Re: [tlug] New programming revision site - by a TLUG'er

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

On 12 August 2010 00:02, Fredric Fredricson
<Fredric.Fredricson@example.com> wrote:

>  On 08/11/2010 05:30 AM, 黒鉄章 wrote:
>>
>> Then, I went to job interviews. And you know what, interviewers nearly
>> never think that. They really believe that if you can't remember the trivial
>> differences, e.g. SQL's substring function's start pos parameter is
>> 1-indexed rather 0-indexed, that you were clearly lying about having built
>> data warehouses.
>
> I can't really speak for what it's like in Japan, since I never worked there
> but where I live (Sweden) I think these types of interviews, like where you
> have to remember the arguments for substring() in SQL, are very rare.

Having just done a pile of interviews in Sweden, I can confirm this.
My experience with one company (I won't reveal the name to play fair)
was fairly typical:

1. 30 minute phone screen: information about the company and the role
from interviewer, self introduction and overview of my background from
me, specific questions on my background from interviewer, questions
about the company and the role from me.

2. 30 minute phone tech screen: I was given three programming
questions, and had to write the code (or, for one question, a database
schema). Here, details mattered, but I got to use my language of
choice. For the database schema question, I did not have to use real
MySQL or Oracle syntax, I just had to show the tables, columns, keys,
etc.

3. Take-home coding exercise: a limited-scope example of a real world
problem faced by the company. Very interesting. No time limit, and I
got to choose the language again.

4. In-house interviews: four hour-long interviews (two technical, one
on my background and experience, one soft skills with a senior
business guy).

This is not very different from how Amazon and Google do it, BTW.

The interesting thing about Swedish interviews is that your
personality seems to carry a lot more weight that in any other country
I've interviewed in. At Amazon, one of my managers had the "no
assholes" test, where he really stressed team culture fit for any
potential hire, but most hiring managers concentrate on the technical
side more and only disqualify people for their personalities, never
qualifying them for that reason.

I would not be surprised if Japanese companies in Japan place more
stock in trivia during the interview process, but the Western ones
with which I interviewed there were pretty similar to the Amazon /
Google model, just a lot less strenuous (two or three interviews
before an offer, as opposed to 6-8 for the Googlezon).

> There was a manager at my company who actually made applicants write a
> program, and then judged them on how "good" it was. I knew all programmers
> there and there was no indication that his programmers where better than any
> others (almost the opposite, but that's another story).

This is pretty common. When I evaluate exercise code from candidates,
I'm really looking to see if they were making decent decisions, not
necessarily producing code that compiles. :)

Speaking of lying on CVs, I typically ask a few softball questions
stuff listed on the CV that I know pretty well to weed out the liars.
The questions are very easy for anyone who has actually used the
listed technology for more than a week or two, but trip up people who
once read an article and then threw a buzzword on their CV. If I catch
you in a lie, you get the old "do you have any questions for me?" ;)

If I ask a CV question and the candidate fesses up that he has almost
no real-world experience with the tech, and he just put it on his CV
to get past the HR drones, I'm OK with that.

Cheers,
Josh