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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)

#61

Post by itronitron »

nsomaru wrote: post #17
chrisseaton wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Picture the card in your mind. Ace of hearts. Ace of hearts" If they give a big reaction then you've found their card and performed a miracle. If not then you just continue "Of course, that's just an example..." and continue the patter throwing out other hints Wouldn't you have to do this on average five times to get the right one? Wouldn't it be a bit suspicious giving five example cards before arriving at the ri…

That’s not how it works. Usually you try to force a card with a high percentage success but if it fails you will fall back to another way of revealing the card

Yeah, it's all about card control. I used to work with someone who could shuffle and unshuffle a deck, and place any card into the deck and pull it back out (after one or more shuffles.) Takes years of practice.

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

#62

Post by crispyambulance »

This story uses a technical question (MVC vs n-tier) as an example, but conforming your answer to interviewer expectations also applies to behavioral and soft-skill questions (perhaps more so).

There are some traditional corporate HR-screening questions that have flummoxed tech people since forever. Those who are savvy about people-skills in a workspace know instinctively how to answer these questions, but some techies have a very hard time with them because they're either being radically honest or awkwardly trying to second-guess what the interviewer wants to hear.

The best thing you one can do is to practice. Interviewing is a skill (for both sides), it doesn't come naturally to most folks.

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

#63

Post by bitwize »

zabzonk wrote: post #45

In my experience, being "right" is no bar to getting the job. In one case where I was going for a C++ expert job, I got asked a question (that I can't remember now), gave the correct answer, which the interviewer disputed. I asked if they had a copy of TC++PL on hand, which they did, and I pointed out the relevant section. I got the job. In another case, I was asked something complicated about "const" in C++ (which h…

Your experience is not universal.

I've been passed over for a job because I did not recite the right buzzwords (framework names, etc.). Your job in an interview is to please the person across the table from you. Some interviewers are looking for a sharp technical mind unafraid to challenge them. Others view any challenge to what they think is right as a threat.

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

#64

Post by analognoise »

dennis_moore wrote: post #20
laurieg wrote: post #8

> So I decided to start by giving the correct answer, and see how he responded. I explained “The model-view-controller is a software pattern, and so resides inside the written code. Since in most cases, this code only runs on the application tier, …”. But then I saw him frowning, and so knew this was not the answer the was expecting. So I continued: This is a great cold reading technique that works in magic tricks to…

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

Interviews aren't only just about skill. Sometimes you're just having a bad day, or the interviewer is. Either will prevent you from success.

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

#65

Post by seer »

rocqua wrote: post #26
tomerv wrote: post #15

Can't really comment on whether that was the correct way to handle the situation, given that passing the interview was the goal. However, I would have a hard time giving an incorrect answer on purpose. I also consider an interview as an opportunity to learn about the company I'm going to work for, and especially my future colleagues. I would probably try to give a full answer, such as "there's a widely-held concept X…

Do you want to have that discussion with your team-lead almost fully cold, in front of his superior? Because in the article, that is the key point. The applicant was totally willing to go into a fair discussion about the pattern. However, doing that in front of the tech-lead his boss is likely to be different from a fair discussion. Disagreement about technical architecture is fine. Doing so in front of higher manage…

Unless you absolutely need the job, I would consider this a great opportunity to figure out how his boss would react.

Getting into a lively technical discussion when you can see how well people can control their egos to find out the best course of action is very valuable. If I had a chance during an interview to find out how people behave in those circumstances I would definitely go for it. Who knows maybe the "boss" would be present in future technical discussions as well, I wouldn't want his presenc to change the discourse negatively.

And as I've personally been in positions like that (being the tech lead with the boss on the call), I'm usually thrilled to learn new information and discuss technical things, raising my opinion of the interviewee greatly.

Maybe that's because I come from a very straight forward culture where political subterfuge is frowned upon, but it wouldn't actually look very good to me if a member of my team would subtly alter a technical matter for the worse because of political pressure. Would I be able to trust that person? I would always have this doubt that they are "playing a deeper game", regardless if it was for my benefit or not.

