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I personally would quite like an interview where I work with the interviewer to solve a problem or puzzle that he himself has not solved--as opposed to the trad
by nilkn 14y ago
I personally would quite like an interview where I work with the interviewer to solve a problem or puzzle that he himself has not solved--as opposed to the traditional setup where the interviewer acts as the all-knowing oracle who happens to withhold the solution to this one problem. This could be difficult to set up on a regular basis, though.
I actually had an interview somewhat like that recently. The team was about to start working on a new feature for their software. We had a sort of round table discussion of the feature and how to go about it. They actually didn't have me write any code at all. We just discussed approaches to the problem, algorithms, architecture design, potential problems, etc.
Another place had a pretty cool interview process. They were going to give me a take-home project with a week to work on it and pay me market rate for it (in the form of an Amazon gift card for a few hundred bucks). I didn't end up doing it, though, as I took another offer right before they gave me the project, so I voluntarily withdrew. Still, I think it was an interesting and worthwhile idea.
- k__ 14y agoI don't like this puzzle idea at all. I mean, what puzzles can I give a recuiter to test things relevant to me?
- nilkn 14y agoI'm not a fan of puzzle interviews at all either, and I agree that they're usually not very relevant except as a sort of specialized intelligence test which may or may not really be indicative of job performance. That said, working with the interviewer on something neither of you have solved does sound more enjoyable, interesting, and informative for both of us than having the interviewer sit behind a facade of perfect technical knowledge. At least that way you'd get to experience some sort of teamwork with the person, whom you'd presumably be working with. I've heard of places having a candidate sit down and do some pair programming with one of the developers. That seems like a similar approach which emphasizes concrete development and coding over algorithms or puzzles.
- ecspike 14y agoI think all take-home projects should pay market rate.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- recursive 14y agoI suppose that cuts you out of the applicant pool for those positions then.