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I hope this doesn't offend any authors, but I find it rather counterproductive to have articles like this published. I mean the purpose of an interview (or at least one of the main purposes) is to discover whether the candidate is suitable for the position, if they just cram up on some technology they've never experienced before just for the interview, it isn't going to end well for either party.
Thoughts?
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00daytona wrote: to have articles like this published
Like which?
00daytona wrote: if they just cram up on some technology they've never experienced before just for the interview, it isn't going to end well for either party.
Agreed. I find the best way to interview is to let the candidate tell me what they have done. Hopefully they'll do most of the talking and you can tell if they know what they are talking about or not. Just have them tell you about projects they have worked on.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Agreed - they are generally trite garbage that helps no-one. As soon as the interviewer asks a follow up question the idiots that think they will get a job if they remember the sheet are lost. And they waste interview time that could be for "real" candidates.
I firmly believe that interviewers should use them to ask the initial questions, and anyone who gives exactly what's on the sheet rejected immediately... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I can't stand them. The people who use them are basically lying to the interviewer. Sure they can answer the question on the surface, but dig down deeper and you find they don't really know anything. They're just parroting back an answer they read somewhere.
Those are absolutely useless "articles".
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I am in the process of interviewing at the moment, I have found the questions I get asked tend to be of have you done this rather than the latest tech. I think the main point is has this person done anything like we want before, can we work with him (or will he start fires if he not supervised), Do you fit the culture of the company...I spent some time cramming an RTOS system (for MSP430's) was asked the name of it that was all got the job on the back of that question.
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That's not exactly what I had in mind. Does "again" mean what I think it does?
Better luck with the next one!
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Agreed. We just went through a series of interviews with a few potential candidates and I was responsible for asking the "technical" questions. My manager was quite surprised when I was asking questions more related to team work rather than text book questions. Some that I recommend are focused on getting a better insight into their personality. Here is an example.
When working in a team environment, do you prefer to:
a. Receive the requirements and design and code the module yourself?
b. Receive assistance in the design and approach from the team before coding?
c. Depend heavily on team support by involving everyone on the team?
This gives me some insight into their confidence level and trust of others. This combined with other similar questions can help determine if the candidate is a good fit for the team.
When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others.
Same thing when you are stupid.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Well my view is you can work the way 'they' want if there prepared to listen your ideas and previous experience...
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True, but it's that sort of thing that the questions were designed for. If the candidate chose A, then their is a higher likelihood that they will not be accepting of ideas from them team and want to do it their way (over-confident) . If they choose B, then it demonstrates that they are more accepting of outside ideas and demonstrates a good level of confidence. It they choose C, then that appears to be a low confidence level and possibly brown-nosing. This is just one of many questions to help determine how well they will work and interact with the team. Other questions are very simple, such as "What is your preferred method of research?" If they immediately respond "Google", then I know that they are honest and confident. If they go into a whole diatribe of owning a library at home with a large selection of programming books, then that's a red flag that they are not necessarily honest and haven't worked in a real team environment with real deadlines.
When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others.
Same thing when you are stupid.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Donathan.Hutchings wrote: If they go into a whole diatribe of owning a library at home with a large selection of programming books, then that's a red flag that they are not necessarily honest and haven't worked in a real team environment with real deadlines.
I used to own a library full of said books. It's what I used before Google. If I mentioned that during an interview, you'd claim dishonesty?
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Hmm, I think it was what every one did used pre-Google...
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Yes, but not now. I used to have a library myself before the internet, but it is a little ridiculous to think an experienced programmer, or any programmer for that matter, would pull a book before Googling the answer.
When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others.
Same thing when you are stupid.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Of course not. Interviewing is not cut and dry. It's a science (psychology). Based on a series of questions, experience stated on their resume, and visual queues from the candidate, the determination would then be made. Common sense has to be applied to these kind of things. My point is that the type of questions asked in most technical interviews take the wrong approach. Technical knowledge is very important, but it's not an end to a means. True experience is based in wisdom, not knowledge and that's the point of the type of questions I suggest and I use.
When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others.
Same thing when you are stupid.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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From my experience people that are hired as they know buzz words and the latest trendy tech aren't up to the job, they can do X but when you need the full back ground leading to X have they got the skills to find how to do it.
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I totally agree. I try to ask questions based on that premise along with questions to give insight into their personality. When I interview, I look for knowledge based in logic, ie. how to solve problems using the tools available to them and how well they work with the team. Just because the candidate has worked with or studied the latest and greatest, doesn't mean that they would be a good fit. If the company has an archaic technology that needs to be ported to a newer technology, but not so new as to be bleeding edge, that individual may or may not be a good fit. In that scenario, it would be a red flag if the candidate spouted a lot of "buzz" words, but didn't offer any evidence as to how or why they used such technology.
When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others.
Same thing when you are stupid.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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Maybe the interviewer has got his questions from googling "interview questions" and they deserve each other?
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00daytona wrote: Thoughts?
Don't read them.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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Maybe the problem is with the interviews.
If it's a matter of just learning some facts to pass the interview than of what worth is the interview?
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Indeed. If they can't even conduct a single appointment for an introduction, they will most probably bore you to tears at work. Or worse, their great flexibility can turn every day into a little hell.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Practice-exams should be forbidden in that case too- same principle. And asking questions about drivers-theory is again something similar - we should stop that counterproductive idea.
Then again, if you're relying on those questions, you probably deserve the answers you get 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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How about asking some less generic questions that require a little more than just coughing up the one and only correct answer or one of the jokers? When this quiz goes on too long, I might decide to look somewhere else. Those companies that don't come up with interesting interviews rarely come up with interesting work.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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I think they should keep the questions to undocumented features. That way people can't cheat... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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I find them utterly useless!
I've been to quite a number of interviews in my life time, and not one of them has been like another.
The things you get asked highly varies from time to time - and from which part of the world you are in apparently, and even if you DO get technical questions, there is a wide range of stuff you can get asked.
So my question is: How can the so-called authors of the article in ANY way expect that they have picked questions that have ANY relevance to an interview unless they conduct the interview themselves.
Answer is: They cannot! So just forget it!
My advice is: Be yourself, and be reasonably honest. Sure, everybody exaggerates a little to make sure they make a good impression. But if you exeggerate, make sure that it can be scrutinized without making you look too much the fool
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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00daytona wrote: if they just cram up on some technology they've never experienced before just for the interview, it isn't going to end well for either party.
Any company that conducts and interview with technical questions that can be Googled is not a company I would want to work for, and they get what they deserve, IMO. In fact, when I went to an interview last year, the first question was something like "what's the difference between an interface and an abstract class?" I had two reactions:
- You just totally insulted me -- have you even looked at my resume, my online profile, etc?
- My response was "Please do NOT ask me questions I can google the answer for."
After they realized I was dead serious, the response was "well, ok, if I ask any more questions like that, feel free to answer 'that can be googled." 
Needless to say, I didn't take the job. One of the other ironies of the job was that I would have to commute 50 minutes to Albany to sit in a cubicle telecommuting to the company's main offices in Buffalo. 
Marc
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So what IS the difference between an interface and an abstract class? 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-
I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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