3 ms·

You can be an excellent coder and suck at interviews. This post has nothing to do with hard skills about algorithms, and everything to do with how you present y

You can be an excellent coder and suck at interviews. This post has nothing to do with hard skills about algorithms, and everything to do with how you present your work. A lot of good coders might miss out on jobs they want because this is an unusual situation they werent prepared for.

Zenst 14y ago
A very fair point about talent at doing a job and talent at explaining the job in interviews. The term interview technique is like exam technique and in that is something that abstracts from doing the actual job. Unless that job entails interviewing people. With that this is probably a better read. Alot of people who fall into the boat of being good coders with social skills of dead fish often have a hard time. One appraoch is to create some wonderous application and get broaght out, recruitment that way. Or in the process, end up refining there social skills to the stage that not only can they interview ok but are running there own company. Coding interviews should be done via a shared terminal/IDE screen and chat windows, that approach would be more realistic to some. But I'm one of those people who don't socialise too well at times, interviews/exams, that type of thing.
pacaro 14y ago
I've interviewed a lot of people (at Microsoft). I don't claim to be good at it, I think that I do OK, but that's why one interviewers opinion should never be the be all. I've definitely encountered people who were clearly good, and equally clearly sucked at interviewing, as an interviewer I had to ask myself the question "why?" I encountered the following cases (among others)... The ill-prepared - This may come down to background, some candidates didn't seem to know that they should prepare for an interview - this can be excusable, but in a world where advice about this is one web-search away is increasingly tough. Usually (but not always) this is a barrier to recommending hire. The chronically nervous - This is always at least 50% my fault. I believe in asymmetric responsibility, as the person with more "power" in the situation, I feel part of my job is to help a candidate past their nerves; if this means my interview is entirely spent putting them at their ease to (potentially) do better with the next person in line, so be it. This has rarely been a barrier to recommending a hire. The arrogant - "I can't believe you asked me such a demeaning coding question when I'm applying for a senior role, clearly my resume tells you all you need to know about my coding chops" - sorry, if I can't pierce this, no hire. The inarticulate - often in this case the code speaks, even if the candidate can't, I usually associate this with nerves, sometimes it is language issues, sometimes stress sensitive speech impediments. I'm pretty sympathetic to this if the code speaks, but communication is part of the role so this is always a judgement call. Can't code on a whiteboard - I'm inclined to call this ill-prepared, you should expect to have to do this coming into the interview, but I do get that this is equivalent and opposite from "inarticulate" - I will take a coherent and detailed description of a solution as being nearly as good as the whiteboard code, but there is a bottom line, you have to be able to show me your ability - sometimes one really insightful question or observation is all that it takes...
- seiko55 14y ago
  ok, one question: certainly you guys are great coders to be in working in these companies, but is every single person there for sure going to give the best possible answer to these questions every single time if asked? Thanks
  - pacaro 14y ago
    In a word: No. Internal interviews can be a real eye-opener.
- theorique 14y ago
  In more recent interviews, companies I've worked at have had the candidate sit at a laptop and essentially pair program with the interviewer. This avoids avoid that artificial write code as fast as you can with a whiteboard marker situation. Granted, it's not their regular dev setup and it's probably an unfamiliar keyboard and trackpad, but it seems to be better than the alternative.
  - what_ever 14y ago
    I interviewed with one of the company where the first two screening round consisted of pair programming (in person, on university campus) on my own laptop. I think that was the best way to conduct interviews. Much better than the phone screens.
- mech4bg 14y ago
  As an interviewer, it always surprised me how little people would prepare for an interview. For every interview I have done as an interviewee I have studied what I am likely to be asked, what their interview technique is, boned up on the language(s) in question, and tried to think of some interesting questions to ask the interviewer (the last one also includes learning as much as I can about the company and its history). I think these are the basics any interviewee should do - that's just the bare minimum for the big guys. For Google I was pulling out dusty old CS books and revising CS theory and that was still just barely enough preparation. Meanwhile I've given interviews for a C++ position where the candidate hasn't even had a quick brush up on C++ recently. I've had candidates who do C++ as their JOB and not know how to initialize memory, someone describe "polyformic" behavior, and had a good 75% not know at all how virtual functions work. It blows me away.

