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As someone who is soon to graduate in CS from an university, these seemingly reoccurring stories of terrible interviews really scare me. Is it normal fo

by _Donny 8y ago

As someone who is soon to graduate in CS from an university, these seemingly reoccurring stories of terrible interviews really scare me. Is it normal for the interviewing process to take up all the candidates day? Is it always expected to spend 3 weeks brushing up on algorithms for an interview? How important are the coding interviews in the decision process? I consider myself a decent programmer, and I have passed and even enjoyed all the algorithmics courses at my university. However, asking me to implement, lets say, the Minimum Cut algorithm on a whiteboard in front of multiple interviewers, would totally break me down. From my limited professional experience, the average day of a developer is the exact opposite of what you have to display at these interviews I read about. When I code, I need my silence and time to think, I need a relaxing and comfortable environment, I need the internet, man-pages, StackOverflow, IRC. I need my own notepad on which I can doodle, and occasionally write down notes for later. I need room to make and learn from my mistakes. And last but not least, I will have bad days where I might underperform. Interviews seem to be the exact opposite of all this.

tested243 8y ago
>Is it normal for the interviewing process to take up all the candidates day? Is it always expected to spend 3 weeks brushing up on algorithms for an interview? Yes and yes. If you want to work at the best companies with the best engineers and the best workplace culture with the best compensation yes. I even think it’s worth it. Unfortunately having this strict interview style doesn’t guarantee any of the above it is just a prerequisite. > How important are the coding interviews in the decision process? I consider myself a decent programmer, and I have passed and even enjoyed all the algorithmics courses at my university. However, asking me to implement, lets say, the Minimum Cut algorithm on a whiteboard in front of multiple interviewers, would totally break me down. It’s important. 90% of the problems are search problems ie bfs and dfs. Sometimes they are a little more difficult. If you are interested in preparing and studying like crazy I suggest you go to hacker rank, solve the problems in order in python. Look at the solutions when you finish and study the user submitted solutions. They typically take advantage of built in data structures that can make life interviewing very easy
kshacker 8y ago
As someone who has been reading the comments and laughing, let me explain how it works where we are You need a panel of 8 to interview a candidate. One of the 8 must be the hiring manager, but sometimes that does not happen (very rare) so hiring manager interviews on a separate day. 8 people are split into 4 panels of 2 each, and within each panel each interviewer gets 1/2 hours (need not be exact), they want the other person to observe and provide independent feedback when the 1st person is interviewing in a panel. Now that's just the background. Now does the hiring team have 8 people? Maybe not. Then what do you do? Get people from other groups. Even if hiring team has 8 people, are they all available? Maybe not. Again, get people from other groups. Based on the people who are available, do they have prior experience of interviewing? [ I would consider prior experience valid if they have conducted at least half a dozen interviews. ] Well, maybe not. Do they all work in the same technology area? Maybe not. Then once the interview scheduled is laid out, usually 2-3 days in advance, you have a production breakdown issue and you can not attend. Or you are sick or working from home due to an emergency. Or there is some other conflict you can't get out of. So you find substitutes. Do those work as well? Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. We would have done some prep in terms of which individual will focus on what area of expertise, but when you get last minute substitute, oh well how do you manage that. Now all this is real life. People have priorities, people have life and while an interview is important, dealing with family sickness and production breakdowns is equally important. Shit happens. We / teams of course do their best to work around this, but does it happen all the time. Well, maybe not, but then what is the alternative once you have signed on the corporate / department mandate of 8 people : 4 hours interview mandate. It is usually a bunch of people trying to do their best, and sometimes the best is really bad for the candidate, but not usually. Finally the 7 people in the panel dont have a 100% stake in the process, the hiring manager does, and he/she needs to make the best judgement based on all the feedback that comes through and if there are sufficient warning signs (2-3 people not happy with the candidate), they just move on as they do not want to take a 'brave' decision and be provided wrong later. I would say dont worry about the process, it is shitty, but just understand how it works and play your role. The process is the same for everyone, and it is sometimes a game of odds, the odds are low to start with, but the game of odds means that sometimes you come out lucky too.

by _Donny 8y ago

tested243 8y ago

>Is it normal for the interviewing process to take up all the candidates day? Is it always expected to spend 3 weeks brushing up on algorithms for an interview? Yes and yes. If you want to work at the best companies with the best engineers and the best workplace culture with the best compensation yes. I even think it’s worth it. Unfortunately having this strict interview style doesn’t guarantee any of the above it is just a prerequisite. > How important are the coding interviews in the decision process? I consider myself a decent programmer, and I have passed and even enjoyed all the algorithmics courses at my university. However, asking me to implement, lets say, the Minimum Cut algorithm on a whiteboard in front of multiple interviewers, would totally break me down. It’s important. 90% of the problems are search problems ie bfs and dfs. Sometimes they are a little more difficult. If you are interested in preparing and studying like crazy I suggest you go to hacker rank, solve the problems in order in python. Look at the solutions when you finish and study the user submitted solutions. They typically take advantage of built in data structures that can make life interviewing very easy

kshacker 8y ago

As someone who has been reading the comments and laughing, let me explain how it works where we are You need a panel of 8 to interview a candidate. One of the 8 must be the hiring manager, but sometimes that does not happen (very rare) so hiring manager interviews on a separate day. 8 people are split into 4 panels of 2 each, and within each panel each interviewer gets 1/2 hours (need not be exact), they want the other person to observe and provide independent feedback when the 1st person is interviewing in a panel. Now that's just the background. Now does the hiring team have 8 people? Maybe not. Then what do you do? Get people from other groups. Even if hiring team has 8 people, are they all available? Maybe not. Again, get people from other groups. Based on the people who are available, do they have prior experience of interviewing? [ I would consider prior experience valid if they have conducted at least half a dozen interviews. ] Well, maybe not. Do they all work in the same technology area? Maybe not. Then once the interview scheduled is laid out, usually 2-3 days in advance, you have a production breakdown issue and you can not attend. Or you are sick or working from home due to an emergency. Or there is some other conflict you can't get out of. So you find substitutes. Do those work as well? Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. We would have done some prep in terms of which individual will focus on what area of expertise, but when you get last minute substitute, oh well how do you manage that. Now all this is real life. People have priorities, people have life and while an interview is important, dealing with family sickness and production breakdowns is equally important. Shit happens. We / teams of course do their best to work around this, but does it happen all the time. Well, maybe not, but then what is the alternative once you have signed on the corporate / department mandate of 8 people : 4 hours interview mandate. It is usually a bunch of people trying to do their best, and sometimes the best is really bad for the candidate, but not usually. Finally the 7 people in the panel dont have a 100% stake in the process, the hiring manager does, and he/she needs to make the best judgement based on all the feedback that comes through and if there are sufficient warning signs (2-3 people not happy with the candidate), they just move on as they do not want to take a 'brave' decision and be provided wrong later. I would say dont worry about the process, it is shitty, but just understand how it works and play your role. The process is the same for everyone, and it is sometimes a game of odds, the odds are low to start with, but the game of odds means that sometimes you come out lucky too.