8 ms·

> Be honest if you've heard a question before Why so?

• MAGZine 4y ago
  If you waste your only evaluation period on a question obviously regurgitating an answer, interviewers notice and can't evaluate you fairly. If they just want to watch you program, they might still ask you to go ahead, at least you've put the ball in their court. If they think you weren't forthcoming, that might be an automatic rejection
  • linspace 4y ago
    > can't evaluate you fairly. What's the meaning of fair? Several people admit you need to prepare, and then it seems you should not prepare too much? It looks like a date.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• mattm 4y ago
  I can't reply to the sibling commenters but providing a contrarian opinion. I'm an interviewer and there's no way for me to tell who is just really good vs who has seen the exact question before. Telling the interviewer just gives them information that goes against you so I wouldn't recommend doing this.
  • ignoramous 4y ago
    I guess, it is okay telling your interviewer depending on your comfort level, as most never change the question regardless. That said (and as another commentator points out [0]), if an interviewer asks you call out questions you know of from before, then you most certainly should (unless you can sell the bluff...). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31067269 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31067269
  • kitd 4y ago
    Does honesty go against you in interviews these days? I'm getting old.
    • weatherlite 4y ago
      It does in this case yes, how would you see it as an advantage? You have to pass X number of algo/data structure, your being honest will only make them find a different question. If you get the different question wrong guess what you are out. It is what it is.
      • bornfreddy 4y ago
        If the hiring process is set to punish honesty, then maybe by being honest you avoid working at places with such a process and consequently with the people who passed it? Note that I'm not saying that FAANGs are like that (I have no opinion on that).
        • weatherlite 4y ago
          It's not punished but it's not massively rewarded either
      • kitd 4y ago
        how would you see it as an advantage? How would I see presenting myself as a trustworthy employee who won't pull the wool over your eyes? Pretty favourably tbh.
        • weatherlite 4y ago
          I am not denying honesty won't hurt, and probably would help you. But again, the interviewer is going to have to get a replacement question...you have a reduced chance of solving it correctly.
      • jawilson2 4y ago
        I have a question that I've been asking for years that is somewhat domain-specific, but should be answerable by anyone who knows what a set/map are. About 20% of people get past "stage 1" within 5 minutes, usually people with finance/trading experience, and some will say "oh, I implemented something just like this a few years ago." Some people take 30 minutes and do ok, and some never finish. When someone tells me they have had this problem before, I tell them it should be really easy for them then, and we can move on to more interesting things! For those that DO get past stage one, it is a boss with multiple health bars. We talk about what improvements could be made, then what improvements on THOSE improvements. We keep digging until we are out of ideas. The best candidates are the ones that stump me, or introduce new ideas. I present this problem as a pair problem solving challenge, so there is no one right answer, and has a lot of back and forth.
  • dmurray 4y ago
    I always prefer to say "I've seen a similar problem before, let's see if I can remember how to solve that" or "let's see if the same kind of approach works here". This is a balanced approach. It's honest: you probably haven't heard the exact question word for word, even if you can't recognize the differences. And it's actually what they're selecting for in the first place. They're not expecting you to invent the concept of a binary tree, or whatever, but to know it exists and how to implement it and to recognize where it might be the right concept to apply. I've never had any interviewer say "OK forget it, let me give you another question where you'll never have seen something similar".
  • zerr 4y ago
    There is no way for you to tell if someone is really good (as is) vs who has grinded leetcode since the process (which assumes prior preps) a priori discards the first group.
    • marssaxman 4y ago
      You assume that all successful applicants "grind leetcode". What makes you so certain?
      • zerr 4y ago
        Leetcode grinding is suggested as necessary by everyone, including recruiters (in-house or 3rd party), hiring managers, prospective colleagues. You can see comments from devs at FANGs even in this thread.
        • marssaxman 4y ago
          I understand that this is a common belief, but I don't agree that it is strictly true; it is contrary to my own experience, both as an applicant and as an interviewer.
          • zerr 4y ago
            Note that we are talking about a particular interview process which uses CP (Competitive Programming). This is common at FAG (Lets exclude Netflix since as I've heard they don't do it) and at companies that copycat the process. Of course, there are many other places that don't do it.
            • marssaxman 4y ago
              We are? What is "competitive programming", and where did it come into this thread? All I see upstream from your comment is a discussion of Google interviews and large tech company interviews generally. I don't recall anything particularly "competitive" when I interviewed at Google (or Facebook, or Microsoft, or...); they just had me solve problems, as usual.
  • sokoloff 4y ago
    I was thankfully asked (in the interview, not just assuming I’d been asked the Q before). Question was: write code to determine if the stack grows up or down. I’d been writing computer games for several years and smashed it (after telling the interviewer that it would be necessarily technically rely on undefined behavior) and the interviewer somewhat dismissively said “you should have told me someone else asked you this question” “What are you talking about? This is just an easy question.”
    • chrisseaton 4y ago
      I guess you’re screwed at that point as now they also think you’re a liar. No way out.
      • sokoloff 4y ago
        I got hired from that loop. Same guy challenged my failure to write ifdef include guards on my header file on the whiteboard. My answer of “oh, you’re right; I’ve configured emacs to automatically insert those, so I don’t have to think about it” seemed to more than satisfy him and we ended up being close as colleagues for several years.
    • mgkimsal 4y ago
      > “you should have told me someone else asked you this question” At what point do we end up saying "my current employer 'asked' me this question, because it's part of my day to day job..."? At some point you have some experience in certain areas that you just 'know', and it's not some sneaky "oh I crammed leetcode for 3 weeks!" tactic.
      • cwmoreiras 4y ago
        Yes, it seems to me that if interviewers are going to be annoyed about this then they should stop using leetcode and/or using generic interview questions.
