It's pretty obvious to interviewers if you've solved a problem before, and we appreciate the honesty. Interviews are not adversarial; they're to see if a candidate is a good fit for the role and dishonesty is never a good fit.
"We expect you to study and be prepared for algorithmic questions, BUT NOT TOO PREPARED! Only just enough. We will give you a random question of our choosing, but if you already studied this, then you will be deducted points, unless you tell us, so that we can ask you a question you've never studied before."
A true interview would give the candidate their choice of question with the expectation that they know how to solve the question. It makes it a lot fairer for everyone involved.
After getting some interview coaching, I think I understand how this complaint arose. The whole problem is an artifact of the interview format, in which the design intent is for the candidate to be unable to solve the problem on their own. So you get scored based on how well you can charm the answer out of your interviewer while making them feel like everything they said was your idea. Instead of a test of how well you can program or solve math problems, it's a test of how good you are at cold reading. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading )
And unsurprisingly, a test of cold reading will end up delivering people who are good at cold reading without reference to whether they're good at other things. If you want to avoid this problem, just start giving assessments that don't involve interaction with the interviewer.
If the candidate breezes through the discussion because they've actually had to solve the problem before, then their victory is well earned.
If on the other hand its an academic question in the same vein as the data structures or algorithms puzzles you find on $interviewprepforum, then the fact that they've solved it before tells you very little.
I think this is why contrived questions gained popularity in the first place - they eliminated noise due to candidates randomly having solved similar problems before (that and "real life" problems usually can't be explained and solved in 1 hour).
I'm struggling to imagine a definition of "adversarial" that would make this true. You have two parties with conflicting goals.
The interviewee's goal is to be evaluated inaccurately.
If you really need an example, then look at it this way:
1. The interviewee's goal is to be hired.
2. Assuming there is no conflict of goals, then the interviewer's goal is to hire the interviewee.
3. This immediately implies that the interview is a pure waste of time. You can just make the hire without having the interview.
If you don't believe that interviews are -- in every case -- nothing but a waste of time, then you must reject one of the two premises. You either believe that (1) The interviewee does not wish to be hired, or (2) there is a conflict between the interviewee's goals and the interviewer's goals.
We can make a similar observation purely by knowing that interviewers sometimes reject interviewees.
Only if the interviewee doesn't think they should be hired.
I think a better way to think of this is:
1. The interviewer's goal is to hire somebody that will provide value at the company, using the hiring criteria as a way of judging it.
2. The interviewee's goal is to get an offer at a company that makes sense for their career goals.
These aren't necessarily adversarial.
> Only if the interviewee doesn't think they should be hired.
Nope. The interviewee would always like to be evaluated as better than they actually are, regardless of whether they meet the notional hiring threshold.
> These aren't necessarily adversarial.
The goals you list are still necessarily adversarial, because the interviewee's goal is always to get an offer and the interviewer's goal is to stymie them.
More specifically: the interviewer's goal is to minimize (1) false positives and (2) the expenditure of the company's resources.
Meanwhile, candidates hope to be evaluated "fairly", which is in direct conflict with criterion (1). They also naively expected to be treated "decently", which is in direct conflict with criterion (2) and which explains why employer-side ghosting is so widespread, along with other abusive practices like piling on lengthy take-homes, etc.
I don't think concerns about resource expenditure actually explain ghosting. I think that happens despite what the company would prefer, because the people involved find it unpleasant to notify candidates of a rejection.
Lengthy take-homes are easier to explain by reference to resource concerns.
Minimizing false positives is not a fundamental goal of interviewing -- accuracy is a goal in all settings, while minimizing false positives isn't. But minimizing resource expenditures is; you're right about that.
"Unpleasant" to send a standard form letter? I don't buy that.
I do agree though that it's what they prefer. As a reflection of how they are, and how they look at people.
> ..
> dishonesty is never a good fit.
If you rejected every such “dishonest candidate”, the paid services offering candidates practice questions would have gone out of business long ago.
Given the popularity of such services, have your considered the possibility that you overestimate your ability to spot candidates who have solved the problem previously?
It could easily cost you the offer if they think you’re being dishonest.
If you say it’s familiar and they ask you to do it anyway, just solve it very quickly and thoroughly. They’ll give you points for your performance and probably ask you another.
Beyond that though, you can just be honest and say you know a problem and they can either pick another or just talk about it anyway.