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You can interpret the response more broadly, though. In this case, it was probably pretty apparent that the person hadn't worked through the problem before, so
by pseut 14y ago
You can interpret the response more broadly, though. In this case, it was probably pretty apparent that the person hadn't worked through the problem before, so it is indicative of problem-solving and attitude. If he'd recited the answer from memory that usually comes across and then you have to pick something from a different area. If, as an interviewer, you literally can't find a problem that the interviewee hasn't already thought about, (i.e., he or she knows about computational biology, astrophysics, information theory, etc and none of this was obvious from their resume and previous positions) that can also be a good sign.
- achompas 14y agoIt's easy to game your answer as an interviewee though. HN actually had a post a while back about someone who "interviewed" for a living while on unemployment; by the time he was done, he had mastered pretending to think deeply about the answer to any interviewing question.
- pseut 14y agoIt's possible, but I doubt it's easy. I assume that the "mastery" of thinking deeply about answering interview questions was self-reported, right? I'd be curious to know how many of the interviewers would agree with him about it. This is something that's pretty easy to test out in practice interviews with friends. My experience is that it's a lot easier to come up with questions that require thought and insight to answer than it is to answer them.