Great stuff! I really wish there was a more uniform system in place. I've had a couple white board interviews as well, and wasn't too fond of it. I even had one that did a combo of all three. Whiteboard, 3rd party test, and written test in person. Although that was overkill, I would trade all the of those in place of a pop-quiz.
Now, for the record, I don't really grill candidates in a quiz-like fashion, but I will ask them to describe object oriented programming and a couple of other things; simply because, their philosophy behind it is more important and insightful than the technical definition. (One terrible applicant laughed, shrugged it off, and said "eh, it's just a metaphor, really." Full answer. Dead serious.)
Instead, I give applicants a week before the interview to do a legitimately interesting (and original) coding challenge in any language they like. They turn it in 24 hours before the interview, and we review it. Then, during final interview, we have them describe their design, and then fix a bug or make an alteration right there.
Perfect! I like it, and LOL at that answer. During a pop-quiz someone asked me what are the negatives of dependency injection patterns, and since I had just gotten done implementing DI in another test project and explaining its positives, that really sent me through a loop! Funny because I could have answered with my thought process alone: "It adds complexity".
Well, to play "devil's advocate" again, look at it from their perspectives. A lot of questions you/we would judge as a "pop quiz" question is actually the best, or only, way to probe knowledge of the more theoretical aspects of programming...especially those important to the job!
I was once asked to describe virtual classes, and why you'd use them over normal classes, in C++. That's theory, it can't be "whiteboarded", but I understand why he asked.
So, if those sorts of questions cause you to freeze up, it goes right back to your main point: practice. There's no other solution.
And that's what my original statement about "pop quiz" questions referred to; all the things that cannot be adequately measured by any other method in an interview. We have to ask, simply because there are a LOT of applicants who flat out don't know, and they'd be a liability in that particular position.
I would agree with that, but when it's a little more open ended it gives your brain a second to process the information and retrieve it from memory.
The interviewer is at a way bigger advantage to make a judgement call on this, because well, they know what the questions ARE.
So if someone asked me to draw and explain polymorphism for example, I could take some time to think about my answer while drawing it out. Unlike the 5 seconds you have to dig it out memory and describe it. All the while worrying about every second that goes by so you just start flapping your mouth with the first thing that comes to mind. LOL!
Yes, but then all eyes on you! Haha it's just super stressful either way, definitely doesn't work the best for me. I do like the fact that it's quick though, so if you do well, you might be saving yourself a 6 hour project that you have to build out for free.
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Great stuff! I really wish there was a more uniform system in place. I've had a couple white board interviews as well, and wasn't too fond of it. I even had one that did a combo of all three. Whiteboard, 3rd party test, and written test in person. Although that was overkill, I would trade all the of those in place of a pop-quiz.
Now, for the record, I don't really grill candidates in a quiz-like fashion, but I will ask them to describe object oriented programming and a couple of other things; simply because, their philosophy behind it is more important and insightful than the technical definition. (One terrible applicant laughed, shrugged it off, and said "eh, it's just a metaphor, really." Full answer. Dead serious.)
Instead, I give applicants a week before the interview to do a legitimately interesting (and original) coding challenge in any language they like. They turn it in 24 hours before the interview, and we review it. Then, during final interview, we have them describe their design, and then fix a bug or make an alteration right there.
Perfect! I like it, and LOL at that answer. During a pop-quiz someone asked me what are the negatives of dependency injection patterns, and since I had just gotten done implementing DI in another test project and explaining its positives, that really sent me through a loop! Funny because I could have answered with my thought process alone: "It adds complexity".
Well, to play "devil's advocate" again, look at it from their perspectives. A lot of questions you/we would judge as a "pop quiz" question is actually the best, or only, way to probe knowledge of the more theoretical aspects of programming...especially those important to the job!
I was once asked to describe virtual classes, and why you'd use them over normal classes, in C++. That's theory, it can't be "whiteboarded", but I understand why he asked.
So, if those sorts of questions cause you to freeze up, it goes right back to your main point: practice. There's no other solution.
And that's what my original statement about "pop quiz" questions referred to; all the things that cannot be adequately measured by any other method in an interview. We have to ask, simply because there are a LOT of applicants who flat out don't know, and they'd be a liability in that particular position.
See what I mean now?
I would agree with that, but when it's a little more open ended it gives your brain a second to process the information and retrieve it from memory.
The interviewer is at a way bigger advantage to make a judgement call on this, because well, they know what the questions ARE.
So if someone asked me to draw and explain polymorphism for example, I could take some time to think about my answer while drawing it out. Unlike the 5 seconds you have to dig it out memory and describe it. All the while worrying about every second that goes by so you just start flapping your mouth with the first thing that comes to mind. LOL!
Sometimes just having an interviewer say "take your time" makes all the difference in the world.
Yes, but then all eyes on you! Haha it's just super stressful either way, definitely doesn't work the best for me. I do like the fact that it's quick though, so if you do well, you might be saving yourself a 6 hour project that you have to build out for free.