Questions regarding interviews

[myk45]

Hi All,

This is a continuation of the thread where there was an interesting discussion about interviews.

Well, firstly, since in this forum, there are a lot of professionals here, and a lot of students who face interviews i felt we could have a thread dedicated to discussing about interviews. I hope this would help many questions frequently asked in the forums. Kindly share your experiences w.r.t the following:

1) Questions you frequently ask people/expect people to know?
2) General duration of the interview?
3) Your first interview? :)
4) Preparation for facing one?

Well, anything that you would like to share. Since this is more of a technical discussion, i have posted it in the C forum itself.

@Admins: If this is not the right place to post, kindly move this to an appropriate location.

Thanks!

[nitin1]

@deceptikon i know he has posted it at wrong place, but shift it without infraction points ;) thanks in advance to you. ;)

[deceptikon]

1) Questions you frequently ask people/expect people to know?

I like to ask questions based on real world challenges I've encountered within the target domain. I absolutely despise the tricky questions, riddles, and Google/Microsoft questions that have been all the rage lately. I also don't believe in just testing book knowledge. Any idiot can read documentation; it takes something more to develop robust software.

When you face me, you'll get something like:

Q: You're tasked with writing a Windows service that polls a network folder for image files, performs cleanup, and finally imports the files into capture software for OCR. How would you maintain file integrity throughout the process? What if the client needs the ability to audit the process at each step? What if the client requests that the service be distributed across multiple servers for high availability?

2) General duration of the interview?

Generally 30-45 minutes unless I end it early so as not to waste both our time interviewing someone who clearly won't make it.

3) Your first interview? :)

Interviewer: "This job sucks, do you want it?"
Me: "Yes."

I was interviewing for a system administrator/IT technician position. The interviewer would end up being my manager, and he was right about it sucking. ;)

4) Preparation for facing one?

I don't really believe in preparing for the interview. If you really want the job you'll do at least minimal research on the company without being told, and if you really deserve the job then the skills needed to do the job will get you through an interview.

[nitin1]

how to tell you that i am watching a ghost-type interviewer in james who will eat me when i say wrong answer ;)(purely kidding with you :-D) deceptikon the question you asked are generally not asked in any job interview question, i have seen till date. i have solved around 1500 problems on various websites but i never come across such questions which you asked. google/ microsoft even facebook never asked this type of question.

p.s i am talking about questions which company aksks to a student who has just completed his graduation like me.(after b.tech or bba or something like that). thanks

[deceptikon]

deceptikon the question you asked are generally not asked in any job interview question, i have seen till date. i have solved around 1500 problems on various websites but i never come across such questions which you asked. google/ microsoft even facebook never asked this type of question.

That's intentional. All of the usual interview questions I've seen are stupid and tell the interviewer very little about a candidate's suitability for the position. What better questions to ask than dumbed down and abbreviated versions of what they'll encounter on the job?

I couldn't care less if you come up with a clever way to design a spice rack for a disabled person, or if you can figure out how to get a wolf, a lamb, and a sack of grain across a river. These things may tell me how you think, assuming you didn't look up the answers online before the interview, but they don't tell me jack about how you'd react to real problems or how well you'd fit into my team.

Though I do agree that the fizzbuzz program is a good way to weed out retards, and I'll use it occasionally as a first question. Others are simple but subtle algorithms like a binary search, or a safe copy in the presence of overlapping memory. These can promote conversation.

p.s i am talking about questions which company aksks to a student who has just completed his graduation like me.(after b.tech or bba or something like that).

My questions aren't beyond a college graduate.

[aumshah]

Was this an on campus interview? Sometimes a short interview can indicate that you and the interviewer did not establish a good "flow", which would be a negative. Or it can indicate that the specific questions they had were answered and they achieved what they needed to in the interview. Did they give you an opportunity to ask questions?