3 ms·

That's true, you can get unlucky with interviewers.

• jonathankoren 5y ago
  The quality of the interviewer is one thing that the interviewee can’t control. The main interviewer failures are: 1) Letting the interviewer struggle. By the end of the interview, the candidate should know what the solution looks like, even if they couldn’t solve the problem themselves. If you let someone struggle too long, you’re failing them. Give feedback early. Point out caveats. Don’t have them code up a dumb a solution, and then in the last 10 minutes tell them to redo it with a completely different approach because it’s suboptimal. (Im not talking about special cars they can retrofit, or if the original wrong solution was trivial. Use your judgement.) The interviewer understands the nuances of the problem. The candidate probably doesn’t. After all, they just heard problem. 2) DO NOT CONFUSE THEM! This happens by giving the wrong feedback. You might think you’re helping someone, but you could be knocking them off their game. If they’re going for the optimal solution, and they know the approach, just let them. It’s not wrong, I’m fact it’s the most correct answer. It’s very easy to confuse someone in these timed and stressful situations. Don’t don’t do it! 3) If it’s a design question, or something else with multiple reasonable answers, then there are multiple correct answers. Make them state their assumptions. Ask how the solution would change if something was different. Don’t expect someone to come in off the street and understand the nuances of your use case and data issues. You didn’t understand them until you were confronted with the obstacles either.