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That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

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Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#31

Post by tyre »

jameshart wrote: post #9
tyre wrote: post #3

A classically terrible interview question. Solving riddles in realtime is almost never a real job skill. _Maybe_ in an incident, but you’d be relying on tooling and experience, not an intern. Same with leetcode at startups. It makes no sense. You’re almost certainly not going to do algorithms work. It’s only relevant if you’re looking for people willing to grind bullshit, which is certainly some jobs, but, again, you…

This was an internship interview over a decade ago. Nothing wrong with a brain teaser interview question under those circumstances. What would you rather ask an internship candidate? They don’t have work experience or real world skills.

I was interviewing interns before this, starting in 2013 or so. There are plenty of more useful questions you can ask.

Tell me about a project you’ve worked on, then many follow ups, for example. Asking about group project dynamics or something they’re passionate about and involved with. Ask why they’re applying for this role, ask about difficult conversations or things they’re proud of. Ask about decisions they would do differently if they could go back and why.

There are tons of ways to glean actually relevant information in an interview.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#32

Post by mjevans »

encomiast wrote: post #25
dasyud wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Source: I used to work at the dumpster fire

I agree. Source: I am an Azure user.

My condolences. I read that other hacker news post (was it a couple months back) from the (ex?) engineer...

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#33

Post by chatmasta »

shubhamjain wrote: post #23

As I have grown older, I have realized dead-honesty is a false ideal to live by, especially when it comes to being rewarded in the capitalistic world. I know someone who reached executive level position in a major company and all of his career progress can be traced back to lying on his resume about a NASA internship he never got, which he conveniently purged later from everywhere. I wouldn’t go that far, but I think…

The candidate may have had more success if he saved the honesty for after he solved the riddle he claimed he already knew how to solve.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#35

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

mircerlancerous wrote: post #18

Sadly I've seen this kind of interviewing from lots of places; maybe it's a technique they teach in college or something. Interview questions like this are useless as they are not an accurate approximation of a real work scenario. I've frozen up at a whiteboard in an interview before, and then figured it out on the drive home. The best approach I've found is to do a send home quiz, and then ask them questions about t…

An accurate approximation of a real work scenario would be sitting in a conference room for two hours while trying not to fidget or visibly look bored as co-workers make a mountain out of a molehill.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#36

Post by Swizec »

yellow_lead wrote: post #29

> You have 12 marbles and a balance scale. One of the 12 marbles is inconsistent with the others, meaning it could be heavier or lighter than its peers of normal weight. You are allowed to use the balance scale exactly 3 times to identify which of the 12 marbles is irregular AND determine whether it is heavier or lighter than normal. I also got this riddle, in 2015. I couldn't solve it. Tbh, I think it's a terrible q…

> I also got this riddle, in 2015. I couldn't solve it. Tbh, I think it's a terrible question. There isn't really a step-by-step problem solving process, but you just need to have a "leap" to realize you can weight the marbles in groups of 3.

It’s an information theory question similar to the “how far can you drop the egg before it breaks” puzzle. You don’t need a leap of intuition, just remember the right theorems and formulae from college.

I probably would’ve failed the interview. At best I could write an algorithm that empirically arrives at the answer, which may or may not impress the interviewer enough to pass.

Stuff like this is why I dropped out of coding competitions some time in high school. You can always brute force the easy version, then the next tiers drop numbers that cannot be solved unless you know (or can invent) that one weird maths trick.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#39

Post by not_a_bot_4sho »

Panzerschrek wrote: post #34

> You have 12 marbles and a balance scale. I hate such interview questions. They have nothing to do with think one really needs to do in practice. It seems for me to be just a way for interviewers to show their intellectual superiority.

> They have nothing to do with think one really needs to do in practice.

See, this is why you weren't selected for the team: https://imgur.com/a/xnHgjjH

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