ghench 9y ago
Thanks for making this point.
dbcurtis 9y ago
Indeed. Being an MIT dad, I know a few course 6 undergrads. Bright kids get social axiety, too. And can brain-freeze at inappropriate times. And may be better in a quiet, thoughtful problem-solving mode than the kind of TV quiz show that modern interviewing has become. I just don't get the modern interview process. Why are we looking for lint in human form? I'd rather see someone sketch some psuedo-code for an interesting problem with several acceptable solutions. I think I learn more by asking a fuzzy, underspecified problem question and seeing what clarifying questions I get back. I want to know if the person can wring a spec out of a customer - coding it up with all the semicolons in the right place is the easy part.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  In antoher comment on this discussion : >> Most people I knew at MIT had a full time offer they were happy with from their Junior year internship by their senior year. This leads me to think that top-universities student are already "chosen/watched" by companies before the recruitment phase so both companies and student are much more confident they can work together. So basically, top companies just recruit people the best way : by looking at students while they are still student. Which is fine, except the top universities are, I guess, the most expensive ones. But if that is true too, then that's another bias : companies have rich employees, so they hire people with the same set of personal values...
thedufer 9y ago
> Being a top CS student at a top CS school does not mean that you are naturally good at technical interviews. Not necessarily, of course, but it'd be pretty surprising if it didn't trend in that direction.

ghench 9y ago

Thanks for making this point.

dbcurtis 9y ago

Indeed. Being an MIT dad, I know a few course 6 undergrads. Bright kids get social axiety, too. And can brain-freeze at inappropriate times. And may be better in a quiet, thoughtful problem-solving mode than the kind of TV quiz show that modern interviewing has become. I just don't get the modern interview process. Why are we looking for lint in human form? I'd rather see someone sketch some psuedo-code for an interesting problem with several acceptable solutions. I think I learn more by asking a fuzzy, underspecified problem question and seeing what clarifying questions I get back. I want to know if the person can wring a spec out of a customer - coding it up with all the semicolons in the right place is the easy part.

wiz21c 9y ago
In antoher comment on this discussion : >> Most people I knew at MIT had a full time offer they were happy with from their Junior year internship by their senior year. This leads me to think that top-universities student are already "chosen/watched" by companies before the recruitment phase so both companies and student are much more confident they can work together. So basically, top companies just recruit people the best way : by looking at students while they are still student. Which is fine, except the top universities are, I guess, the most expensive ones. But if that is true too, then that's another bias : companies have rich employees, so they hire people with the same set of personal values...

thedufer 9y ago

> Being a top CS student at a top CS school does not mean that you are naturally good at technical interviews. Not necessarily, of course, but it'd be pretty surprising if it didn't trend in that direction.