Today's Coding Interview Game
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Today's Coding Interview Game
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Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#2I understand where the author is coming from because many interviews questions are unreasonable and test absolutely nothing.
However, if someone couldn't code a linked list on a whiteboard, I'd be severely worried. Same goes for a binary tree. If you know what a linked list or binary tree is, you should have no issues figuring out how to represent them with code in 10 minutes.
The other trickier problems are there to test problem solving ability, which I believe is a valid thing to test.
I think the reason for this style of interview is that companies are afraid of false negatives. They'd rather reject 95% of the qualified people and 99.9% of the unqualified people rather than 94% qualified and 99.5% unqualified.
Additionally, swearing all over the place never helps your case...
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#3I understand where the author is coming from because many interviews questions are unreasonable and test absolutely nothing. However, if someone couldn't code a linked list on a whiteboard, I'd be severely worried. Same goes for a binary tree. If you know what a linked list or binary tree is, you should have no issues figuring out how to represent them with code in 10 minutes. The other trickier problems are there to…
I think you mean that companies fear false positives which, in turn, causes a high false negative rate.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#4I understand where the author is coming from because many interviews questions are unreasonable and test absolutely nothing. However, if someone couldn't code a linked list on a whiteboard, I'd be severely worried. Same goes for a binary tree. If you know what a linked list or binary tree is, you should have no issues figuring out how to represent them with code in 10 minutes. The other trickier problems are there to…
They'd rather reject 95% of the qualified people and 99.9% of the unqualified people rather than 94% qualified and 99.5% unqualified.
And then they complain that they can't hire developers.
I don't think these types of interviews are well conceived. Human memory is extremely context dependent and a whiteboard/interview type situation doesn't establish the right context for someone who's accustomed to working alone with a mouse, keyboard and compiler.
Also the more knowledge you have the more difficult it becomes to retrieve that knowledge quickly. So these types of interviews might be good at selecting people who know all about linked lists and binary trees but not much else.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#5Its because credentialism has permeated the software business recently. Credentialists love tests, its how they got their credentials, and if they don't keep believing in tests over real world performance, they will have to re-examine the true worth of their credentials.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#6Coding general solutions should be par for the course. I agree that some interviewers are coming up with contrived examples. But of the 6 data points I have now from hiring people, those who could code on the white board turned out to be good employees (4 of them) and those who could not turned out to be a vast waste of time (2 of them). As jconphoenix was alluding to, I would have rather ended up rejecting more of the qualified applicants than ending up with a time-wasting employee.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#7I understand where the author is coming from because many interviews questions are unreasonable and test absolutely nothing. However, if someone couldn't code a linked list on a whiteboard, I'd be severely worried. Same goes for a binary tree. If you know what a linked list or binary tree is, you should have no issues figuring out how to represent them with code in 10 minutes. The other trickier problems are there to…
Code on the whiteboard is counterproductive at best.
Let's hook up your laptop to the projector so I can get a glimpse of how you interact with your computer. I learn more about you by seeing your relationship with your text editor, how you look up information you can't remember, etc. Not watching you sweat with a marker in your hand.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#8If I found this article by a potential applicant, I'd be much less likely to hire them. Besides the obvious red flag of the sentiment why should I have to code at a programming interview, the knowledge that they have been rejected by many other companies would make me worry.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#9If you remember what a linked list is, how pointers (or references) work, and have written more than 10k real world lines of code in your favorite programming language, I would fully expect you to be able to write, not memorize, any of the linked list functions that you mention.
I certainly understand your frustration, but I really don't think either the tone or the content of this blog post is going to help land a job in this era where hiring managers ask Google what it knows about a candidate.
Re: Today's Coding Interview Game
#10This blog post strikes home. Anyone who has worked with me or seen my work has identified me as a top-tier developer, and yet I rarely nail any interviews because I never "sound" how the hiring manager thinks a good candidate should sound.
I've boiled it down to my salesmanship, or lack thereof. I don't like talking myself up, and therefore I have difficulty conveying myself confidently. And, as it goes with vicious cycles, each time I fail to do so lessens my ability at future attempts.
> Mistrust in applicants runs deep among hiring managers, and I have found that I must still perform Houdini tricks during the interview process, even if an insider vouches for me.
Even though I know I'm accountable for my salesmanship, I get this sense as well. It's incredibly frustrating to sense that you're being looked over as being a phony trying to pull one over on a company (how does this work exactly, anyways?) More often than not though, I've noticed this happens more with hiring managers who are not qualified technically to hire developers.