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I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

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Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#171

Post by yawaworht1978 »

Yes, depending if you're just fishing around or not, you can either test the limits with your statements or just tell them what you think they want to hear.

I have found it's practical to go on a fishing trip while employed and test the limits, less pressure. Of course, this can backfire and did for me, but overall it was beneficial.

For example, if it's something like a high street bank, don't mess around, these are highly political institutions, similar can be said for large, established companies.

Sometimes, a wizard is required, sometimes a yes person is required.

It's good if you know some hr people personally as friends, listen to their stories.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#172

Post by D13Fd »

tyingq wrote: post #21

This isn't a great example to me. I doubt the interviewers would disagree that the actual code in MVC runs at the "application tier". I think they were just trying to elicit the idea that the model defines interaction with the database and that the view defines interaction with the browser client. That there is some relation there between MVC and 3-tier architecture. The Wikipedia snippet that disputes any relationsh…

Agreed. I think the better and less risky way to handle this situation is something like:

"There are two views on this. Some people say x, but I would argue that the better view is y."

Giving the wrong answer intentionally is both dishonest - never a quality I would want to have, especially in an interview - and liable to backfire.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#173

Post by yobbo »

This article is pointing out that interviewing/recruiting is as much dominance play for the interviewers as it is testing of candidates. Doing interviews can be considered recognition of rank inside the company. Some probably consider this sanctioned "lording" an implicit reward, and thus will make sure they get they what they want. Some consider it a hazing ritual.

Noting how many comments here are of the form "this is what /I/ would accept" or "what /I/ usually want out of /them/".

And the point was specifically how interviewers insert their personal issues into the questions and make others dance.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#174

Post by fastssd »

ianai wrote: post #27
dennis_moore wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All great until you come across someone with a permanent poker face. During my last interview, the interviewer was frowning the whole time.

If there’s two sides to something present both and note positives and negatives of each.

Read about the concept of multiple outs. It has many practical use cases in everyday life.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#175

Post by rohanphadte »

Quick summary of the story - TLDR; sometimes the right answer depends on your interviewing circumstances.

> When I arrived at the interview, there were 2 other guys present. One would be my direct team lead, which was also the technical lead, and the other was his manager.

> Then they moved on to a follow up question: “How does this architecture relate to the model-view-controller pattern?”. I knew this question was really tricky, because I know a lot of people make the mistake of directly linking the tiers to each of the model-view-controller.

> Normally, I would have given the correct answer, and have a nice discussion if they considered it wrong. But the problem was, that this guys manager was sitting next to him. If he didn’t know, I would totally humiliate him in front of his boss. So either he would stick to his guns and refuse the correctness of my answer, to save face. Or he needed to agree that he was wrong, and lose face. Anyway, there was only 1 proper solution to this: I had to answer what they thought was correct.

> The moral of the story? Job interviews are not all about your technical skills, it’s about people skills too. And this is good, because you need both in your job.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#176

Post by nsxwolf »

JohnFen wrote: post #86

If you have to lie in an interview to get a job, that's a pretty strong sign that the job is not worth having.

Or that it's just a single bad interviewer in an otherwise great organization, or a normally good interviewer having a bad day in a great organization, or any of an infinity of possibilities.

Interviews are probably mostly useless to both sides. In the end, it's sink or swim.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#177

Post by ketzo »

catears wrote: post #169
karmakaze wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of the interview shouldn't always be to get the job. If you have any length of career, you are interviewing the company as much (or more) than they are interviewing you. My approach would have been to go with the new idea and see what discussion can come out of it. If they don't have time to get into it, that's one thing but if they are simply not open-minded to new ideas, I don't want to work there.

I really love this kind of thinking. This isn't the first time I have happen upon it, but I really like the idea that the work I do for a company is an exchange in which both the company and I get something out of it. Certainly when I got my first job I felt like I was there to take a job, not seeing if the company was a good fit.

Yeah, and obviously that's an ideal, not necessarily reality -- fresh out of college, or just looking more urgently for a job, I think the stakes are a little different and you gotta be a little more willing to just "take the job."

But as someone with experience, looking for higher-level positions, ideally with some time on your hands / savings in the bank to take your time interviewing around? Yeah, it should totally be a two-way street.

"Experienced software developer" is a comically in-demand job title. It's good to know that fact, and to be proportionately selective.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#178

Post by waffletower »

I agree that the author deserves some recognition for their interview social skill flex. I imagine most engineers would not perform real-time perspective taking in this situation. But should they? My takeaway is less pragmatic -- shouldn't those levying judgement during an interview be open to self-reflection? Can't an engineer be celebrated for being capable of learning something new in front of their manager? Shouldn't a manager be capable of understanding their employees are human? Shouldn't those involved in an interview process understand that architecture is far more complex than the cookie cutter representations some use to simplify it?

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#179

Post by bombela »

AlexanderTheGr8 wrote: post #121
nvilcins wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow those sound like such badly designed questions. What country is this?

I don't know about that person, but a friend of mine from India was telling me about a driving test question there - [translated] "How far should you stay behind another car - A) 2 meters B) 2 seconds". Apparently the correct answer is 2 seconds. In my opinion, the question is weirdly ambiguous.

This makes sense to me. What matters is the reaction time and braking distance.

Re: I had to give a wrong answer to get the job (2017)

#180

Post by [deleted] »

munificent wrote: post #141
chaps wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a thought -- gaming is latency sensitive. Maybe their issue with it wasn't about average performance, but that the once-in-a-while perf hit would be enough to cause a bad experience for the person playing the game? I know I'd be frustrated if there was a predictable lag spike while playing a game.

No, latency didn't come up. (I agree that could be a reason not to use a dynamic array.) They were hung up on the idea that a dynamic array must be O(n) because at least some of the appends copy.

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