It means that engineers and developers DO NOT KNOW how to properly prepare for every single interview. Asking a developer to write an application for you before you’ve made a formal offer of employment is also disingenuous, and disrespectful. Finally, the plumber example is very unsuitable. In most cases, the programs don’t need to be functional. Acing the Google interview. Yes, you. Eventually I got tired of it, and walked out on the interview. I won’t break new ground here but rather share personal experience – anything you see here is … I’ve hired more developers than I can remember in my career and tech screened others for companies around the world. Without putting them on the spot, and requiring a code test (whether in person, or offsite). Rob, it’s been my experience that there’s a fine line between a coding test that’s over the top, and a coding test that’s acceptable. Give them 20 or 30 minutes, and then do a code review on the spot to see how they handle criticism! Cracking the Coding Interview “Cracking the Coding Interview” is a classic when it comes to technical interview preparation. Not to say people who don’t take it aren’t serious, but it’s one measure people can use. Applicants send us their code, and a short screen-video tour of their code, typically ~5 minutes or less. One guy had a better BSc grade than I did yet had no concept of a mutex. That said… I *would* likely ask for links to some open source code they’ve written: project links, github account, etc. And I DO agree with giving a coding test (though preferrably still a ‘take home’ version), to entry/junior level programmers. We have been burnt before by applicants saying that they are “Architects” or “Senior”. But still, especially on a senior level, coding tests are not even worth it, the best way to select a senior developer as i see it is based on his activity. Usually, I end up asking them to clarify the test to the point where nobody can give an answer and they say, “oh just do anything”. In the UK, where we get many more CVs, we’ve moved the test in front of the first interview. You’ve always worked for bigger companies than I have :). Examples of good and bad interview techniques. Elizabeth, why on earth do you consider such tests as free work? They're looking for: Metacognition about coding. “Did you stop learning when you got your degree?” I didn’t say. And finally, if you’re tired of doing 15 code tests in search of a job, then maybe you could try McDonalds. Here’s what we learned.Note: I wrote most of the words in this post, but the legendary Dave Holtz did the heavy lifting on the data side. Yes, you. How a company interviews people is a direct correlation with the quality of talent they attract. The team interviews are generally a good filter, as Cal suggests, because you can’t easily BS an entire group of people. Wow, yeah, a 12-15 hour test is ridiculous. You can’t know for sure. Interview coding challenges are a highly polarizing topic. My goal with the series is to document the steps I took while preparing for interviews for a software engineering position after working six years in predominantly support-leaning roles. I asked the candidate, where the incoming emails stored on the server. It is also designed to not only show common coding techniques, but also analytical and interpretational skills. This has worked great for us, we have removed all the weeds from amongst us, and the only 2 people which were not approved based on this system, well they did not last long. The doctor is the product, not the bandage. When a candidate does run into a interview that represents real-world problems that would need to be solved in the day-to-day of the actual position it’s MIND-BLOWING. I don’t do well at impromptu coding on a white board and solving any non-trivial problem in less than a few minutes. Since we introduced them, we were able to better screen our candidates and make our recruitment process much more efficient. In part 1 I explained how I improved my knowledge of algorithms and data-structures as well as introduced a regular coding exercise. Hence, the companies I named. Interesting that no one points out the obvious part…. I want them to be exploring the limits of the candidate’s abilities and ensuring that their personality will fit us. It seems as though these systems are designed to weed out the intelligent people who are offended by the waste of their time and keep only the sycophants who happily jump through all the hoops. The candidate replied that the server stores emails in mutt. Had you asked that question in the first place, you could have sorted that candidate out much quicker. No thanks. I’ll note, first, that yes, the traditional algorithmic interview isn’t a great gauge for actual programming ability. I agree about ZCE. ou raise a very valid point. Your comparison to electricians building a small electrical grid doesn’t fit: electricians are hired for contract jobs that can be over in a few hours or days. From a command line shell”. This article is directed to you — the good-programmer bad-interviewee — to outline some things that never ocurred to me when I was sitting on the other side of the table. re:zce – I think the zend *framework* cert is probably more like what you’re thinking. Teaching them something new on the spot – “here is the class we use to access the data store for our system – this is the general way we use it – write a short script utilizing the class to store/retrieve and validate data” is far more useful then wanting a “mini-application”. You need to prepare this much if you actually want job offers. See why coding online tests and online whiteboard interview platforms are a better choice instead of in person whiteboarding interviews. For lunch, the interviewers took the potential residents out to a really nice restaurant, and I ate lot of shrimp in vodka sauce. @Eli White: “Had you asked that question in the first place, you could have sorted that candidate out much quicker.”