Блог пользователя kostka

Автор kostka, 3 года назад, По-английски

Disclaimer: The following is my personal opinion.

From the interviewee's standpoint: there already exists a huge database of problems used for interviews in different companies. If you want to prepare for interviews, please use them. No one needs this one problem you got on your interview. Also, if you haven't solved the problem during the interview, learning how to solve it from someone else won't help you. Take some time yourself, try to find similar problems. Maybe ask your friends, but do not post this problem online. You won't also learn anything just from reading solutions.

From the interviewer's standpoint: as problems are "leaked", you have to frequently change your problems, so you waste your time to prepare these new problems and it feels really bad when you cannot ask any of your fully-mastered problems (for which you know all the caveats, for instance how to hint people properly in the right direction). I even dare to say that the necessity of using a new, fresh problem has a negative impact on the interviewees, as their experience is worse compared to if you could use your old, tested problems.

So please DO NOT SHARE YOUR INTERVIEW QUESTIONS.

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3 года назад, # |
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Also, if you haven't solved the problem during the interview, learning how to solve it from someone else won't help you.

You never wanted to know a solution to a problem you couldn't solve during a contest?

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    That's a solid point, but still, nowadays people are compiling lists of all the problems that were asked with solutions. You can ask for help and not mention where this problem is from.

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      3 года назад, # ^ |
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      Well, not revealing the company name might be a good compromise. For future candidates, it's enough to practice using older problems. And interviewers don't need to discard their current nice problem.

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    You can think of it as a problem from ongoing contest (snarknews s/w series format for example). Even if it's ended for you, it's definitely bad to share it with others. Unless you can discuss with a friend for whom the contest has already finished too or he will not write it.

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      3 года назад, # ^ |
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      Ongoing but will be over soon isn't comparable with ongoing indefinitely.

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3 года назад, # |
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stupid blog

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    I guess we could've expected something like this from him as he works at Google and there have been a lot of blogs related to Google's hiring tests. But yes, stupid indeed.

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3 года назад, # |
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I wonder what makes you say upsolving shouldn't be a thing.

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3 года назад, # |
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This is how I read your post: sharing interview questions is bad for interviewers (I totally agree), and let me also convince you that it's bad for you (I totally disagree).

I don't support this practice, but we can't deny that it helps us learn from each other.

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3 года назад, # |
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Seriously?

Problem setters have to do their work by not repeating the problems / creating new problems that can't be like a search away. Not by making people to not ask their post-contest doubts.

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3 года назад, # |
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I m not so sure if reading solution to problem you didn't solve, but you have spent time on doesn't have positive impact. In this way I have learnt a lot of, and made huge progress.

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3 года назад, # |
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I can't help but see this blog post as just crocodile tears of a HR dude from an insanely rich corporation. So please DO NOT SHARE YOUR INTERVIEW QUESTIONS. Or else the HR department of that insanely rich corporation will have to do a bit less sloppy job and this will cost them more money.

And on a related note, could Google contribute something to solving the plagiarism problem? Don't you feel at least a little bit responsible for motivating the cheaters by your HR activities and thus causing troubles for everyone?

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    Firstly, technical interviews are conducted not by some abstract HR dude, but by a real engineer who in the future can become your direct colleague or like which you may also want to become in the future.

    Secondly, you need to respect the company in which you would like to work, even if you were refused for objective reasons.

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      3 года назад, # ^ |
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      refused for objective reasons

      Are you by chance talking about your own personal experience or was it an awkward ad hominem attempt to derail the discussion? I'm pretty sure that no part of my comment implied that I ever wanted to work for Google.

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        3 года назад, # ^ |
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        It's about some person who wants to share the interview questions publicly after interview, having thoughts similar to those in your message.

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          3 года назад, # ^ |
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          Do you have a link to support this claim? Or are you talking about some imaginary person? And regardless whether such person actually exists for real or not, that's still a flawed ad hominem argument:

          • an undisclosed someone, who failed a Google job interview, thinks X
          • failing a Google job interview is bad, so thinking X is bad

          A quote from the wikipedia article: The most common form of this fallacy is "A makes a claim x, B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument x is wrong".

          Do you even realise that you are arguing in bad faith? But the red handle privilege will surely allow you to collect a lot of upvotes regardless of what you say or do.

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3 года назад, # |
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I think I missed my point. I agree that it is more problematic for interviewers than interviewees, but the general result of this game is still negative. If we will keep doing that, candidates will probably get worse problems and the recruiting process will be even more randomized than it is now.

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    The first few hundred problems on leetcode were stolen directly from various companies' interview banks. I know 100% of the questions from my old company is on there, in almost consecutive order. I think nowadays they have actual problem writers since they hold weekly contests, but leetcode definitely got their initial reputation due to their large bank of "real" problems (along with an online judge and a discussion forum).

    I would say sites like leetcode with a ton of leaked problems actually improved the hiring process in the industry as a whole.

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      3 года назад, # ^ |
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      I don't understand how your first paragraph implies the second one. Yes, Leetcode took/stole many problems. Why did it improve the hiring process?

      Btw. problem "writers" don't invent their own problems there. Those are still from interviews. Proof: every problem comes with info about which company uses it.

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3 года назад, # |
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Did you went to interviews as an interviewee without reading the previous interview experiences?

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3 года назад, # |
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Isn't it just illegal? Why is this worth a discussion? And I think your point is also weird. It's not about bad ways of improving or stuff, it's just cheating.

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    If it was illegal, any sites that host interview problems would be getting lawyers demanding to take them down.

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      3 года назад, # ^ |
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      Tech lawyers are busy enough to spend time on that. I think most companies ask their interviewees to not disclose their questions.

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        3 года назад, # ^ |
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        With what in particular?

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          3 года назад, # ^ |
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          demanding to take them down

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            3 года назад, # ^ |
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            1. that'd be just filling in a template and sending it
            2. the problems are still up, are you claiming that sites hosting them are ignoring the law?
            3. and that their webhosts are also ignoring the law by not taking them down when the problem is escalated to them?
            4. and that sites hosting the problems are currently being sued by tech companies?
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              3 года назад, # ^ |
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              Companies usually have NDAs for disclosing interview questions, though it could vary how formal it gets. So it's a problem between tech lawyers and "somebody who disclosed the interview questions". The problem with the websites is of lesser concern. And when they have no clue who did it, it's not "just filling in a template and sending it".

              and that sites hosting the problems are currently being sued by tech companies?

              If you think I claimed this... huh... I see

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                3 года назад, # ^ |
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                Wait, so what you were saying is that it's illegal to tell someone interview questions but not to publish them if you were only told what they were by someone who did the interview?

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3 года назад, # |
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Offtop: this blog is not in top section because of negative rating filter. But I believe it would be in if filter was off.

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3 года назад, # |
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Relying on the final interview as the one and only way to pick your employees, rather than just the first way to pick your employees, is bad and you should feel bad.

No matter what system, you'll have people trying to cheat the system. Deal with it, reuse public interview questions and look at actual performance after hiring. I know it's harder than low-effort "did they give correct answers?" interviewing, but I don't care.

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    look at actual performance after hiring

    huge cost

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      3 года назад, # ^ |
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      Yes, not letting people leech off you is a cost. Former colleague interviewed someone around a year ago that turned out to be paid to take the interview for the real guy they hired. Work from home and all that. Another one was described as "actually unable to code", yet hired and through an interviewing process you'd definitely find familiar. Too bad, gotta cut your losses a few weeks-months in when red flags pile up.

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    3 года назад, # ^ |
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    look at actual performance after hiring

    I think most companies already do this. At least Google does.