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Another programming interview I blew

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Re: Another programming interview I blew

#51

Post by tluyben2 »

lossolo wrote: post #45
tluyben2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also plan for another life (style) (because approaching 40 for which we started planning early 30s) which is what my wife and myself did. We prepared a few years to make sure (we invested money and time in that) we had remote gigs all over the world set up and then moved to a much cheaper country and to the cheapest part of that country. Not only did we find, after a while, that life is actually nicer, we d…

Which country you moved to?

Spain, the very south and in the mountains.

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#52

Post by tluyben2 »

scorpioxy wrote: post #48
tluyben2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could also plan for another life (style) (because approaching 40 for which we started planning early 30s) which is what my wife and myself did. We prepared a few years to make sure (we invested money and time in that) we had remote gigs all over the world set up and then moved to a much cheaper country and to the cheapest part of that country. Not only did we find, after a while, that life is actually nicer, we d…

The theory is sound but it assumes that I am able to move to any country legally to live there. That requires certain types of passports which I was not born with. It also has more assumptions to what my financial/family situation is. I don't meant this in a negative way of course since you don't know me but what I am saying is that this plan is not always possible. The idea of keeping expenses down and foregoing fri…

> since you don't know me but what I am saying is that this plan is not always possible.

Ofcourse, did not mean to imply you should pack up and leave, but it is an alternative scenario for some and they might not have considered it (well). It took us years of planning and checking out locations when still in fulltime employment, so it's not this 'f*ck it, we're off' kind of thing.

Edit: checked your profile/site and I do believe the 'unintended privileged' (you cannot help where you are born or who your parents are) like me cannot really understand how it is not to be able to just travel anywhere, so sorry if I stepped over that too easily. I just try to help as I was in your position 10 years ago work wise, but not in quite in the same region...

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#53

Post by lj3 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #39
lj3 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then the interviewer trots out the old adage "but we're not testing your ability to reverse strings. I want to see how you approach solving problems." And yet, a wrong answer is an almost guaranteed no hire. I can't tell if these people believe their own bullshit or if I'm being lied to my face.

I don't know many of these interviewers (I myself interview but I would never ask people to do these silly tests) but I spoken to one of them from Boston a while ago at a party and he said he just has this list of questions and they need to be answered correct; he himself would not even be able to recognise if the person was attacking the problem right or wrong but he says 'I want to see how you approach solving prob…

Well, now I know! thanks. :)

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#54

Post by NTDF9 »

rosser wrote: post #46
NTDF9 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> As someone seeking a job, yes, it's unfortunate. But from an employer's perspective, false negatives are safer than false positives. - Are you an employer complaining there is a shortage of good developers? - How many candidates have you rejected in the past? - How many of those were because of a bullshit interview question? (Eg: Find the maximum subarray of an input array in O(n)...cannot be brute force....within…

The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I've been in that situation: Once, at an old job, I had put in for a new role that had been created. There was also an outside candidate who'd applied for the role. Management felt that having me interview this candidate would have been a conflict of interest, considering, so I wasn'…

>> The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one.

I'm familiar with the argument. Erring on the side of caution is wise. Thinking that the current interview process saves you from this is stupid.

Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something different

The current interview process is a GAME.

From the employer perspective, they can never be sure if they hired someone who memorized stuff for the interview or a really smart guy.

It's very similar to the current US election process. Everyone thought the forefathers made a rock solid constitution. The few cracks it had was fixed with amendments. Lo and behold, the only person who could make it to the top was the one who gamed the system and not someone with real merit.

Aren't the parallels strong?

P.S.: Not claiming Hillary is meritorious, but at least she's not one to make radical decisions without counsel

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#55

Post by _b36s »

I graduated quite a while ago with a CS degree, and am still searching for my first entry level position.

I have been asked the most ridiculous questions in phone screens and on-sites.

"What is your SAT score?"

"Why did you choose your university over a better ranked one?"

"Tell us about how you used connection strings." (is a CS grad really supposed to know this)

"Do you volunteer teaching kids how to code on your off-time?"

"How do you use this HTML API?" (stuff like micro workers)

"How do you find about the latest tech?" (they weren't satisfied with just HN and Reddit)

Some companies gave me comprehensive projects to spend two weeks or more to work on, in a dozen or so technologies I never encountered.

With one company, I spent a week working on their project. They told me that since I had only 90% done, I didn't pass. Two weeks later, they call me back and ask me to complete the last 10%. It sounded like they were asking for free work. I finished it, then they lied about the expected salary. I wanted an X average salary for the area. They cut it down to X/2 with no benefits, a 6 month probationary period, and no perks.

