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A comment on Ask HN: How to prepare for technical interviews?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: How to prepare for technical interviews? by mrcold on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @04:08AM (#9176576)
But you're not giving your candidates problems, are you? You're giving them specific scenarios with strict algorithmic constraints. In any engineering job the boss asks us to build a system or a tool. He never says solve this very specific task using these very specific rules. You have a lot of freedom when it comes to the actual implementation.

Why aren't you replicating this in your interviews? Why do you insist on code tests? Why aren't you insisting on the result? That's what your boss wants. I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about your ability to solve stupid trivia and academic tests.

This is why I'm saying you're a bureaucrat. You read somewhere about fizzbuzz and code tests and you stopped there. Didn't think for yourself. Just gobbled up what some other guys decided was good.

Want great conversations and to be amazed by experts? Give them real life problems to solve. You will look incompetent too if I start interviewing you with stupid "How do you do X?" questions.

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Re:Ask HN: How to prepare for technical interviews? by valdiorn on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @04:58AM (#9176715)
You've already made up your mind about who and what I am based on 3 paragraphs of text (which I wrote in a somewhat sarcastic and aggressive tone, I know, to make it a bit more funny to read, and to invoke some response).

But I'm going to level with you: if my expert can't handle a simple problem with training wheels, like FizzBuzz, it is a very strong indicator that attempting to give him a bigger problem to solve (but not code) is a waste of time.

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Re:Ask HN: How to prepare for technical interviews? by petervandijck on Tuesday March 10, 2015 @08:10AM (#9177254)
Your expert baker example is spot on. I know a chef who asks new cooks to cook a scrambled egg. If they can't do that right (and many can't), it points to real problems with their basics. If they feel cooking a scrambled egg is somehow below them, that's not good either.
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