3 ms·

If I were presented with the 'fizzbuzz' test on a job interview I'd walk out. I would really hate to work in a place that had such a ridiculously low bar to en

• michael_fine 14y ago
  The point of Fizzbuzz is to save time and money weeding out the clear incompetents so you don't have to take time to interview them later.
• fruchtose 14y ago
  Really? That's a pretty knee-jerk reaction. A lot of companies will ask multiple technical questions. If a candidate has sweet talked his way into the building for an interview without possessing real skills, then a fizzbuzz test will weed out those people in a few minutes. A serious coder could whip up an answer almost instantly. Perhaps the last guy the hiring manager saw that day turned out to be a dud? He might feel an itch to make sure you're not of the same cloth.
• geofft 14y ago
  I don't think FizzBuzz is intended to be an actual interview question so much as a thought experiment.
• cynicalkane 14y ago
  If I were presented with such a display while holding an interview, I would say, sayonara. I would really hate to work with someone that had such a ridiculously high bar that they would consider that invalidating the entire interview. But I have this odd suspicion that, in real life, you wouldn't actually walk out.
• svec 14y ago
  If that's the hardest question they ask you, then maybe you're right to leave. You're at least right not to take the job in that case. Actually leaving is a bit harsh, though, since you don't know why they're asking the question. And you're definitely burning a bridge, which is probably a bad idea. Why don't you ask the interviewer why they're using that question - after you answer it correctly and quickly? That will get you more insight into the company or at least the interviewer. I sometimes use questions like that very early in an interview to make sure candidates didn't fake their way through the phone screen to get to the on-site interview. People who can't do the simple stuff do sometimes slip through. I'm not trying to insult the intelligence or skills of the candidate, I'm just trying to see if they can pass that low bar before getting to the interesting questions.
• potatolicious 14y ago
  You misunderstand the demographic of people who apply to programming jobs. The vast majority (in my experience, 80%+) have no business writing code at any level. We're not talking about bad programmers here, we're talking about people who cannot program, full stop. I can deal with "I'm not nearly as good as I say I am", I cannot deal with "What's an if statement?", but yet the majority of applicants at most large software firms are like this. If you are a competent dev, FizzBuzz isn't designed to trap you, it's designed to trap someone far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far less competent than you. Just jump through this hoop and we can start the real interview. You also make the mistake that FizzBuzz is the whole interview. It isn't. I've run many highly rigorous interviews, FizzBuzz is just the bar for me to talk to you past the 5 minute mark. What I still don't get is how these people even exist. It's like showing up to an accountant's interview with a box of crayons and a bib. It's disturbing.