Cracking The Coding Interview

Very few things can ignite the passion of IT job applicants like the "coding in interviews" question. A relatively obscure article on Dice.com about this often controversial practice sparked nearly 40 comments in less than a week - with respondents arguing furiously on both sides of the issue. Hiring managers, burned by inflated resumes, want concrete proof of skills. Job seekers, on the other hand, want a fair interview by a knowledgeable person. Here's how both sides can get what they want.

 

Knowledge AND Application:  cracking the coding interview

 

As one Dice commenter put it, "The resume, if honest, shows knowledge. The test shows ability to apply it." According to former Google engineer and hiring committee member, Gayle McDowell, when hiring managers ask applicants to write code in an interview, they are looking to answer these questions:

 

How efficient was your algorithm?

How well did you understand the tradeoffs between different choices?

How well did you communicate those tradeoffs?

How long did it take you to develop your algorithm?

How clean / readable / maintainable was your code?

How well did you test your code? How buggy was it?

When you found bugs in it, how did you               go about fixing them?

In other words, it's not always about a specific algorithm, but more about an applicant's analytical and problem-solving skills. Additional factors being evaluated include attitude towards constructive feedback, and cultural fit.

 

Cracking the Coding Question:

 

So if that's what interviewers are looking for, what can job seekers do to boost their chances of landing a position? McDowell recommends these steps:

 

Asking Questions - so you understand exactly what to solve.

Talking Aloud While Solving - so the interviewer can hear your thought process.

Openly Discussing Tradeoffs - to demonstrate awareness of trouble spots.

Fixing Bugs - to show off follow-up skills.

Doing it Right:

 

There are certainly some job applicants who just don't want to be tested in an interview. But the biggest complaint about coding in interviews is not that the question is being asked, but who is asking the question. Many IT job seekers have gone through interviews with HR professionals who simply don't have the technological knowledge to answer questions about the coding problem being posed, or don't understand the skills that are being demonstrated - and good candidates are frustrated and turned off by such experiences. So while IT professionals need to respect what hiring managers can learn from posing coding problems, organizations seeking to hire top-notch talent need to be sure they have someone in-house who is capable of conducting IT interviews - or outsource them to a staffing professional who is.