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

#66

Post by mewpmewp2 »

buu700 wrote: post #58
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I couldn't find the specific wording right now and whether there was some sort of plausible play with the word "planned". This question is also translated.

Ah okay, that makes sense.

Actually I managed to find out the exact wording of the question, it was fairly different from what I remembered:

What affects the duration of a planned journey?

a) Length of the journey.

b) Maximum speed in few lone sections of the journey.

It uses checkboxes, so you can check both.

They expect you to check only a), but b) is in my view also logically correct answer as if at any section even if it's shorter than 1 metres, if your max speed nears 0, duration of your journey will reach infinity. But it is worded in such a way that most people will get the hint that B) should not be checked.

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

#67

Post by dekhn »

timmg wrote: post #57

My first programming job interview (like 100 years ago) was a group interview. One guy asked me to write string compare in C. Not sure I did it right, but I basically walked the two char* pointers looking for a '0' or a mismatch. The guy asking the question said, "No, first you should compare the string lengths -- since if they have a different length they will be different." I was nervous, but I thought he was wrong…

Modern strcmp and strlen both contain optimizations based on modern hardwarae, and I believe strlen can be faster than strcmp, but that's overoptimizing for performance.

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

#68

Post by crispyambulance »

Radim wrote: post #9

Heh. Happens all the time with tests and questionnaires, the choice is always frustrating: * "Does the author really mean what they are asking? Are the mistakes in the phrasing or corner cases intentional, meant to catch me, test my deep knowledge?" , or * "Is the author just not very good with logic / not thinking this through?" I go with the latter in "soft social" contexts. Never regretted it yet. This saved my hi…

I don't know about gun-permit tests, but people DO fail these kinds of screens. To a large extent failing a test like that would demonstrate how far out-of-touch the test-taker is.

I suppose in this case it might instead just be a formality? And no one has actually ever failed that test?

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

#69

Post by Jtsummers »

belter wrote: post #47

In the Benelux, try to get a job after answering what you really think about Scrum. If the local Scrum Master is present in the interview team you will be "persona non grata" for the rest of your career... "One Hacker Way Rational alternative of Agile - Erik Meijer" https://youtu.be/2u0sNRO-QKQ Nowadays a Developer has to act a little bit like in this scene from Good Will Hunting. Make yourself stupid...you will be h…

> try to get a job after answering what you really think about Scrum.

That's providing an opinion, a very perilous thing.

Scrum can work, and it can also fail spectacularly. Often it just presses forward as well as any other process. By saying, "Scrum is awful" you're positioning yourself against the current trend in many businesses (similarly saying that about DevOps in many places, or DevSecOps if you go to the US gov't or DoD contractor). And since the value of Scrum is so dependent on the people doing the work and how they actually run things there's no universal statement that can be made about it anyways.

So don't, qualify it: I've seen Scrum at a past employer where they insisted on only code-based stories in each Sprint which led to massive technical debt, and eventually the project came to an incredible slowdown as they paid no attention to refactoring or other cleanup tasks until after they were bit by it. If the stories are a mix of maintenance and development stories then it seems to be more successful.

Such a statement is hard to dispute (it's about personal experience) and is non-confrontational (you're not entirely dismissing Scrum but you're not endorsing it either, only offering insight into what seems to be a problem feature and a potential solution). You aren't making yourself stupid, but you're opening up a potential discussion. If the Scrum Master is present you can get into a discussion about their specific process as implemented in their organization. That can give you more useful insight than saying something negative as if it's a universal truth, when it's not.

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

#70

Post by buu700 »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #66
buu700 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah okay, that makes sense.

Actually I managed to find out the exact wording of the question, it was fairly different from what I remembered: What affects the duration of a planned journey? a) Length of the journey. b) Maximum speed in few lone sections of the journey. It uses checkboxes, so you can check both. They expect you to check only a), but b) is in my view also logically correct answer as if at any section even if it's shorter than 1 m…

Ah okay, yeah, clearly would need to be checked then if they wanted a literal and honest answer.
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