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When was that? In 2008, the candidates who were good at leet code kind of questions were generally unusually smart and skilled: nobody at the time was grinding
by xyzzyz 4y ago
When was that? In 2008, the candidates who were good at leet code kind of questions were generally unusually smart and skilled: nobody at the time was grinding these problems to prepare, so people who could offhandedly solve them without any special preparation were extraordinary. Now, 10-15 years later, everyone is grinding Leetcode, and as a result, being good at it is not indicative of all that much. When a measure becomes the goal, it often ceases to become a good measure.
- zeroonetwothree 4y agoI interviewed in 2007-2009 and there was a lot of preparation as well. It wasn't as widespread as later, but anyone that did 'programming contest' style problems had a huge advantage at interviews. I had something like an 80% offer rate because of this. Ironically I didn't actually get a Google offer though (not sure why, I did solve the problems).
- greenwhite 4y agoNobody was literally solving them offhand in the sense that they had no background in algorithmic problem solving. Those who didn't explicitly "prepare" were the people who liked competition programming and solving these problems for fun in their spare time. Though I'd agree those candidates were probably better quality on average than those who just grind problems solely for the interview