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Subject:Re: Early bird misses job? From:"Doug, Data Librarian at Ext 4225" <engstromdd -at- PHIBRED -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 9 Mar 1995 07:45:02 -0600
In the category of interview war stories, I used to work for a company that
used a sort of "stealth" interview question. One of the programmers was
assigned to ask each candidate how to do something pretty specific (I
forget exactly what) in C. There where three ways to accomplish the task,
which was sufficiently well-defined that there wasn't much room for
individual "style" variation; various C implementations just happened to
provide different ways to approach the problem.
Anyway, once the question was asked, the candidate would explain his/her
approach to the programmer, who would then reveal one or more of the other
methods. This was where the real evaluation began; the purpose was to
find out how the candidate responded to a challenge to his/her approach.
There were basically two ways to fail--either taking a defend-to-the-death
stance with regard for their approach, or rolling over lamely when the
programmer revealed another option. The range of "right" answers was
pretty much covered by people who asked careful questions about the
alternatives and discussed the merits of each approach. The conclusion
that they reached made no difference.
My $0.02 worth (or maybe $0.0147 since yesterday's trading...)
Skoal,
Doug "When a Primal Force of Nature asks
ENGSTROMDD -at- phibred -dot- com you to do something, you should do it."
--Kevin Costner, "Field of Dreams"
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The preceding opinions and positions are mine alone, and are only
coincidentally related to those of Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc.
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