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For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies
301–306 of 306 posts
Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, doing a high school olympiad didn't get me into the university I wanted, so why would a university-level olympiad get anyone into the job they want? It doesn't work as a credential unless it actually produces results.
Uh.... the IOI/IMO/etc. are for high schoolers. Doing well on the IOI (bronze or higher medal) will get you into any university you want. Doing well on the IOI is something that you'd also put on your app if you were applying to a PhD in mathematics.
Ah. I see what the problem is. The IOI started in 1989. The US first participated in the IOI in 1992, and has sent a total of 65 contestants. The first opportunity I might have had to be selected would have been 1993. My AP Computer Science teacher was the baseball coach, who presumably wasn't looking to sponsor any other extracurricular activities.
I had therefore never heard of it before this thread, despite it being around for 27 years now.
At the time I was in high school, US Science Olympiad, Indiana Academic Super Bowl, and the Rose-Hulman Math Competition were about the only games in town. And it was a big school. We might have had a US Chemistry Olympiad team if the chemistry teacher wasn't a few moles short of a balanced reaction, if you know what I mean. The biology and physics teachers were the Science Olympiad sponsors.
I'd think that even just being on the IOI team would be enough to get you accepted anywhere, given that you would have to be one of the top 4 students in the US for that year (by the best screening process that several university professors can manage).
Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because you are smart enough to compete in an Olympiad doesn't mean you can function practically on a software engineering team. Whiteboard coding helps the interviewer see how you think and function as well as "can you solve this problem"; though I agree that it's not necessarily the best way to evaluate those capabilities, it's the best tool some companies have.
I don't really see that. I think whiteboard coding is one of many ways a team could function and that how a candidate performs on it is not generalizable. For instance, I have never written code, pseudo or otherwise, on a whiteboard outside of an interview in over eight years of writing code full-time. Hell, I used a whiteboard more in my four years as an EE and two years as a SysE than I have as a SysE/SwE.
It depends how you evaluate the exercise -- for example, don't mark the candidate on correct code and syntax, but reasoning ability, communication, and problem solving. Whiteboard code interviews also have the flaw that the type of problem they tend to cover is not one you might run into in daily coding, so the way the candidate thinks and communicates is seen through a very particular lens - but my point is that given an Olympiad-level candidate who can clearly solve those kinds of problems, I think there is still value to be had from watching them solve them.
I prefer whiteboarding systems design/architectural concepts, which is definitely something I do in the course of my regular work.
Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because you are smart enough to compete in an Olympiad doesn't mean you can function practically on a software engineering team. Whiteboard coding helps the interviewer see how you think and function as well as "can you solve this problem"; though I agree that it's not necessarily the best way to evaluate those capabilities, it's the best tool some companies have.
Whiteboard performance (positive/negative) doesn't correlate all that well with practical performance on engineering teams, either.
Oh, I can believe that. But the way said performance is measured -- both types -- is extremely varied. I'd summarize my viewpoint as "whiteboard interviews tell you something about how the candidate thinks and communicates, which you can use to jump into deeper explorations". Just because you know someone is smart enough to solve a problem doesn't mean it's not valuable to see how they do it.
Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except ... reversing a singularly-linked list recursively is trivial. If you can't do this, you are not qualified at basic manipulation of data structures and you should fail the interview if they want someone with basic competence in data structure manipulation. Sorry but that is how it is.
Because so often we are faced with having to implement singularly linked-list reversal. I wouldn't even bother implementing this myself in the real world and I have a degree in computer science and 10 years experience doing dev work. I would type the problem into google, survey a couple of solutions and pick one I liked. Done. Next problem please. This is pedantic crap that is a waste of anyone's time. I can't believ…
The point is that if you can't do this, there is no way you can do stuff more complicated than this, which will actually be necessary during regular work. (And which you won't be able to type into Google).
I run a software company and I'll say straight up I would not hire someone with your attitude.
Re: For anyone who has been turned down by 38 companies
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is essentially an anxiety issue. It's definitely possible to hack anxiety - it might be a good idea to see a psychologist/psychiatrist to help figure out how, cause that's essentially what they do. And if CBT doesn't work there's always beta-blockers, heh.
It is not an anxiety issue. Interviews are structured ridiculously, most being the equivalent of a dick wagging contest or a beauty pageant. Companies are falling over themselves not to hire the best talent, but just the youngest people who can recite the algorithm to find a subtree in a tree.
Yes. So last time I was looking for a job, I became good at reciting algorithms, looking like a "team player", whatever the fuck they wanted. I didn't like it, I felt some degree of trepidation over my interviews, but I didn't have crippling anxiety or anything.
Jumping through arbitrary hoops is completely normal for most professions. The main issue here is being so anxious that one finds it impossible to work up the courage to interview in the first place.