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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

#51

Post by krackers »

Swizec wrote: post #36
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 a…

>It’s an information theory question similar

How would you approach it from an information theoretic sense?

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#52

Post by ButlerianJihad »

artisinal wrote: post #50
ButlerianJihad wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they know that if you had graduated, you would have, at every turn, mentioned the name and date of your degree, instead!

In my country “Computer Science” would be your degree. Your graduation date also isn’t mentioned, just the year.

"Academic degrees" are, by definition, named something as categories. In your country do they not have the concept of a "bachelors" degree, or "associate" degree or "masters" or "doctorate"? B.A., B.S., A.S.?

Other popular categories could include "fine arts", "PhD", etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_degree

Anyone putting letters after their name, i.e. postnominals, has graduated and obtained a degree. Sometimes they put the field of study but sometimes you will just see someone on LinkedIn as, "Jane Smith, MA".

Could probably write something like you were in the B.A. track of your field of study. People will write "pursuing graduate degree" or "postdoc" or suchlike. But that is not what GP wrote. GP wrote a field of study; while "Computer Science" describes degree programs, it is undifferentiated, and wouldn't be considered a "degree" by the skeptical reader of CVs.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#53

Post by fp64 »

jo-m wrote: post #37

Well, maybe you can use this to trick the interviewer into giving you a new problem if you don't know the first one they give you.

The article only mentioned he asked for a different problem, not that he was quickly explaining the solution and then asked for a different one. So this were exactly my thoughts, it's a bit like getting asked to find the roots of a polynom and replying "oh I already know how to do it, can you ask me something different?"

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#54

Post by anal_reactor »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #35
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.

Once I've been to an interview where first they made us solve a problem in a group and then we had 1-1 interviews. After the group task the guy immediately asked me "Don't you have a feeling that you might've been forcing your opinions onto others?" to which I replied "Yes, I have.". Absolute fucking Chad I was.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#55

Post by anal_reactor »

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…

This is one of the reasons why I want to exit the workforce and retire ASAP. I just cannot function in an environment where ignoring the elephant in the room is the expected behavior. I am a dead-honest guy and I've surrounded myself with friends who appreciate this trait but they were really hard to find.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#56

Post by shepherdjerred »

buildbot wrote: post #16

Counterpoint to many responses here - when I have interviewed people, it’s a really positive signal if the candidate says they have already seen a problem- the we can move onto something more interesting! Not solving does not mean failure either. As a candidate myself I always mention if I have seen similar problems, such as finding primes - real example, and I was hired on that loop at Microsoft! On the other hand,…

IMO the key thing is that interviews have a heavy component of randomness.

The question your interviewer selects (both topic and difficulty), how the interview performs as far as presenting the question/giving hints, how the interviewer is feeling, any biases the interviewer might have, and so on.

You can of course 'increase your surface area for luck' by studying the questions/topics a company tends to ask, being an interviewee who comes off as well qualified.

But, if you get an interviewer who is in a bad mood, if your interview isn't competent or paying attention, etc. then you're just screwed.

---

I say this because the OP was honest and failed; you were honest and were hired. There's no 'secret' to getting in. It is a combination of:

1. Being a competent engineer (or student)

2. Putting in the time to study, leetcode, practice, etc.

3. Luck

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#57

Post by mrheosuper »

I have question for MS people.

How do you guys view external contractors(the one with email address start with v-xxx)

I was contractor for MS for a while and it was not a very positive experience. i was kind of being forgotten and only be mentioned when convenient. I went by months without any actual real work done.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#58

Post by gambiting »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #49
artisinal wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned that if you put “2015 - 2020 / University X, Computer Science” on your resume, nobody asks if you actually graduated.

Because they know that if you had graduated, you would have, at every turn, mentioned the name and date of your degree, instead!

Eh? Would you? I have two degrees and I never mentioned exactly what they are on my CVs, literally just like above - "2010-2014 Computer Science at University X". I've reviewed countless CVs when I was a hiring manager for a few years too, and I don't really recall if people wrote down what they got, nor was it ever relevant for any position outside of intern ones.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#59

Post by exodust »

> "I told the interviewer I already knew the riddle, and I asked for another one."

The question wasn't "do you know this riddle", she just wanted the riddle answered. No need to make it more complicated.

There's no lie in withholding information never asked for. It's possible the request for a new riddle was interpreted as a ploy to get an easier riddle.

Re: That time when I failed the Microsoft interview

#60

Post by judofyr »

krackers wrote: post #51
Swizec wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

>It’s an information theory question similar How would you approach it from an information theoretic sense?

In the initial state there's 24 (12 * 2) different possibilities: The marble you're looking for is one of 12 and it's either lighter or heavier. By using a balance scale there's 3 possible outcomes (left side is heavier; right side is heavier; same weight). This means that for your last (third) weighing you'll have to have reduced the problem down to 3 (or fewer) different possibilities. If there's 4 or more there's no way to reduce it down to a single possibility. Before the second weighing you should have reduced it down to 9 (3*3) different possibilities.

Once you know this, you can start making educated guesses for the first weighing and quickly eliminate those which makes it impossible to continue. For instance: Splitting the marbles into two. This gives two possible outcomes: Left side is heaver or right side is heavier. For the first outcome it means that either the target marble is lighter and part of the left group (6 marbles) or heavier and part of the right group (6 marbles). That's 12 different possibilities (more than 9) and therefore we know that it's impossible to determine the marble with just two more weighings.

There's still guessing to be done, but at every part of the decision tree you can at the very least quickly avoid exploring paths which are guaranteed to not work.

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