2 ms·
"your assumptions of "things everybody knows"" The fact that not everyone knows the same things is the whole point! And if you don't have any knowledge that is
by perl4ever 7y ago
"your assumptions of "things everybody knows""
The fact that not everyone knows the same things is the whole point! And if you don't have any knowledge that is related to the interviewer's, then how are they going to evaluate you using any method?
But sure, there are specific, inflexible requirements. You have to know false precision is BS, and I have no sympathy for people who have a problem with that. You have to in general, know what you know and what you don't.
- p_l 7y agoNote that I mentioned asking interviewee for estimates related to the job - that is an understandable assumption, as the question touches on knowledge and experience that is a priori known to be relevant. OTOH, especially if you're interviewing internationally, using "common knowledge" instead of job/technology area related one? Pretty much a fail, helped along with books dedicated to memorising bullshit questions. Another issue is that the typical "fermi problem" is stated in absolute, precision way. Ask "how would you estimate X" and you'd probably get good answers even from people who don't memorize interview gotchas.
- perl4ever 7y agoI have no idea how it may in practice be done badly, because I've never encountered it personally. But I suspect the reason people widely hate the concept is because schooling pounds into you that there is only one way to get the right answer, and it must be exact. And so when people complain about being tested on trivia, what they really mean is "I want to be tested on trivia that I know". I would actually like to be evaluated based on something other than knowing trivia, but of course I would not like to take a stupidly constructed test.