gaylemcd

8 ms·

31.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
> If you just recite problems from Cracking the Coding Interview, you have pretty limited insight into the candidate's abilities. I agree with this. I tell companies to not ask questions from Cracking the Coding Interview. But tha
32.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
No, it is related to diversity. I agree that it's unfair to expect all candidates to work on a side project. Some companies expect this out of all candidates (which is bad). Others see it as a plus (probably okay).
33.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
I actually agree. This is probably all it was. But the other interviewer still handled it appropriately.
34.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Happy to give you my thoughts, but I'm not sure what you're suggesting. I do agree that lots of companies create bad interview processes -- for coding interviews and other interviews. Those issues should be addressed.
35.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Lots of people get offers with little to no prep.
36.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
So what do you suggest?
37.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
And? By your logic, if a lawyer tells you how to handle some unfair legal situation, that lawyer is doing something wrong. Because they're profiting from something that's unfair. When I talk to a company about how to create a hiri
38.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Do you understand that there is a distinction between saying "this is how many companies think" and "this is how companies should think"? I agree that companies shouldn't demand side projects. However, if you'r
39.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Oh, you don't have to have side projects. But if you are struggling to get noticed, it can help.
40.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Do you truly believe that all those top tech companies have decided on this process to boost the egos of the interviewers? Are you saying this because you have actual evidence? Have you talked to interviewers who admitted this was their per
41.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
So if whiteboard interviews are stupid and ineffective, what process do you think is better? I assure that the big tech companies absolutely do care, but they struggle to find something better.
42.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
They have lots of impetus to change. It's just that they struggle to find a better system. Talking about prior experience? Flawed for the reasons you mentioned. Take home stuff? Flawed -- cheating and other issues (I discuss this in an
43.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
1. I'm not saying a week for preparation overall. I'm saying a week to learn the core algorithms and data structures. Frankly, that's probably much less than a week to learn. 2. Yes, it does throw false negatives. Lots of peo
44.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Yes and no. Dressing abnormally does indeed show that you're either unfamiliar with the norms in the industry or you're deliberately violating them. Agreed. In finance, it's sort of reasonable to be concerned about someone sh
45.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Yeah, there are interviewers who run crappy interviews. This is not a flaw with the process though. If you replace it with any other process, you're going to find interviewers who are bad at evaluating those too. For example, on behavi
46.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
I don't think that's the case... are you sure you just didn't hit the "read more" button?
47.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
I think it's well intentioned but highly flawed. 1. The time commitment issue. 2. It allows a company to give a bunch of "interviews" (assignments) even for candidates they aren't serious about. It can waste a lot of can
48.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
OP here. I do absolutely realize that candidates getting rejected and then getting an offer later is... well, not quite the "definition", but it's a sign of a flaws in a process. However, you don't scrap the buggy progra
49.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
No, I don't publish times. The times are misleading. Interviewers often give hints, which can dramatically change the amount of time. And there can be random factors that change the amount of time.
50.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Basically, yes, do more. If you want to flip a memoization problem into bottom-up dynamic programming: 1. Make sure you really understand the memoization approach 2. Look at the base cases. What are the very last things the recursive approa
51.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
That is really, really not true. An unintelligent engineer will never be able to practice enough to do well on a well-conducted interview at Google. (They could in rare cases do well if all their interviewers pick common problem.)
52.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
When I do interview training, I strongly discourage memoization / dynamic programming question. It's not that you have to have practiced this to do well. It's that you can have an okay candidate who practices it and then does
53.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
That's not necessarily the case. People who are in shape have longer lifespans than those who aren't (probably true; let's assume it is). But if you look at just people who complete a marathon in under 3 hours, you might not
54.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
Nope.
55.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
I'm pretty sure I interpreted the comment correctly...
56.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
>> >> You should know what a binary search tree. You probably don't need to know the specifics of how to balance one. >> Fine. I know this. Will this give me a job? No No, it's not about knowledge. The knowledge
57.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
When people don't get an offer after a technical interview, it's typically about technical skills. Even if they think they did well because they verified their answers online. Often, although their answers were eventually correct,
58.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
This is actually a really interesting point. (Context: In chess, a queen can move along a row, column, or diagonal to attack. The N Queens problem is to place N queens on an NxN chessboard such that no two queens can attack each other.) No
59.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
1. No, you don't need to know everything. You should know what a binary search tree. You probably don't need to know the specifics of how to balance one. (If a company is requiring this knowledge, then they're doing whiteboar
60.
by gaylemcd 9y ago
It's very difficult to correlate interview performance and job performance. No one is willing to hire at random to really get the data. Companies only look at who got hired. I've seen some companies decide "well, whiteboard i

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