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I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

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Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#361

Post by sys_64738 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #210
dekhn wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you would have lost me (principal engineer) with those questions.

Really? You don't like to socialize with peers, with puzzles or tricky problems? Enough to make you refuse to join a company? Discussion has gone off the rails here. Maybe I didn't make it clear - the puzzles were during casual conversation at lunch. Rebutting something I didn't say, is not fair.

> You don't like to socialize with peers

No, I go to work for an employer and work with my peers. My peers are not my friends in most situations. Maybe for you that is the extent of your social life so you think peers have to be friends, but you mixing the two together is your work/life balance limitation being applied to those you want to hire.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#362

Post by Jare »

gcommer wrote: post #306
spywaregorilla wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would have been a huge negative to me. I'm fine to chat with peers and discuss little riddles. That is not what's happening when you're interviewing me for a job position. You're not my peer. We're not having fun. There's a non-subtle implication that my ability to answer the riddle will impact whether or not I get the job. I would be very annoyed if someone asked a puzzle like this too. It's not a novel puzzle. It's…

In every interview I've done, lunch was explicitly bracketed by "this is a free, casual lunch that won't affect your interview at all". And as an interviewer, I've never been asked to report on lunch chats. > You're not my peer. We're not having fun. Actually, most interviewers are your peers, and they typically know that you're under interview stress and are trying to help. If you can't take a break and de-stress du…

Neither have I, but unless I was asked to deliver my interview evaluation before the lunch, you can bet any particularly good or noticeably bad flags during lunch would go into it.

Conversely, the couple times I had those "casual" lunches as a candidate, "I'm jetlagged" was a graceful way to lie out of the question why I wasn't eating much.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#363

Post by agumonkey »

I never cheated but after being rejected by clueless recruiters (javascript != java) that only reacted to big company names (no matter the quality of work I did) I decided to scramble my resume and turn projects into paid gigs. Interview went just like the others. I felt like a criminal for a few hours after that though.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#365

Post by dekhn »

hunter-gatherer wrote: post #351
spywaregorilla wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would have been a huge negative to me. I'm fine to chat with peers and discuss little riddles. That is not what's happening when you're interviewing me for a job position. You're not my peer. We're not having fun. There's a non-subtle implication that my ability to answer the riddle will impact whether or not I get the job. I would be very annoyed if someone asked a puzzle like this too. It's not a novel puzzle. It's…

I feel like everyone here is missing OPs point. It seems like they had a mostly typical interview, which the candidate had probably been through a bunch of but for whatever reason wasn't to intrigued by the company. Maybe the candidate thought it was too boilerplate... I don't know. But then during lunch, when a handful of collegues are casually throwing around brain teasers, the candidate realized he would like the…

I got the point. I'm not like that person. Most aren't.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#366

Post by sys_64738 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #356
akhmatova wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked some puzzle questions - add 6 feet to a rope around the world, stretch it out and how far off the ground would it be? I can only imagine being "charmed" by a question like if I was much younger in my career, eager to be seen as smart and in the company of like-minded folk. Nowadays... my focus is on solving problems... as in real problems, not made-up ones. Thankfully I haven't heard questions like this in ye…

Yeah it's easy to act all butt-hurt and be too good to even try. But how outrageous is it to imagine that folks who can solve such problems might be able to solve other problems?

A lot of people will find your questions obnoxious and irrelevant. Ask questions about the candidate's experience in past problems. Asking abstract questions to satisfy your own ego is a narcissistic trait.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#367

Post by persona_reuse »

klyrs wrote: post #304
nerdponx wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully you told them why you declined, otherwise they will just keep asking those questions of other people.

If companies told candidates why their applications were denied, sure, I'd be inclined to share my side. They don't, so fuck 'em. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Previous company, I was a principal IC and I used to interview people. I was warned by HR never to discuss how the interview went or why the candidate bombed.

Their notion was: 1) We're there to find candidates, not improve people. 2) Time spent on someone you've eliminated is a loss. Cut your losses. 3) Think like you're talking to the police. Are you 100% sure you're not going to say anything that could be even remotely construed as illegally discriminatory? 4) Most states are 1-party-consent for recording, and even if it's an inadmissible recording, them having an interaction recorded can come back to bite you if they use it to jog their memory to perfection.

I think it's gross, but it's a litigious race to the bottom so I kind-of see their point. Really happy not to be an interviewer anymore.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#368

Post by nprateem »

hunter-gatherer wrote: post #351
spywaregorilla wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would have been a huge negative to me. I'm fine to chat with peers and discuss little riddles. That is not what's happening when you're interviewing me for a job position. You're not my peer. We're not having fun. There's a non-subtle implication that my ability to answer the riddle will impact whether or not I get the job. I would be very annoyed if someone asked a puzzle like this too. It's not a novel puzzle. It's…

I feel like everyone here is missing OPs point. It seems like they had a mostly typical interview, which the candidate had probably been through a bunch of but for whatever reason wasn't to intrigued by the company. Maybe the candidate thought it was too boilerplate... I don't know. But then during lunch, when a handful of collegues are casually throwing around brain teasers, the candidate realized he would like the…

Ah I see I'm a snowflake for not liking the power imbalance and irrelevance of this sort of thing.

TBH I'd just have found it contrived and boring. I wouldn't be excited to have colleagues who couldn't just talk about normal stuff at lunch.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#369

Post by anon2020dot00 »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #356
akhmatova wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked some puzzle questions - add 6 feet to a rope around the world, stretch it out and how far off the ground would it be? I can only imagine being "charmed" by a question like if I was much younger in my career, eager to be seen as smart and in the company of like-minded folk. Nowadays... my focus is on solving problems... as in real problems, not made-up ones. Thankfully I haven't heard questions like this in ye…

Yeah it's easy to act all butt-hurt and be too good to even try. But how outrageous is it to imagine that folks who can solve such problems might be able to solve other problems?

That's not the point or context; No one likes "creative" interview questions is what people are saying like this is just a variation of brain teasers from 1990's Microsoft interviews.

Re: I cheated on my Microsoft interview (2019)

#370

Post by ciupicri »

saagarjha wrote: post #87
ciupicri wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also it was 2004 and 64 bit machines weren't common. If I remember correctly you had only 2 GB available under Windows XP and if you wanted more, 3 GB to be more precise, you had to boot with a special parameter.

32-bit machines generally 64-bit arithmetic of some sort; for example "long long" in C is mandated by the standard to be of a width greater than or equal to 64 bits.

Yeah, 64 bit integers were available under gcc on Linux, but the memory issue remained. The array had to fit in 2 GB, unless of course the problem stated otherwise, for example the numbers were read from a file.
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