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Old 07-12-2013, 05:21 PM
 
Location: Camberville
15,788 posts, read 21,299,275 times
Reputation: 27997

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Quote:
Originally Posted by LOL_Whut View Post
Hubby says:
"I've had to write that algorithm on the spot in interviews before. Honestly, if 'very experienced programmers' could not write that algorithm on the spot, they're not as experienced as they think they are."

Sorry, he's just being honest.
[My husband is a software engineer with an MSCS with 8 years experience in the field. He also has several years teaching experience in CS at the university level.]
Quote:
Originally Posted by GlitteringPrizes View Post
That's maybe to be expected from an MSCS and 8 yrs experience. This was for a junior position.

I told one computer genius about my horrible performance at the interview today and he said:

"Still for someone that has never seen this before, I doubt most experienced programmers would realize an optimal solution without spending more than just a couple of minutes analyzing the problem or going through a few examples.

This was more of a test of an algorithm knowledge than algorithm discovery process or programming.

It would be like asking someone to develop a greatest common divisor algorithm that wan't aware of Euclid's method."



What does hubby say?
That question was on my final for an Intro to Computer Science course. It was most students' first exposure to programming and few had any ambition to go onto a CS major or minor.

Sorry, no dice.
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Old 07-12-2013, 05:50 PM
 
217 posts, read 306,241 times
Reputation: 168
Quote:
Originally Posted by convextech View Post
Was the second guy not white?
They both were Middle Eastern. The first one looked darker and had more hair, so I think he might've been Indian, while the other one must've been Pakistani or Iranian.
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Old 07-12-2013, 05:52 PM
 
217 posts, read 306,241 times
Reputation: 168
Quote:
Originally Posted by LOL_Whut View Post
Sure! Hubby is still at work, but he should be home within 2 hours. I'll get him back to this thread after he grabs some quick dinner.
Ok, I want him to check my solution to a problem. For a question at another company I had to make a function that returns the mode (most common element) of an array, and this was my best way of doing it:





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Old 07-12-2013, 05:57 PM
 
217 posts, read 306,241 times
Reputation: 168
Quote:
Originally Posted by LOL_Whut View Post
No you're not. And you're doing very well for 24.
Well, I have friends who are graduating college at 22 and moving right into good jobs. In the event that I get a good one soon, I'll still feel like they're getting an extra 2 yrs to live life.
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Old 07-12-2013, 05:57 PM
 
Location: 500 miles from home
33,943 posts, read 22,385,813 times
Reputation: 25806
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
LOL if you're around long enough and weather enough tough economies, you may amass a veritable COLLECTION of "weird interview stories!" Don't take it too personally! Just be glad you didn't waste more of your valuable time with them, learn something from the interview, and drive on.

My favorite "worst interview" story was at a furniture store one time. I love furniture and decorating, and I have excelled in every sort of sales position I've ever had, so I'm pretty sure I could sell this furniture at this particular local store. I went into the interview feeling excited and positive!

The owner was interviewing me. The first weird thing he did was give me a personality test. Come on - I'm not interviewing for some kind of huge job - a good interviewer should be able to tell whether or not I could fit into the environment and be successful at a FURNITURE store. But, I took the test.

Then he conducted a very hardball sort of interview - nothing warm or pleasant about it at all. I began to realize that I'd rather stick a hot poker in my eye than work for this jerk. About that time, he suddenly sat up straight, threw a pen across the table at me, and said, "SELL ME THIS PEN."

I was so taken aback, that the most hilariously inappropriate idea came to my mind. I had a sudden, crazy impulse to pick up the pen, close my eyes, and run my tongue up and down the entire length of it!

To this day, I really regret not doing that - I already knew I wasn't going to ever work there.

For the record, I went down the street, immediately got hired at a BETTER furniture store, and for the entire four years I worked there, I was consistently in the top three salespeople out of a team of 12. When I left, it was on great terms and to a M-F sales manager position with much better benefits.

So - his loss.

Life's too short to work for jerks!
Oh, that's funny. I wish you would have too!

I had a horrible interview once (and I got hired!). Drove 2 hours to get there; two guys asked me those stupid 'targeted selection' questions for 2 hours and just when I thought it was over - they told me we were going to role play. Are you friggin kidding me? I already had a a good job and almost told them that right then and there.

But . . I went along with it . . . had driven all that way. WELL. They sat me down in a room with a book of instructions that began with these horrible words . . 'for the next 90 minutes" . .

Seriously, I almost just walked out. I just wanted out of there SO BAD. But, I stuck around while I role played for some banking job. The job I was interviewing for had nothing to do with banking. Nothing. I hated every stupid minute of that role play.

When I started to role play and answer their questions - I really just did not care. Several times I answered "I have no idea". In a really snotty tone. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and didn't even want the job at that point.

Don'tcha know I got the job! And . . I definitely should have paid attention to all the red flags screaming at me during the interview process. But, I didn't.

Op - you might have dodged a bullet!
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Old 07-12-2013, 06:11 PM
 
217 posts, read 306,241 times
Reputation: 168
Quote:
Originally Posted by spotlesseden View Post
better way to do this is(in the real world) to combine both arrays into one array, then sort it again.
If the count is odd number, then just use the middle number, if it is even, and use total of the two muddle number /2.

Of course unless they don't allow you to do it that way.
Ok, here's what I said at first:

"Use Java's List class to merge both into an array and resort. Then return the (n+1)/2th element if n is odd; and if n is odd then return the average of the of the n/2th and (n+2)/2th element."

He said no merging the arrays.

That's when I took about 15 minutes thinking aloud and developing the algorithm I mentioned where you start with min{a(1), b(1)} and then iterate up, checking both arrays, until your count has reached the index of the median.
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Old 07-12-2013, 06:34 PM
 
3,971 posts, read 4,002,958 times
Reputation: 5401
It was really rude to cut you off in an interview like that. You probably did dodge a bullet. Improve where you need to improve for the next interview and move forward. You are only 24 and have plenty of jobs in your future. Don't sweat it too much.
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Old 07-12-2013, 06:50 PM
 
Location: PHL
382 posts, read 662,041 times
Reputation: 285
Quote:
Originally Posted by GlitteringPrizes View Post
Well, I have friends who are graduating college at 22 and moving right into good jobs. In the event that I get a good one soon, I'll still feel like they're getting an extra 2 yrs to live life.
I'm a few years older then you and in the same position. There will ALWAYS be people around you who are moving right into jobs. Nothing you can do there except try to become "employable".
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Old 07-12-2013, 07:02 PM
 
Location: The beautiful Garden State
2,734 posts, read 4,132,739 times
Reputation: 3671
Have no idea what "sorted arrays" are*run to Google to find out*still don't understand.

Good thing I'm not in IT.

I do think the interviewers were rude to the OP, though.
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Old 07-12-2013, 07:17 PM
 
217 posts, read 306,241 times
Reputation: 168
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merchant_ZZZ View Post
I'm a few years older then you and in the same position. There will ALWAYS be people around you who are moving right into jobs. Nothing you can do there except try to become "employable".
I know, but I'm saying that what bothers me in the grand scheme of things is the fact that I might already be in my late 20's by the time I have a good job and can feel confident and start to live life, whereas lots of people I know are getting right out of college at age 21 and they have their dream career and it must be such a consoling feeling. Like I can't really "live" life until I get a decent job. My life is on hold until I find one.
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