Another company wanted me to solve a challenging, practical problem. I spent a month figuring it out. Then there were two more parts to this prescreen. The next one wasn't too bad. For the last one, they wanted a written report. I wasn't smart enough to solve their impractical problem for the report. Don't forget this was only step one of the interview process.

Sometimes company reject you due to a bad day. I interviewed with Walmart. The recruiter never set up an appointment, then decided to randomly call me in the morning. The person who referred me to the position said there were no hard requirements about knowing a technology. The recruiter on the phone questioned why I had C# projects instead of Java keywords like Spring listed on my resume. She kept yawning throughout the call. She thought I applied to the wrong job, then abruptly ended the call.

Sometimes I would pass interviews, and told I made it to the next round. Months passed, no reply, not even a rejection.

I'm still searching for a job. I'm honestly scared of all these job posts I see that require experience in a dozen different frameworks. It's getting harder every day.

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#56

Post by rosser »

44, myself. I tend to interview well, which frankly surprises me, because I'm on the whole not as good at people as I'd like to be. I think, though, the thing that has best served me in that regard is walking into every interview remembering that I'm interviewing the company, as much as it is me.

Are these people I can spend as much of my life with as I would by taking this job? Do I respect them? Does the person I'd be reporting to seem like someone I'd be okay reporting to?

I've no shit been in a place where getting this one, specific job was the only chance I had — less than a month's burn rate in the bank, and with no other prospects — but walking into an interview like that has, in whatever part, landed me an offer every time.

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#57

Post by BraveNewCurency »

> I have been to 5 interviews this month and nobody gave me a fucking job.

1) People don't "give" you jobs, you earn them.

2) Swearing is unprofessional

> SQl

Hmm, ten years of SQL and you can't spell it correctly? Something is fishy there.

> Every single one of these interviews was somebody asking me some random shit

I admit a lot of interviews focus on the wrong stuff. But there is actually a LOT of leeway in interviews, where you can show your understanding of software engineering even in the presence of dumb questions. If those companies were actually dumb about hiring, then you probably didn't want to work for them anyway. Find some quality companies to interview for.

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#58

Post by lj3 »

NTDF9 wrote: post #54
rosser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I've been in that situation: Once, at an old job, I had put in for a new role that had been created. There was also an outside candidate who'd applied for the role. Management felt that having me interview this candidate would have been a conflict of interest, considering, so I wasn'…

>> The false negative/false positive question is more about the costs of hiring a "bad" engineer than how hard it is to find a "good" one. I'm familiar with the argument. Erring on the side of caution is wise. Thinking that the current interview process saves you from this is stupid. Gameable systems are won by people who focus on the game. They are not necessarily going to do well if the job requires something diffe…

Downvoted. This thread is about interviews, not politics. There are more than enough political posts on the front page right now if you're in the mood for political commentary.

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#59

Post by scorpioxy »

tluyben2 wrote: post #52
scorpioxy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The theory is sound but it assumes that I am able to move to any country legally to live there. That requires certain types of passports which I was not born with. It also has more assumptions to what my financial/family situation is. I don't meant this in a negative way of course since you don't know me but what I am saying is that this plan is not always possible. The idea of keeping expenses down and foregoing fri…

> since you don't know me but what I am saying is that this plan is not always possible. Ofcourse, did not mean to imply you should pack up and leave, but it is an alternative scenario for some and they might not have considered it (well). It took us years of planning and checking out locations when still in fulltime employment, so it's not this 'f*ck it, we're off' kind of thing. Edit: checked your profile/site and…

Oh yes, it's pretty good advice in general. Thank you for that.

Luckily, I am in a better situation than most, having the chance to move to Australia a year ago as part of their immigration system. I say luckily but really it took a lot of effort and planning to apply and then wait for the process and take care of all the details. Its a great country but I still face some issues being a foreigner.

P.S. The mountains in Spain... Sounds great!

Re: Another programming interview I blew

#60

Post by flukus »

cdumler wrote: post #47

If you're looking to vent, then I'll say, "That sucks, dude. Keep in there, it's all a numbers game." Tomorrow will be a better day. But, I'm going to be bold. I'm going to out on the limb and suggest that: maybe it's not being asked "RANDOM shite," but maybe your attitude. Generally speaking, I've had to do three to five or so interviews to get an offer. Depending on the market and the timing, I've had far, far wors…

> People who have 10 years (or claim 10 years) C#/SQL are a dime-a-dozen. You're competing in a market that is dying, the same way Java developers are dying: a smaller and smaller group of employers who are stuck on the tech.

I think your in a bubble. 90%+ of the jobs around here are c#, java and php. Only one local company seems to be doing anything with node (and not something node is suited for), in fact, I haven't seem them advertise for a while, so it's probably zero now.

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