Zenst 14y ago

A very fair point about talent at doing a job and talent at explaining the job in interviews. The term interview technique is like exam technique and in that is something that abstracts from doing the actual job. Unless that job entails interviewing people. With that this is probably a better read. Alot of people who fall into the boat of being good coders with social skills of dead fish often have a hard time. One appraoch is to create some wonderous application and get broaght out, recruitment that way. Or in the process, end up refining there social skills to the stage that not only can they interview ok but are running there own company. Coding interviews should be done via a shared terminal/IDE screen and chat windows, that approach would be more realistic to some. But I'm one of those people who don't socialise too well at times, interviews/exams, that type of thing.

pacaro 14y ago

I've interviewed a lot of people (at Microsoft). I don't claim to be good at it, I think that I do OK, but that's why one interviewers opinion should never be the be all. I've definitely encountered people who were clearly good, and equally clearly sucked at interviewing, as an interviewer I had to ask myself the question "why?" I encountered the following cases (among others)... The ill-prepared - This may come down to background, some candidates didn't seem to know that they should prepare for an interview - this can be excusable, but in a world where advice about this is one web-search away is increasingly tough. Usually (but not always) this is a barrier to recommending hire. The chronically nervous - This is always at least 50% my fault. I believe in asymmetric responsibility, as the person with more "power" in the situation, I feel part of my job is to help a candidate past their nerves; if this means my interview is entirely spent putting them at their ease to (potentially) do better with the next person in line, so be it. This has rarely been a barrier to recommending a hire. The arrogant - "I can't believe you asked me such a demeaning coding question when I'm applying for a senior role, clearly my resume tells you all you need to know about my coding chops" - sorry, if I can't pierce this, no hire. The inarticulate - often in this case the code speaks, even if the candidate can't, I usually associate this with nerves, sometimes it is language issues, sometimes stress sensitive speech impediments. I'm pretty sympathetic to this if the code speaks, but communication is part of the role so this is always a judgement call. Can't code on a whiteboard - I'm inclined to call this ill-prepared, you should expect to have to do this coming into the interview, but I do get that this is equivalent and opposite from "inarticulate" - I will take a coherent and detailed description of a solution as being nearly as good as the whiteboard code, but there is a bottom line, you have to be able to show me your ability - sometimes one really insightful question or observation is all that it takes...

seiko55 14y ago
ok, one question: certainly you guys are great coders to be in working in these companies, but is every single person there for sure going to give the best possible answer to these questions every single time if asked? Thanks
- pacaro 14y ago
  In a word: No. Internal interviews can be a real eye-opener.
theorique 14y ago
In more recent interviews, companies I've worked at have had the candidate sit at a laptop and essentially pair program with the interviewer. This avoids avoid that artificial write code as fast as you can with a whiteboard marker situation. Granted, it's not their regular dev setup and it's probably an unfamiliar keyboard and trackpad, but it seems to be better than the alternative.
- what_ever 14y ago
  I interviewed with one of the company where the first two screening round consisted of pair programming (in person, on university campus) on my own laptop. I think that was the best way to conduct interviews. Much better than the phone screens.
mech4bg 14y ago
As an interviewer, it always surprised me how little people would prepare for an interview. For every interview I have done as an interviewee I have studied what I am likely to be asked, what their interview technique is, boned up on the language(s) in question, and tried to think of some interesting questions to ask the interviewer (the last one also includes learning as much as I can about the company and its history). I think these are the basics any interviewee should do - that's just the bare minimum for the big guys. For Google I was pulling out dusty old CS books and revising CS theory and that was still just barely enough preparation. Meanwhile I've given interviews for a C++ position where the candidate hasn't even had a quick brush up on C++ recently. I've had candidates who do C++ as their JOB and not know how to initialize memory, someone describe "polyformic" behavior, and had a good 75% not know at all how virtual functions work. It blows me away.