Comment by honkycat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by honkycat | Hacker News Reader

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Everyone complains about the white-board interview. And I get it: They are lame. But developers have been dealing with them for years, nobody has managed to kill them yet. You gotta learn to live with them.

These interviews are looking for specific things while you work through these problems. They do not necessarily want you to answer the question exactly correct. They want to see you work and see where you are at.

Intro level jobs are competitive right now. The search will be slightly harder but there are still jobs out there.

Know what is happening in these interviews before you go into them. There are a number of books specifically about code interviews and how to pass them. Read them. STUDY FOR THE INTERVIEWS instead of complaining as if you are owed a job.

None of us like the whiteboard interviews. It is a good dog-whistle for a good education which, despite what people say, is still worth something to these companies.

I will study for any interview, I do not have a problem with that. During the interview when they asked me about BSTs, although I never used them in my life, I was still able to write some code using the instructions given by the interviewer. I can imagine that if I studied for them I would have done just fine.

When the interview was setup I was told it was going to be about gdb/valgrind. When the interview took place, BSTs were involved, I answered the basic stuff such traversing it, finding the min/max, some other functions, but I was not able to answer some tricky questions later towards the end.

That's fair, I should have been nicer. I am sorry.

I do still highly recommend picking up a book specifically about coding interviews as I have found them helpful

> STUDY FOR THE INTERVIEWS instead of complaining as if you are owed a job.

This isn't a bad point, though it would be stronger if you approached the subject with empathy. OP is clearly intelligent, but they're frustrated by a difficult, opaque process. Imagine yourself in the situation and try replying with some empathy.

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