3 ms·
It's much more important to explain your thought process, work through the problem, and come up with any solution than it is to come up with the optimal solutio
by gundmc 8y ago
It's much more important to explain your thought process, work through the problem, and come up with any solution than it is to come up with the optimal solution in these interviews. I think that's what people who rail on standard coding interviews don't understand.
It's not about memorizing the answer to algorithm puzzles. In fact - if a candidate seems to know a problem by heart, that interviewer's feedback will often be discarded. It's about putting the candidate in a position where they have to think through a problem critically and seeing what trade-offs they make, what constraints they assume, and how they communicate their intent.
I have recommended hires for candidates who don't find the canonical solution many times.
- scaryclam 8y agoHave you recommended hires for people who didn't find any solution at all? If not, why not?
- violinist 8y ago(Also a Googler, not GP commenter. Speaking just for me.) Yes, I have. Generally this was a case where the candidate had a good grasp on an approach to the question by the end of the interview but wasn’t able to write it due to time constraints. I see interviews as a dialogue between me and the candidate where I give them hints in the right direction when required. Very few candidates require 0 hints.
- pathseeker 8y agoI've had coworkers at Google tell me that they've informed candidates verbatim "don't bother giving me the O(n^2) solution" right when they start to go down that path. Hard to get much more of their thought process when you shut them down immediately.