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“What’s the number after F in hexadecimal?” My first reaction to this was: "Damn... where's my ASCII table?" Because this question can be taken two ways: "Wha
by kstenerud 7y ago
“What’s the number after F in hexadecimal?”
My first reaction to this was: "Damn... where's my ASCII table?"
Because this question can be taken two ways: "What comes after f in hexadecimal notation?" and "What is the UTF-8 code for 'G'?"
A very important thing to keep in mind for both sides in an interview is that misunderstandings will happen, for the most mundane and obvious things. How you respond to these will determine your success in interviewing. Give the benefit of the doubt until the other party has conclusively proven that they don't know what they're talking about.
- xwolfi 7y agoThat would be very weird to misunderstand this. I get it's stressful during interview, but "number" and "hexadecimal", as well as "F" all points exactly to 10, not 'G'. It cannot be taken two ways, but ofc you can slip meaning, associate ideas etc, and if you fall back on your feet and joke about it quickly, nobody will mind.
- kstenerud 7y agoI've had this happen quite a bit when investigating things, where I get the wrong idea from one step, and don't realize it until I've run with it for some time. This is a normal occurrence and we do it all the time. In an interview setting, with added stress of being watched and judged, the problem is magnified. In interviews, I'll always throw in comments to help clarify if it looks like they're going off the rails, because letting them run on an incorrect assumption is only going to diminish your ability to judge their abilities. We all make mistaken assumptions all the time, about everything. The person who made no bad assumptions in an interview just got lucky.