4 ms·

My experience of those interviews that ask CS or “puzzle” questions is that they are sincerely trying to determine that you are capable of dealing with inherent

My experience of those interviews that ask CS or “puzzle” questions is that they are sincerely trying to determine that you are capable of dealing with inherently novel/theoretic problems or problems you've never seen before. Unfortunately this notion is misguided because the problems aren't real problems, and the context in which the problems are solved is entirely different to what it would be in the actual workplace. As someone who cripples under observation (sort of like how hearing a siren takes up 50% of your brain power, the pressure of being observed does similar to me), I am simply incapable of performing in those types of interviews, despite being competent for the job. I once crumbled so badly that I couldn't do simple arithmetic, and the interviewers tried to “break things down” for me and continue despite my obvious state of stress. I resent those interviews sorely, and will avoid interviews in the future if I find out ahead of time that they involve approaches like this.

VLM 13y ago
"inherently novel/theoretic problems or problems you've never seen before" Some companies have a mythology that every job in their company is like that, even if the actual job being interviewed for is the opposite. Hardly limited to megacorp CA tech companies. No different than a boring old bank requiring janitor interview candidates to wear a suit and tie.
purplelobster 13y ago
You're not alone. Although it's never been as bad as not being able to do arithmetic, I can't seem to get a job doing those kinds of interviews. I was close once at Microsoft, after having done 8 hours of coding and linear algebra and other math (that I wasn't expecting) without a slip up, and what I thought was pretty great performance, but alas that wasn't enough either. Most of the time I freeze up and can't think in those situations though, I don't know how I pulled the strength to get through that interview. In the process, due to stress, I developed a huge canker sore in my mouth where there's still a scar. Interviewers dropping hints just makes it worse, it's not that I need hints, it's that I can't THINK when you're sitting there judging my performance, while having to keep explaining my thought process out aloud. Some people are just not built for that.
- y2kenny 13y ago
  It's great to see comments like this. I thought I was alone. The jobs I have gotten so far is either behavioural only, talk about past projects, or written technical (they give you some questions on paper and then leave you alone for an hour.)
coldpie 13y ago
> capable of dealing with inherently novel/theoretic problems or problems you've never seen before To be fair, these were "Data Structures 101" type questions. One was literally design a graph structure and write a deep-copy procedure, and that's it. Not exactly "novel." Since I haven't done these in ages, and didn't even pay that much attention when I had the class, I did badly. Another was a simple string manipulation question that I bombed because I was already stressed out from failing the first so badly, similar to your situation.

VLM 13y ago

"inherently novel/theoretic problems or problems you've never seen before" Some companies have a mythology that every job in their company is like that, even if the actual job being interviewed for is the opposite. Hardly limited to megacorp CA tech companies. No different than a boring old bank requiring janitor interview candidates to wear a suit and tie.

purplelobster 13y ago

You're not alone. Although it's never been as bad as not being able to do arithmetic, I can't seem to get a job doing those kinds of interviews. I was close once at Microsoft, after having done 8 hours of coding and linear algebra and other math (that I wasn't expecting) without a slip up, and what I thought was pretty great performance, but alas that wasn't enough either. Most of the time I freeze up and can't think in those situations though, I don't know how I pulled the strength to get through that interview. In the process, due to stress, I developed a huge canker sore in my mouth where there's still a scar. Interviewers dropping hints just makes it worse, it's not that I need hints, it's that I can't THINK when you're sitting there judging my performance, while having to keep explaining my thought process out aloud. Some people are just not built for that.

y2kenny 13y ago
It's great to see comments like this. I thought I was alone. The jobs I have gotten so far is either behavioural only, talk about past projects, or written technical (they give you some questions on paper and then leave you alone for an hour.)

coldpie 13y ago

> capable of dealing with inherently novel/theoretic problems or problems you've never seen before To be fair, these were "Data Structures 101" type questions. One was literally design a graph structure and write a deep-copy procedure, and that's it. Not exactly "novel." Since I haven't done these in ages, and didn't even pay that much attention when I had the class, I did badly. Another was a simple string manipulation question that I bombed because I was already stressed out from failing the first so badly, similar to your situation.