
Interviewing candidates that don't know the answer - jammin_h60
http://benjamindparrish.com/i-thought-it-was-a-simple-interview-question/
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sebnap
I don't know if something like this exists, but I think this should be named
as some kind of "oral exam bias". Probably some of his candidates didn't know
it better. But personally I think it's how you ask the questions. If you setup
the stage, you are psychologically priming them with some concepts before, if
you ask them now a simple question their answer is the first thing that comes
to their mind. Like with this game: What's the color of the white house?
White! What's the color of ...? White! What do cows drink? Milk! Hahaha. So
many of the OP's candidates could have performed better in a realistic
environment than with his "simple" questions, a computer doesn't ask you, even
in 10 years experience. The experience only changes your intuition about the
problems you could potentially run into if you want to approach the given
problem. But storing numbers, is not a problem, it's a simple question. That's
why you get simple answers. Give them work to do for a weekend, and pay them.

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brudgers
To me, it is purely a communication issue. If the candidate is giving the
wrong sort of answer, either they don't know or they don't understand the
question fully. If the candidate does not know, then it is an opportunity for
the candidate to learn. If the candidate did not understand the question, it
is an opportunity for the interviewer to learn...or to explain what they are
looking for.

How the interviewer handles this situation probably says something about the
company culture. If the candidate does not know the answer, there is an
opportunity for the interviewer to channel Julia Evans talking about strace.
If the candidate does not understand the gist of the question, then there is a
need for the interviewer to provide clearer direction.

The article provides a list of causes for candidates' inability to
satisfactorily answer the question. All of them are more complex than
investigating the immediate context of the interview and none of them require
self-reflection by the interviewer

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unimpressive
So when someone says:

"Iterate through the list and check to see if it already exists."

What happens if you reply:

"You have a million items. You write the quick solution and find it goes very
slowly. What would you do to speed it up?"

I suspect the rate of people who can give a decent optimization answer goes up
massively if you make it clear that you're looking for something like the
optimal answer, not the conceptually simple one. It doesn't matter if I use
linear search if my N is some trivial number like 17, which is what I suspect
most candidates have in mind.

(Of course, there's a certain perspective from which anybody who needs this
kind of coaxing is a no-hire anyway.)

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sebnap
Yes, I agree. If the problem is not setup correctly, why should it be a no-
hire?