      • throw1230 4y ago
        Red flag. People forget interviews are a two way street. You ask a Leetcode question, and then assume the candidate is lying without even asking "have you seen this question before?".
  • foobiekr 4y ago
    The whole leetcode approach to interviewing is basically 1. interviewers asking questions that they wouldn't be able to solve 2. interviewees pretending to solve on the spot things they've memorized 3. interviewers pretending to believe them
• roganartu 4y ago
  When you’re an interviewer and you’ve asked the same question enough (tens of time is plenty, really) you’ve seen it all and it’s really obvious when someone has seen the question before. People who haven’t seen the question before always stumble somewhere. There’s something they didn’t notice at first and need to account for, their solution is not structured optimally for the follow ups, they iterate over some possible solutions while thinking out loud to eliminate them etc. It’s honestly not that hard to tell when someone is pretending they haven’t seen it before.
  • naiwenwt 4y ago
    As an interviewer I find it easy to catch candidates who are regurgitating a memorized answer, but catching people who know the answer in-and-out is really hard. I've had the exact same experiences on the interviewing side of the table as well. I think interviewers tend to overestimate their ability to catch people who have seen the question before and miss on tons of candidates who are good at answering seen questions.
  • saagarjha 4y ago
    It's actually not all that hard to stumble on the question at predictable spots. My process for solving a question I've seen before and one that is new to me actually doesn't differ all that much: as several clarifying questions at the start to confirm I understand the problem, then write a quick-n'-dirty solution as fast as possible. In this first pass I usually don't pay too much attention to things like bounds, which you wouldn't memorize anyways even if you knew the solution. Then I run a pass to polish the solution up, present it, then think of edge cases and how I'd test the solution. The only real difference is that I very rarely pretend not to have seen a question (I have done it twice, both in situations where it was clear the interviewer was out of questions and running down a list of things from memory, and I just wanted to humor them). You'd think that I'd be more sure of myself when I actually know the answer, but when I don't actually know what I'm doing I will usually come to the answer as I ask those clarifying questions and start stating the facts that usually score "this person at least has the gist of the problem" points, like "oh this is a graph and we're doing something with distance, let's see if Dijkstra is the right thing to apply".
• gigatexal 4y ago
  I don’t work at a FAANG but I hope to one day. But I do interview for Data Engineering roles from time to time for my and other teams. I think by saying you’ve seen this problem before it shows honesty. It shows character. Those are points that, at least for me, are positives and I like to hear it. I’ll still go ahead with the question just to make sure but if something typically takes 30 mins and you finish in 10 then I’ll move on to a different question to fill the gap.
• aneeshnl 4y ago
  Interviewer here. When a programmer goes through a question fast and jumps right into the solution, there is two possibilities. One is candidate already knows the question. Two is candidate is exceptional programmer. If the other part of the interview doesn't match up to this, then we will assume the first case. I definitely place candidates who are being honest upfront above others. They will be reliable and trustworthy, which is important quality for programmers.
  • bg24 4y ago
    First principle that every interview guide teaches you is to take time to understand the questions. A candidate who has spent months preparing for a FAANG interview will highly unlikely rush into answering a question, even if they have seen the question before. One reason for folks to jump right into the solution is the interview anxiety - which is both due to lack of practice and trying to compare oneself to folks preparing for months ahead of interviews.
• Bahamut 4y ago
  As someone who has done a lot of interviewing from the interviewer side at my current FAANG, it's usually obvious when someone has seen the question before - in the debriefs, the candidates who were honest have it noted out loud to the debrief panel & it makes them look good due to integrity, and those who were dishonest also get it noted as a significant negative. Perhaps I evaluate differently than a lot of interviewers, but I'm primarily interested in figuring out if a candidate has the traits/skills that I'm looking for in a potential coworker - for us, the traits matter more than the skills even.
  • weatherlite 4y ago
    It's better to fake having not seen it than failing an unseen before question. No amount of honesty points will save you from failing a question. Sure if you are good enough that you pass unseen questions regularly go with honesty. If you are not, better to fake it. If FAANGs have problems with candidates knowing the questions maybe they should think of different interviews?
    • Bahamut 4y ago
      My coding question I give (in the occasion I am called upon to ask one to candidates) typically is not particularly unique, but practical - if someone wants to study for it, it doesn't really give them a notable edge given all the possible branching questions. The most notable tell if people did see the question prior though is if they jump right into talking about the problem without asking qualifying questions, implying that they are quite familiar with the problem & don't need me to qualify it & don't think to verify scenarios with me. For my non-coding problems, I just create it from scratch depending on the position/needs & spend a bit of time navigating the scenario myself and store the question in my notes. As to failing a question, failing a single question isn't necessarily a deal breaker in itself - it's showing a pattern of not meeting the bar that is. I may rate someone a 2 out of 4 if they didn't go into sufficient depth in a particular question I asked, but I probably won't stay in the way of hiring them if they did ok otherwise and that failure was just an aberration. Loss of integrity is perception that is likely to sour people on any upside of hiring though, and overcoming that bar is incredibly difficult - if someone is clearly rehearsed on a particular question and is dishonest about it, they're probably not getting a 3 or 4.
• randomswede 4y ago
  If this is the first time, at the same company, it (probably) does not matter, that much. When I was an interviewer for a (second) technical phone interview at Google, one candidate performed pretty bad at one question. Later that week, or maybe the following week, that very interview was in the pre-HC meeting and one of the other pHC members pointed out that I had repeated a question from the first phone interview. At which point I pointed out that I had not been provided a list of previously asked questions, the candidate had not highlighted it, and the candidate's response was still sub-par. Not mentioning the repeat counts against character and responsibility. Not performing better at a repeat question a week later counts against competence. That was an easy "let's not bring this candidate on-site" decision.