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Two interview strategies I've always wanted to know how to hanlde.

How do you handle not knowing something in a trivia centered interview? For example; what datastructure does a database index use?

Is there a good way to say you don't know without looking unqualified?

Also what if you used a certain technology A LOT say 5 years ago and now you remember nothing about it off the top of your head. How do you say "Yeah, I can do that, but I can't tell you much about it"? This is assuming you didn't know about that requirement before the interview to refresh your memory.

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There are really only a couple of uses for trivia questions in technical interviews: verifying someone's resume (i.e. if you claim to be skilled in some area, trivia questions should be, well, trivial) and as a jumping-off point for a discussion to see how you think.

So handle it the same way as you would in your day-to-day work: ask questions, try to figure it out.

If they really are just interested in your rote memorisation of documentation, consider that this might not be such a great place to work.

If you used something 5 years ago, sure you can't remember the fine details, nobody expects that. But you should still be able to discuss the technology intelligently. Even if the details are gone the concepts should still be there, and fluency in concepts is what a good technical interview will be about.

I have always found hiring managers who use this, tend to me developer come manager and tend to have a superiority complex. I have never liked trivia questions because the interviewer generally tries to find some obscure item, that is unknown to 90% of people just getting work done and the only reason they know it is that they goggled "really hard tech trivia that will make me feel superior when all the applicants don't know it"

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