{"id":210,"date":"2017-07-18T14:01:44","date_gmt":"2017-07-18T21:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/?p=210"},"modified":"2017-07-18T14:05:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-18T21:05:12","slug":"basic-tips-for-technical-interviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/2017\/07\/18\/basic-tips-for-technical-interviews\/","title":{"rendered":"basic tips for technical interviews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An ocean of ink has been spilled about interviewing for jobs in the technical industry (see, just for example <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions\/dp\/0984782850\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1500410192&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview\">cracking the coding interview<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/steve-yegge.blogspot.com\/2008\/03\/get-that-job-at-google.html\">get that job at google<\/a>).  I&#8217;m probably not going to cover any new ground here, but these are some basic tips for doing better on technical interviews.<\/p>\n<p>This post was inspired by my repeated recent frustration as a hiring manager watching candidates that had potential (or even proven prior performance!) do poorly at the in-depth interview loop phase of the process.  If every candidate took fifteen minutes to read and internalize these points in addition to however many hours they spend self-flagellating with Cormen et al&#8217;s algorithms tome, I am guessing the pass rate might double.  Interviewing is not like regular work (for better or for worse), and competency at the latter does not a priori translate well to the unnatural constraints of you + interrogator + whiteboard.\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When you&#8217;re practicing for an interview that will involve whiteboard time, <strong>write out your solutions long-hand on paper<\/strong> first, and make a note of what you have to google to remember.  Not that an interview will be passed or failed based on remembering all the <tt>printf<\/tt> format specifiers or whatever, but it doesn&#8217;t hurt to get them right either.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ask questions before you dive in!<\/strong>  (I would stipulate &#8220;good questions&#8221; but really, anything more than silence that&#8217;s on topic would be better than nothing.)  Many many many times a problem can be dramatically simplified by asking clarifying questions or stipulating a reasonable constraint. No interviewer will hold this against you; on the contrary, it&#8217;s usually regarded as a small but very positive signal for the candidate&#8217;s competency.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Think out loud as much as you can.<\/strong>  Remember that we&#8217;re not just looking for banged out code or whatever, but trying to see how you think.  Thinking is 90% of technical work, the rest is just typing and irritating planning meetings.  If nothing else, outline the solution that comes to mind at a high level and ask if that sounds reasonable before diving into implementing it.  That alone can save you many precious minutes from being wasted by barking up the wrong tree.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Post-solution follow up work:<\/strong> after you&#8217;ve banged out an implementation, take a moment to talk &#8212; even at a footnote level &#8212; about efficiency \/ avenues for possible improvement \/ how to test your work.  For example, in a code interview, take a moment to walk through a very simple test case.  These are hugely positive signals that the candidate is driven to do good, thorough work and possesses initiative\/responsibility\/etc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Take a deep breath and relax.<\/strong> :)  I know (<i>I know<\/i>) this is maybe the hardest element of this list, because you&#8217;ve got all this stuff riding on whether or not you pass the interview, and rightly you&#8217;re a bit stressed out with all of it.  But your brain will work better if you aren&#8217;t in fight-or-flight mode.  Try to, as much as is possible, relax and view interview sessions as a friendly chat to solve a problem between colleagues rather than an Inquisition.  Good interviewers will make allowances for nerves, but still, it goes a lot easier if you chill out a bit about things.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An ocean of ink has been spilled about interviewing for jobs in the technical industry (see, just for example cracking the coding interview or get that job at google). I&#8217;m probably not going to cover any new ground here, but these are some basic tips for doing better on technical interviews. This post was inspired &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/2017\/07\/18\/basic-tips-for-technical-interviews\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">basic tips for technical interviews<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/perilouscodpiece.org\/blaeg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}