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"you should try to find out if any of these failed candidates are actually skilled developers but there's something about the questions or interview that's mess

"you should try to find out if any of these failed candidates are actually skilled developers but there's something about the questions or interview that's messing them up? hard to think of a halfway competent developer failing to answer "where I ask them to implement a simple function, implement a recursive function, write a simple SQL select (join across two tables), and create a simple object model (how would you represent a car as an object)." in about a minute or so all told, even verbally, over the phone. "YouTube phone interview because they asked me to "say" a function for finding the longest common subsequence of a set of strings." This is (ever so slightly) different from OP's ultra simple questions above , but otoh , YouTube has a lot of tough algorithmic problems to solve. I am not sure what position you interviewed for, but the question itself sounds decent for a position that could involve algorithms and searching and so on. Now if the interview were for a job involving "code up a basic enterprise app" I can see how it could be inappropriate. All that said, I am not a fan of extended phone interviews , but asking very basic questions (as the OP seems to have done) eliminates a surprisingly large number of looks-good-on-paper-but-can't-code-for-nuts type "programmers". The key to not getting depressed is not to waste any time on people who can't answer ultra basic questions. If in 30 seconds you feel someone is too incompetent, shut the conversation down politely. Spending long periods of time with incompetents is depressing. One solution is to send a (moderately complex) programming problem by email and ask them to send code back. This will weed out a lot of people without wasting your time.

pj 17y ago
I agree. The questions the OP asked are all very easy. It'd be easy to describe a function to find the longest common subsequence of a set of strings as well. The reason such a question is asked is because it isn't something that we do everyday and how we solve problems that we don't immediately know how to solve is what sets good programmers apart from bad programmers. I find anyone who immediately blames the environment for their lack of ability to answer the questions correctly to be suspect. These types of complainers are externally motivated and will never accept fault for their lack of capabilities. "You should have asked me in a different way." or "I need to be taught differently" or "There's too much pressure"... look, you can come up with whatever excuses you want, but the fact is, you can't solve the problem and what we are looking for is someone who can solve problems. Case closed.
- lutorm 17y ago
  Case appealed. There are definitely people who are capable of solving problems but whose performance drops appreciably under pressure. Now, you may not want to hire those people, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with external motivation or making excuses, and you can keep your contempt for yourself.
  - pj 17y ago
    As an employer, I want employees who can solve problems whether they are under pressure or not. You really want an employee working for you, or even a team member in your group who can't work under pressure when your site is down and they are the only one who can fix it? If you can't work under pressure, you can't work. Or maybe you can work, but I'd rather work with someone who can work under pressure or who can't. That's my point. And I believe it has a lot to do with external motivation. I apologize for the contempt. Appeal denied.
    - sokoloff 17y ago
      Under pressure and "in a strange environment" are two different things. You could put interview candidates in SCUBA gear and take them down 5 fathoms to see how they'd do under pressure, but that's also completely unrelated to predicting their actual job performance. We don't ask trivia questions (what's the order of arguments to fputs, list all the overloads of foo in class bar) because knowing that (or anything else that's a 5 second lookup or context-sensitive help away) doesn't predict how someone will actually perform on the job. Can any of us code as effectively on a whiteboard as we could in our favorite editor? I'd expect not, and if you were equally able on a whiteboard as in an editor, I'd wager that it's because you're not particularly good at either.
      - nomoresecrets 17y ago
        One thing I learned a while back at one interview (or rather, I just worked it out after experiencing it a few times) is that I find it much harder to think/code on a whiteboard. I don't know what it is, but it seems much easier for me to sit down with a pen and paper and work things out. I mean, still coding without a computer - but it's something about standing up at a whiteboard. Maybe it's normally not so bad for me, but with the pressure of an interview, it's bad enough to give me problems.
nibrahim 17y ago
>One solution is to send a (moderately complex) programming >problem by email and ask them to send code back. This will >weed out a lot of people without wasting your time. This is I think the best solution. A friend works at a company here called Tachyon and they have this part as part of the form on their jobs site where you can apply for jobs. http://tachyon.in/jobs.html http://tachyon.in/jobs.html

pj 17y ago

I agree. The questions the OP asked are all very easy. It'd be easy to describe a function to find the longest common subsequence of a set of strings as well. The reason such a question is asked is because it isn't something that we do everyday and how we solve problems that we don't immediately know how to solve is what sets good programmers apart from bad programmers. I find anyone who immediately blames the environment for their lack of ability to answer the questions correctly to be suspect. These types of complainers are externally motivated and will never accept fault for their lack of capabilities. "You should have asked me in a different way." or "I need to be taught differently" or "There's too much pressure"... look, you can come up with whatever excuses you want, but the fact is, you can't solve the problem and what we are looking for is someone who can solve problems. Case closed.

lutorm 17y ago
Case appealed. There are definitely people who are capable of solving problems but whose performance drops appreciably under pressure. Now, you may not want to hire those people, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with external motivation or making excuses, and you can keep your contempt for yourself.
- pj 17y ago
  As an employer, I want employees who can solve problems whether they are under pressure or not. You really want an employee working for you, or even a team member in your group who can't work under pressure when your site is down and they are the only one who can fix it? If you can't work under pressure, you can't work. Or maybe you can work, but I'd rather work with someone who can work under pressure or who can't. That's my point. And I believe it has a lot to do with external motivation. I apologize for the contempt. Appeal denied.
  - sokoloff 17y ago
    Under pressure and "in a strange environment" are two different things. You could put interview candidates in SCUBA gear and take them down 5 fathoms to see how they'd do under pressure, but that's also completely unrelated to predicting their actual job performance. We don't ask trivia questions (what's the order of arguments to fputs, list all the overloads of foo in class bar) because knowing that (or anything else that's a 5 second lookup or context-sensitive help away) doesn't predict how someone will actually perform on the job. Can any of us code as effectively on a whiteboard as we could in our favorite editor? I'd expect not, and if you were equally able on a whiteboard as in an editor, I'd wager that it's because you're not particularly good at either.
    - nomoresecrets 17y ago
      One thing I learned a while back at one interview (or rather, I just worked it out after experiencing it a few times) is that I find it much harder to think/code on a whiteboard. I don't know what it is, but it seems much easier for me to sit down with a pen and paper and work things out. I mean, still coding without a computer - but it's something about standing up at a whiteboard. Maybe it's normally not so bad for me, but with the pressure of an interview, it's bad enough to give me problems.

nibrahim 17y ago

>One solution is to send a (moderately complex) programming >problem by email and ask them to send code back. This will >weed out a lot of people without wasting your time. This is I think the best solution. A friend works at a company here called Tachyon and they have this part as part of the form on their jobs site where you can apply for jobs. http://tachyon.in/jobs.html http://tachyon.in/jobs.html