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I don't ask many of these anymore but even when I do and have in the past it is never to humiliate anyone. To that point I don't even care if they give the rig

I don't ask many of these anymore but even when I do and have in the past it is never to humiliate anyone. To that point I don't even care if they give the right answer, what I want someone to do is talk out how they'd figure it out. So at least in my opinion it is about seeing how you think not whether you can solve some complex problem in 5 minutes. This is also why I have changed how I ask and what I ask. I've moved to telling people up front that I don't care if they get the right answer, I just want them to show me their thought process and how they would go about solving it. And I will also participate and provide feedback and talk through it with you like we would as team members. This way we can see how good or bad we might work together.

cmorgan8506 12y ago
What type of characteristics constitute a positive result, for a situation like that?
- davismwfl 12y ago
  Overall, did you successfully walk me through your thought process to come to an answer (right or wrong). Did you engage me, ask me questions, challenge my assumption if you felt I was wrong etc. Did you act as a team member trying to figure out the goal or not, did you bounce ideas off people while thinking through the problem. Were you able to eliminate possibilities because you know of limitations or issues that might come up. And really most importantly, did you come up with many, most or all of the key decision points regardless if you go the "correct" answer. So at least for me, and my team, its never about can you state that a hash table is O(1) for access but O(n) for search vs a b-tree is O(log n) for both etc. It is more about can you think through a problem well enough to give us the best solution and will you work with us to find it. e.g. puzzle questions IMO used to be a lot about self gratification to the interviewer's own ego, now we use them to see thought processes and to be interactive to see how we all work together.

cmorgan8506 12y ago

What type of characteristics constitute a positive result, for a situation like that?

davismwfl 12y ago
Overall, did you successfully walk me through your thought process to come to an answer (right or wrong). Did you engage me, ask me questions, challenge my assumption if you felt I was wrong etc. Did you act as a team member trying to figure out the goal or not, did you bounce ideas off people while thinking through the problem. Were you able to eliminate possibilities because you know of limitations or issues that might come up. And really most importantly, did you come up with many, most or all of the key decision points regardless if you go the "correct" answer. So at least for me, and my team, its never about can you state that a hash table is O(1) for access but O(n) for search vs a b-tree is O(log n) for both etc. It is more about can you think through a problem well enough to give us the best solution and will you work with us to find it. e.g. puzzle questions IMO used to be a lot about self gratification to the interviewer's own ego, now we use them to see thought processes and to be interactive to see how we all work together.