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How to Interview Like Google (But Better) - SVCC
1. GayleL. McDowell | Founder/ CEO, CareerCup
gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
How to Interview Like
Google (or not) – But Better
Best& WorsePractices
Oct 1,2016
4. gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 4Gayle Laakmann McDowell
How
We
Hire
Problem-solving questions
Onsite “real-world” tests
Homework
Take-Home Tests
Prior experience
References
5. Gayle Laakmann McDowell 5gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
It’s all broken
There’s no “perfect” interview.
Always false negatives.
Always false positives.
6. Gayle Laakmann McDowell 6gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
Problem Solving
Intelligencematters (a
lot)
Lots of communication
Ability to push through
hard problems
Intimidating
Prep helps
Other ways to be “great”
Can turn off sr. candidates
Lots of bad questions
7. Gayle Laakmann McDowell 7gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
OnsiteReal-World Tests
See real-world skills Identifiescurrent skill
set, notpotential
Lack of communication
9. Gayle Laakmann McDowell 9gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
Prior Experience
It matters
Lots of communication
Some can “talka good
game”
Somecan’t…
10. Gayle Laakmann McDowell 10gayle in/gaylemcdgayle
References
Prior experience is
good
Hand-picked
Differentcompanies
have differentneeds
Not always 100%
honest
11. gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 11
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Not
To
Mention…
NONE evaluate workethic or
ability to focus
(whichisn’tnecessarilyconstant
anyway)
12. gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 12
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
What
To
Do?
Find what’s right for you
Identify theflaws
Make it as un-brokenas possible
19. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 19
Goals
Great employees, not great interviewees
Goodin 6months,not 6days
Reducefalsenegatives
Keepcandidates happy
19
20. gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 20
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Standard
Interview
Structure
1. ~5 min resume/behavioral
2. Technical questions
3. ~5 minquestions for you
25. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 25
Styles of BehavioralQuestions
Open-Ended Discovery
“Tell me about _ project”
Situational
“Tell me about a challenging project”
Hypotheticals
“How do you handle conflicts?”
27. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 27
ExampleQuestions
“Walk methrough your resume”
“Tellme about theprojects you’ve worked on.”
“Tellmeabout your job. Whatdo you like?”
31. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 31
ExampleQuestions
Tellme about a timewhenyou faced a conflict
Tellme about a timeyou had to influencepeople
Tellmeabout a difficultdecision you had to make
41. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 41
My Favorites
Resumewalk-through
Doityourselffirst,tosetthestage
Hobbies & stuffnoton your resume
Warnthatit’sokaytonothaveanything
Pastprojects and work
Walk throughdesignonwhiteboard
Discusstradeoffs,keydecisions,etc.
Extensionstoproject(scaling,etc.)
Focusonpersonalimpact
42. gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 42
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Check
Your
Interviewers
Is the question likelyto annoy a
candidate?
Did they go beyond surface level?
What did they learn?
Are they surethey learned that?
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Questions
ForYour
Interviewers
Was it a discussion?
Did you probe deeper?
How long would it take to teach this
depth?
If the candidate didn’t know
something: Why not?
Were you positive & reassuring?
58. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 58
Evaluation
Ability to make tradeoffs
Ability to identify issues
Separate knowledgefrom attributes
Response to feedback
Higherstandards for more senior candidates
59. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 59
Examples
DesignAPI for…
System for Amazon book rank
System for TinyURL
OOD for a music library
60. gayle in/gaylemcdgayle 60
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Questions
ForYour
Interviewers
Did the candidate need to reallythink?
Did you go deep?
Did you help the candidate through?
64. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 64
Best Practices
Ask the right questions
Be nice and friendly
Relevantwhen possible
Coach
A slow & fast solution
MAKE THEM THINK
65. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 65
The Right Questions
Medium-to-hardquestions
Multiplehurdles
Unusualquestions
Avoid obscure knowledge
68. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 68
Be Nice and Friendly
Intimidatedcandidates do poorly
Candidatescling to every word
Usethis!
“Goodjob”,“greatpoint”,etc.
Especiallyifthey’restrugglingornervous
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Coach
Give hintsas necessary
Encourage examples (input/output)
Remindthemof keydetails
Stop themfrom writingcode too early
YOU managethe time
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Phone Interviews vs. Onsite
Don’t “go easy” on thephone
But avoid problems needingdiagrams
Strings,hashtables,linkedlistsare easytodraw
Treesandgraphsare hard
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Evaluation
Not just correct vs. incorrect
Howoptimal?Howquickly?Howmanyhints?
Compare to other candidates
Earlyonyouwon’tbecalibrated
More of a “gut feel”thana metric
73. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 73
More Bad Questions
Implementa stack with a singly linked list
Reverse order of words in a sentence
Merge two sorted arrays
Find duplicates in a string
Given a book, find uniquewords & occurrences
Replace spaces with“-”
74. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 74
Sub Permutations: Given two strings, s and b, find all
permutationsof s within b.
Good Question
Hardquestion
Many parts
Easyknowledge
Uncommon
75. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 75
Max Alive:Given a list of people withbirth/death years,
find peak population
Good Question
Medium difficultyquestion
Several optimizations
Easy knowledge
Uncommon
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Check
Your
Interviewers
Did the candidate need to reallythink?
Is the question unusual?
79. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 79
Bad Practices & False Negatives
Requiring every detail
Tedious questions
Takingover thetesting
Lettingthe candidate code too early
80. gayle in/gaylemcdgayleGayle Laakmann McDowell 80
Don’t waste time
Do you really need that Node class?
Skipping uninteresting parts, etc.
Okay to make-up reasonable syntax
Make it clear when they should/shouldn’t code
Encourage testing, refactoring, etc
Don’t stress about compiling
Best Practices
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Evaluation
“Seeminglycompilable” code
Look at structure and style
Butdifferentiatewhat’strainable
Not about complete vs. incomplete
Let the candidate test
Whatisthistellingyou?
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Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Check
Your
Interviewers
What did you learn about the
candidate’s coding?
Can the issues be fixed?
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Remember:
It’s on YOU to get theinfo you want
Challengeyour assumptions
Separate “did they do X?” from “can theydo X?”
Whatdid___tellyouaboutthecandidate?
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Check Your Interviewers
What didyou learn from thisquestion/answer?
Were they happy andsupportive?
Did they challenge the candidate?