My favorite interview was one where I was able to bring my own laptop to do a code exercise that was mostly communicated ahead of time. They also allowed me to use any tools that would be accessible to me in the real world: other developers in the room, Google, Stackoverflow, etc.
I also LOVE a clear picture of what my day is going to look like- a schedule with who I'll be speaking with and what type of questions I'll be asked. For example: at 8am you'll meet with Bob Bobbs, Software Manager, to discuss previous experience. At noon you'll have lunch with the team. At 3 pm you'll meet with Linda Lindz, architect, for whiteboard interview. Ok, ok, the type of questions I'll be asked is a dream - but a girl can hope.
But the reason I enjoyed this was because 1) coding on someone else's laptop is actually pretty challenging. Consider opposite scroll directions, different keyboard shortcuts and IDE colors. This can all throw you off your game. 2) I have anxiety.. which makes interviewing especially stressful. Understanding the schedule and what to expect throughout the day helps me prepare and cope mentally for the day ahead. The best way I can describe it is instead of my mind racing "You're going to fail for a solid 6 or 8 hours" it will sound more like "Well, the morning is going to be rough, but you've got the 11-3 portion down".. and with that thought I can actually breathe.
What has your favorite interview been? Why?
--
Image Credit: https://www.wocintechchat.com
Latest comments (28)
My favorite ones were the ones where the recruiter/tech interviewer looked like they were really glad to meet me rather than simply fill an open position and move on with life. I guess I have low standards.
For my current position, I was invited for a 4-hour interview that consisted of 4 different sessions: coding, architecture, processes, and general Q/A with the manager. I liked the processes part the most: two people from the Security department prepared a role playing game for me based on an actual incident they had had few weeks before. I played the Engineer on Duty and I had to explain my decisions, with them interrupting me unexpectedly at times with "It's 2:30 PM, another machine becomes unreachable" etc. I had to ask a lot of questions (and I learned a lot about my future work that way) to be able to find a solution, and the questions were probably more important to them than the final solution (which was, accidentally, the same as the one they had made).
Wow, that sounds super fun, yet intense. It's really interesting how some thought on the interviewer's side has such a positive effect in the interview, and this seems really neat compared to the standard "google {technology} interview questions"
The best interview I ever had involved just two white board questions:
Draw your dream house. Illustrate it as much as possible with annotations and explanations.
Draw three baskets. On the first basket, draw the word apples. On the second basket, draw the word oranges, on the third basket, draw the word mixed. Each sign lies about what is in the basket. For example, there are no apples in the apples basket. How would you figure out the fruit of each basket. You are allowed to reach into ONE basket.
That was it, followed by some conversation. 2 was super easy on retrospect, but I worked it out on the white board anyways. I think 1 was just to show the interviewer how much detail you use when explaining concepts.
I ended up getting the job. :)
My favorite interview was for the job I'm currently in.
The interview started with me sitting with 3 of the staff and they introduced me to the products the run. As they were explaining the third of the products, I couldn't help but grin. They were describing a chat bot that did "where is my order" and "order returns" for large retailers.
They asked me why I was grinning and I explained that I'd just built a chatbot that did all of that for a fictional retail website. They were very interested and asked to see it afterwards.
They gave me a technical test which was a printed page of code. All I had to do was talk my way through it and explain what each bit did. It included some SQL query code and they asked me whether I thought it was an effective query. I have almost no experience writing raw SQL so I didn't know, but I would use a library like sequelize to create the query. They said that's often a smart decision.
I managed to find a few improvements in the code and explained what I'd have done differently and why. It was a more like a code review of their code than a high pressure test of my coding skills.
Finally I showed them my chatbot and they were really interested. Tom, who I now work on the chatbots with, asked about the way I had it set up and if he could see the code. We ended up talking through my code for a good 30 minutes. I explained API.ai and how it all worked and they seemed really impressed.
They gave me a tour of the building, including the gym on the ground floor, and the founder drove me back to the bus station. In the car, he let me know that I'd be hearing from them soon with an offer.
Sounds wonderful! 😍
The best interview I've been in was probably one where it was a casual conversation. It was only supposed to be about 20 minutes but turned into about 2 hours of technical and non-technical talk, where both I and the CTO were very relaxed.
That's from a personal point of view.
I've never had a good technical interview, though. Either they're pointless box-checking exercises or they're handled so incompetently I wouldn't want to work with such a team anyway.
The best interview I had was with the company I am at now. It was a one on one chat with the guy who would become my boss and he was honest about the company, answered all my questions. Didn't sugarcoat anything, told it how it was and made sure that I was well informed.
I was then introduced to 2 senior developers and we did a paired programming task, allowed to use Google and use them as help, they were acommadaiting, it allowed me to see the company culture first-hand.
Got feedback from my agent as soon as I left the building, I got the job.
Don’t remember any good interview I have had so far sadly 😞
Worst was they wanted an asp.net MVC person and interviewer asked me everything except MVC.
The recruiter actually told me I was poor in oops so was rejected.
I like the ones that include airfare, a hotel, and cover expenses for the weekend. :)
This wasn't my best interview, but it felt like one. dev.to/rommik/it-is-possible-to-co...
If I had to interview somebody, I would do it this way:
1) Clear expectations about the skill, experience, and salary range. Why waste someone's time if they don't match. I hate when companies are not transparent and not able to tell what they expect from a candidate. You can spot them by a very long list of requirements, no salary range or low salary with a requirement of 20+ years.
2) An outline of the interview. You will meet with Person A, B, C. They will cover your skills, experience, and they will give you a test. It will take 3 hours. I commit to the schedule as much as possible. I've been to interviews that dragged out for 5-6 hours, instead of allocated one hour. This is simply disrespectful to a candidate in my opinion.
3) If it is a multi-day interview, the decisions are made each day. Don't make a candidate go through the whole process to reject them at the end because they expect 5k more than you can afford and they've been clear about it from day one.
4) Give honest feedback. If somebody comes to my interview and they don't match what I look for, I owe that person the reason behind my decision. It's not just polite, it's a professional toward my peer.
I politely demand the above points when I got for interviews too, and I judge companies based on how they do interviews too.
I believe there are legal reasons why a lot of companies don't give honest feedback. Employment laws are laced with a myriad of do's and dont's, making it risky to give any kind of feedback. It's not worth the risk of discrimination lawsuit, or harassment, to provide a candidate with valuable feedback.
Though I've heard some companies filter their feedback through HR, legally sanitizing them. I've never met somebody personally that's gotten that though, so it may just be rumours...
Yep. HR has those approved phrases ready to use for older candidates like me, like "while your skills are good, you just aren't a good fit for our company's team dynamics". I understand they have the same or similar phrases ready to use for other protected candidates.
My favorites are the ones where I got the job. Given my "advanced" age, this happens less often than it used to happen.
That aside, my favorite type of interviews are discussions. Let me describe my most recent project(s) in detail, drawing them out on the board. Ask me about the design decisions that were involved, such as why this particular design pattern was used, what were the advantages/disadvantages of doing it that way and what kind of testing was done. Even ask lower level stuff like , "How did you use LINQ in this C# application?", "Did you use/write the stored procedures for this application?" or "What HTTP verbs did you implement in your web service?" Ask me about stuff in my project that might be applicable to what you need to have done.