What I look for when I interview people:
- smarts (if you don't have it, game over :-)
- honesty (if you don't have it, game over!)
- communication (if you can't talk to me, how can I know?)
- humor (if you're a dead fish, chances are you won't make the working environment productive)
- specific skills (if you claim you're at level 8-of-10 in C++, you better be able to explain Koenig look-up and the use of bind_1st !)
- past performance (if you did well before, chances are that'll continue)
I don't need a fast, perfect answer to the question/s. In fact, if I get it, chances are you knew the answer because you'd gotten the question before, which is not as good as working through it out loud.
I do want inquisitiveness (don't assume any requirements -- ask!), thinking out loud (communication!) and a sense for what "done" means. If you claim it's done, be prepared for corner cases!
Pro interview tip #1: Saying "I don't know" or "I don't understand X, can you explain?" is much better than guessing and getting it wrong. If you do guess, state clearly that "I'm guessing that this means X, so in that case ..."
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What to expect from an interview?
Quote: Original post by Ameisethe question seemed -extremely- easy on the top, but once you try to attempt to solve it, you rapidly notice it was actually extremely difficult, to which he replied that that is why it went unnoticed as a bug for many years.
Out of curiosity, what was the problem?
Quote: Original post by moly
I have an interview for a summer internship coming up and was wondering if anyone could give examples of the technical questions they might ask or problems I'll be given to solve. I'm worried they're all going to be about bitwise operations, lists and sort implementations and such which, seeing as I mostly use higher level languages, aren't particularly knowledgeable on. Even when I use c++ I'll use the STL instead of implementing my own data structures. They've already sent me a few questions that I have to solve and bring with me, one of which was about in what situations it would be best to use a bubble sort and when to use alternatives. I had no clue until I looked it up. Is it going to look really bad if I don't know these things?
http://halcyon.usc.edu/~kiran/msqs.html#puzzles
those are fun.
Quote: Original post by way2lazy2careQuote: Original post by moly
I have an interview for a summer internship coming up and was wondering if anyone could give examples of the technical questions they might ask or problems I'll be given to solve. I'm worried they're all going to be about bitwise operations, lists and sort implementations and such which, seeing as I mostly use higher level languages, aren't particularly knowledgeable on. Even when I use c++ I'll use the STL instead of implementing my own data structures. They've already sent me a few questions that I have to solve and bring with me, one of which was about in what situations it would be best to use a bubble sort and when to use alternatives. I had no clue until I looked it up. Is it going to look really bad if I don't know these things?
http://halcyon.usc.edu/~kiran/msqs.html#puzzles
those are fun.
Is it bad that I don't really understand the logic, or reasoning behind any of the questions and most of the answers given? They come off as very poorly worded for the sake of confusion. Which might be the point. Or maybe they are supposed to be impossible, but some of them have "concrete" answers on that website that don't make much logical sense to me.
Quote: Original post by KorJax
Is it bad that I don't really understand the logic, or reasoning behind any of the questions and most of the answers given? They come off as very poorly worded for the sake of confusion. Which might be the point. Or maybe they are supposed to be impossible, but some of them have "concrete" answers on that website that don't make much logical sense to me.
Which didn't you understand? I understood most of them without too much trouble.
Quite a few years ago I went for a dev interview with SI. From what I recall I showed them some arcade shooter I'd coded up in my free time while at uni, then we went for lunch and a few drinks at the local ale-house and they offered me the job.
I didn't take them up on it in the end, but it was a great interview experience, with no technical questions I can recall. I did make it known that I supported the same football team as the guys who were interviewing me and we generally got on really well, which probably counted for as much as my technical skills.
If you're going for an interview - especially if you don't have a lot of experience - then how you interact with the people doing the interview counts for a lot. A lot of technical skills are going to need to be (re)learnt anyhow. Certainly I learned more in 3 months at my first job about how to program commercially, than I did in 3 years at uni on my software engineering degree.
Never argue with the interviewer. By all means discuss things in a friendly, open way if you disagree, but one way to guarantee you wont get a job is if you are aggressive, wont man-up if you're wrong, or if you push a point and you are wrong.
Don't lie or exaggerate, either in your CV or in the interview. Be honest and prepared to back up anything you say you can do. Mostly I've found that employers are looking for intelligent people who will fit into the team, rather than someone who will come in with 100% technical ability, but will rub people in the team up the wrong way. I've found this is true even in the freelance sector where people might come in for 3-6 months.
If you're asked to code something, code it up in the simplest way possible. Employers generally shy away from people who write code which is a convoluted unmaintainable mess, over-engineered and with no comments.
Over the years I've found that one thing that helps is go into the interview thinking that you dont care if you get the job or not. You need to be relaxed and come across in a natural, friendly way, so having that thought in my mind always helps me.
I didn't take them up on it in the end, but it was a great interview experience, with no technical questions I can recall. I did make it known that I supported the same football team as the guys who were interviewing me and we generally got on really well, which probably counted for as much as my technical skills.
If you're going for an interview - especially if you don't have a lot of experience - then how you interact with the people doing the interview counts for a lot. A lot of technical skills are going to need to be (re)learnt anyhow. Certainly I learned more in 3 months at my first job about how to program commercially, than I did in 3 years at uni on my software engineering degree.
Never argue with the interviewer. By all means discuss things in a friendly, open way if you disagree, but one way to guarantee you wont get a job is if you are aggressive, wont man-up if you're wrong, or if you push a point and you are wrong.
Don't lie or exaggerate, either in your CV or in the interview. Be honest and prepared to back up anything you say you can do. Mostly I've found that employers are looking for intelligent people who will fit into the team, rather than someone who will come in with 100% technical ability, but will rub people in the team up the wrong way. I've found this is true even in the freelance sector where people might come in for 3-6 months.
If you're asked to code something, code it up in the simplest way possible. Employers generally shy away from people who write code which is a convoluted unmaintainable mess, over-engineered and with no comments.
Over the years I've found that one thing that helps is go into the interview thinking that you dont care if you get the job or not. You need to be relaxed and come across in a natural, friendly way, so having that thought in my mind always helps me.
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