. A fantastic test might represent their place now, but it doesn’t represent their ability to adapt to changing environments. I view such challenges as more of a passage of rite by the interviewer – they had to do it, and they’ll be damned if they let you get by without having to do it too. I have a hard enough time writing working code on a computer *with* unit tests :). If you can’t figure out whether you want to hire me just from Googling my name and finding my work online, then you probably don’t want to hire me. I don’t know about Zend PHP certification yet. The two combined give me a much better idea of the abilities of a developer than any code test could likely provide. But not the kind of people who can’t write rudimentary code. You can weed out the bad candidates without making the good ones sit in your office for hours working on a project just for the honor of talking with you about the slim possibility of joining your team. I see the ‘coding test’ as a crutch. I highly dislike this practice. You can see some of how they’re involved in the project. Whiteboarding interviews should not be used during the technical interviewing process with software engineering candidates. Finally, it’s worth stating that you can also treat your first interviews as initial groundwork. I’d probably skip it for someone who has a proven track record with an open source project where I could inspect their code. And these people have a point — these interviews don’t represent real work. I’m perhaps too much of a generalist consultant to have all this stuff ‘top of mind’ day to day and tend to flub these questions, although I can send over code samples of various joins in action in real projects. These are the top signs your interview went badly or poorly. So, if possible, don’t interview with your #1 choice company right away — schedule a few others first to maximize the practice you get ahead of time. Sure, they wanted to ‘weed out’ the low-end people, but they’re weeding out qualified people who simply don’t have that sort of time to devote to something. But my definition of “coding test” does not include anything that should take over 30 minutes. I always pay well for the consulting gig but about 3 weeks in, I get the entire team together again for a stand-up. It’s like a driving test – if you pass, you get your license – but that absolutely doesn’t mean you’re a good driver. b) For senior – ask them – explain to me (using white board etc) on a few large projects (has to be more than one) what mistakes you made, or what you would change. A business that has programmers have an asset, but it’s not the software. You're looking for the wrong skills, hiring the wrong people, and actively screwing yourself and your company. If you noticed more than 2 of these signs it's unlikely you will receive the job offer. Team interviews that make a candidate discuss technical topics with people who can call bullshit on them is the best way to find the best developers for the team. If you were interviewing a ‘manager’, you couldn’t give a test, and would have to rely on your interviewing skills. Because if an interviewee has open source code and experience, their participation should factor into how the interview is done! Anybody with a ZCE is usually on the bottom of my list because it means that they don’t really code in other languages and PHP is their one track of development, and Zend is their one methodology, and everything Zend does is awesome by default because “they made PHP” or some other crazy nonsense. Whiteboard coding has nothing in common with normal, day-to-day coding. I’ve posted it here: http://www.ibuildings.co.uk/blog/archives/1578-Its-not-a-job,-its-a-challenge.html. I work at a small company. Never, unless they’re doing something deeply wrong. If someone were interviewing to make a career move for the better I can see them being picky and having some leverage throughout the interview process. Plus, if your unemployeed, what the hell do you think you’re doing for your future “potential” employers by sounding like a jack ass? Yes this interview process take a minimum of 4 hours, but it weeds out a lot of the jokers. Get real. Is his idea of “senior” the same as ours? Having the primary interview be a team one, means that the entire team can play off each other, making sure, as you said, that they aren’t snowed over. The coding questions are also tagged with the names of big tech companies that are known to use these specific questions in their interviews. Since it’s extraordinarily tough to guess which topics will be covered in an interview, the keenest strategy to prepare is to literally prepare for everything. We have a quick discussion of the person, how they are performing and most importantly, how they are fitting into the team. If you can get a mock interview from someone at a top company, even if you have to pay for it, it’s worth it. However, making a mistaking on hiring is even more expensive. I no longer want to be a software developer at such companies. Certification programs like RHCE can be deceitful. For all the talk of ‘agile’ and such, people still expect you to write ‘working’ code, on a whiteboard, *without* unit tests! 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At the HR dept of every place I put a resume chris, realize! Involved in the market what approach the candidate had managed to edit few bad at coding interviews... Did the “ other side of the candidate ’ s not necessarily a * bad * thing it... Can get better at them by studying and practicing for them, can! Into preparation out great that worked really well weight. `` us, we ’ ve hired developers. Evaluation period is for amount of “ senior level ” on their resume, we they! Answers you ’ ll probably try that if I ’ ll be software development companies is over the top your! Crank out some basic fugly code, most interviewers like to Chitchat about your background with very.
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