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What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

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Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#61

Post by Shamiq »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #48
gaylemcd wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, it took them too long to get there which the interviewer perceived as weak problem solving skills.

>Often, although their answers were eventually correct, it took them too long to get there which the interviewer perceived as weak problem solving skills. Does CtCI publish those times for its problems? How would I know I'm too slow to solve a kind of problem before interviewing?

triplebyte mentions taking a particular problem from CtCI and solving it within 30min on a whiteboard (pen/paper, plaintext editor).

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#62

Post by eli_gottlieb »

gerbilly wrote: post #42

>Nine-to-5 isn’t enough. At top tech companies, extracurricular work isn’t a differentiating factor— it’s the expectation. I stopped reading at this point. How arrogant to expect you to gift your unpaid free time for the privilege of working there.

Yeah, this article is practically begging for a snide response from, say, Jacobin.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#63

Post by aero-002 »

gaylemcd wrote: post #2

I'll try to stay active on this thread if anyone has any more specific questions. (Context: I'm the author of Cracking the Coding Interview)

your videos on algorithms with hacker rank really helped me a lot. I just thought I'd take this chance to thank you for that.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#64

Post by NTDF9 »

gaylemcd wrote: post #38
NTDF9 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 >> Yes, I understand that interview prep might interfere with other obligations. You don't have to study. But it'll help you. I'm not sure what you expect here. Do you want companies to hire based on how smoothly you're able to bullshit about what you can cl…

>> >> 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 is needed. But the real focus of the interview is to tackle a new question. >> I want to be hired for the skills I'm bringing in and not for my ability to solve toy problems on a whiteboard. The ability to se…

>> No, it's not about knowledge. The knowledge is needed. But the real focus of the interview is to tackle a new question.

>>There generally isn't. What an interviewer should be looking at is not some sort of percent correct element. It's about signal. So if a candidate is totally unable to understand an obvious, that might worry me. The signal the candidate is sending is a poor understanding of details. (Or, maybe not. It depends on the situation.) What I train interviewers on is that correctness in and of itself is not relevant. Why a candidate was correct or incorrect might be.

This would be great if interviewers actually knew that this is what they are testing for.

At this point, interviewers simply do not care about candidates and make a binary Yes/No decision based on "Did the candidate solve the problem perfectly in 15 mins".

I'm not opposed to coding interviews. But I am opposed to the way it is implemented right now.

The current way would be great if I get to reverse interview the interviewer and prove that I know (knowledge plus problem solving ability) better than the interviewer.

If the interviewer accepts this duel, it's fair game. Otherwise, the current process simply selects the people who can pattern match.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#65

Post by myrandomcomment »

georgemcbay wrote: post #50
myrandomcomment wrote: post #33

The advice about not giving up on the question is a key point here. In a previous startup I would ask a single question that would take 30+ minutes to work through with no expectations that the candidate would ever get the answer. All I cared about was if you could break down the issues and move from one set to the next in trying to narrow down the issue. I cared deeply about how you thought, not what you knew. As pe…

"I would ask a single question that would take 30+ minutes to work through with no expectations that the candidate would ever get the answer" The major problem with this approach (unless you are very vocal about the process up front, but still even then I see it as problematic) is it flies in the face of most education at all levels, at least as practiced in the USA. This is fundamentally more an issue with the way w…

So I was always very upfront. I told the candidate you will not get the answer. This is so I can see how you attack a problem. All the candiates had a background in the subject matter. The question was not on subject matter not tied to the job.

Overall we found that the way we did this interview was very successful. At one point we lowered the bar and hired a bunch of people and they were all gone in six months. On the other hand those that were successful with the question and problem solving did very well and are still there. Some of those people I hired even work with me at my new startup.

Also I do not understand your comment about schools. Yes in K-12 there is a lot of pass / fail but when you go to collage for an STEM major there is a huge amount of critical thinking and problem solving involved. The interview was designed to test that, not if you memorized how to do a binary tree search.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#66

Post by NTDF9 »

6stringmerc wrote: post #57

How similar are the Odds for a BS of CS graduate in 2017 in the United States to work in Silicon Valley versus the NCAA Division I Basketball Player to make it in the NBA? Point being, this is extremely helpful batch of advice for a surprisingly narrow field. Take out the SV / Top 1% Tech Culture nuances and there's really not a lot to work with other than "Put your best foot forward, be flexible to learn new things…

>> >Either way, it’s very common for a candidate to get rejected and then get an offer a year or two later.

What OP implies is that the interview process is out of candidate's control and there are many variables in play.

What the OP doesn't realize is that this is the definition of a shitty process.

What would you call a piece of software that cannot reliably produce the same output most of the time?

vs

What would you call an interview process that cannot hire the same people most of the time?

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#67

Post by yanilkr »

Most of it is good advice for fresh graduates who want to get into big companies. Shouldn't we be telling these young people to aim higher?.

If you derive your sense of worth from a bigger brand and not your own efforts and caliber, you might be complacent for a while then life happens and you will regret not accomplishing anything meaningful in life. Before preparing for your interview and seeking validation for your self worth from big companies, try out internships at startups and get exposed to disruptive ideas. Do not play by somebody's rules. That leads to stagnation. A small plant does not get enough sunlight when it is shadowed by a giant tree. The sunlight you need is exposure to problems you can solve.

Google and Amazon are the new IBM and AOL. They were once the disruptors, now ready to be disrupted by newer generations. Every other day we read about how internet is broken and finance is broken, try starting there.

If you decide to get a job at big company, its not all that bad, just do not take it so seriously.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#68

Post by famil »

What do you think about take home projects/homework interviews? I've noticed that they have become much more prevalent among smaller companies as a replacement for phone screens. As a candidate, interviewing is already a time consuming hoop jumping process, so if the project will take more than 3-4 hours, I probably won't be interested but most companies I have applied to are keeping these projects short enough.

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#69

Post by NTDF9 »

WalterSear wrote: post #54
gerbilly wrote: post #42

>Nine-to-5 isn’t enough. At top tech companies, extracurricular work isn’t a differentiating factor— it’s the expectation. I stopped reading at this point. How arrogant to expect you to gift your unpaid free time for the privilege of working there.

Gaylemcd is just bringing the news. It's not her fault that it's bad.

She's profiting from it

Re: What I've learned from 100s of interviews with candidates at top tech companies

#70

Post by MarkMc »

gaylemcd wrote: post #2

I'll try to stay active on this thread if anyone has any more specific questions. (Context: I'm the author of Cracking the Coding Interview)

Would you say that candidates who have completed online courses (MOOCs) tend to perform better in interviews?

Edit: The question is based on this article I read a few months ago: http://blog.interviewing.io/lessons-from-3000-technical-inte... The bar chart in that page is very interesting. HN discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13272840

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