This is probably the best piece of advice you can give for starting the job application process. Having an internal person already working in the company recommend you to HR will immediately put you on the top of the queue. At the very least, you'll get an initial phone interview quickly. This is, in fact, the only way that I've able to have successfully get in the door, at both small companies and also larger companies like Google and Microsoft.
The other option is the "career fair", but that tends to only work if you're still a student or near-student status.
Edit: Instead of down-voting, why don't you explain to me why you would want to code on a whiteboard when it's completely pointless. Might as well throw in some of those pointless questions like why are manholes round?
In all seriousness, I really don't get whiteboarding in interviews.
There is a difference between forgetting to put a semicolon at the end of a line (totally harmless on a whiteboard interview), and not knowing that semicolons end statements in C.
Of course, not knowing say, part of the standard library, say the semantics of rand(), without a man page or Google search is much more excusable.
Yes they do. I've still got my Google 'Hire Squad' t-shirt somewhere (when you get trained on how to do interviews at Google you used to get a t-shirt) And they expect the interviewer to transcribe what you write on the white board into your feedback so that the hiring committee can read your notes and know what you're talking about.
You see the part you've missed here is that at Google, the person doing the interviewing has nothing at all with the person deciding if you should be hired. They interview you, using the techniques they were trained to use, they transcribe the whole thing like a court reporter, adding what color they can and a float between 0 and 4 (0 is 'run way', 4 is 'walks on water') And the then that goes into a 'packet' which gets sent to a hiring commitee where a different bunch of people read it (and the notes of everyone else) and they they decide if you are going to move forward in the process.
Writing syntax accurate code on the white board is always a plus. Although one candidate on seeing the dozen different color markers, wrote both syntax accurate and colorized code. That was good for a chuckle (and strangely I think it got them points in the committee).
Doesn't most of the personality of the person get lost in this setup? I mean, hiring people purely on technical merits may sound fine, but I'm not sure if that makes for a very pleasant working environment.
I think the whole hiring committee removes a lot of biases that people may have and the end result, in my opinion, is a workplace that's a lot more diverse than any other I've been at.
I code in a variety of languages and every time I use .indexOf(), I can't remember if it's (needle, haystack) or (haystack, needle). Of course, my IDE shows me the correct way and I go with it in 0.3 seconds.
On a whiteboard, if I were marked down for getting that the "wrong", I don't think I'd like to work for those kind of people anyway. I have no interest in memorizing the exact syntax of every standard library call in every language. When I can look it up almost instantaneously, my mental efforts are best spent elsewhere.
I don't care if they can't remember order of parameters, or really even the name of the methods. But if you can't write syntactically correct code without an IDE, it seems like a problem.
But I personally wouldn't dock a person if they screwed up the syntax on a whiteboard coding interview - I really use it more as a way to extend the conversation. I do have the bad habit of correcting syntax, though, because I find it too distracting once I see it.
Beyond that, someone who's able to code on a whiteboard will a fortiori be able to code with a keyboard and editor, and will typically code better with a keyboard and editor than someone who relies on the keyboard and editor to be able to code.
The relevant job skill here would have been the willingness to do anything for the great pay and food. I wasn't and I had other employment options I chose after it became clear I would not be allowed to jump to another project anytime soon.
That is very subjective and I'd love to see some evidence of this.
... will typically code better with a keyboard and
editor than someone who relies on the keyboard
and editor to be able to code
So you're basically encouraging people that rote-learn solutions and that line above is bullshit.
Startup idea: a device on which you can write code which you can subsequently edit by inserting, changing, moving around, and erasing lines
Day-to-day work is necessarily collaborative and productive... Whereas when at the board in an interview one person knows the "answer" and is across the table testing the other. It's a completely different set of pressures and requires different skill.
Further, I must have one of those faces people pity because its often that when I end up at the whiteboard the interviewer wants to "help" me if I don't spout off the answer immediately (I've learned to at least start talking so they will give me a second to think). This sometimes entails them trying to lead me down a path which is not the way I would have approached the problem. I'm confused, they think I'm an idiot, now I'm flustered, could this interview go any worse?
I've learned to politely ask for a second to consider and usually that completely solves the problem. I've been successful in technical interviews -- but the idea that it's the same thing as when working out hard problems with team members seems a little silly?
At the risk of making myself look stupid, is that because of O(n) vs O(n^2) (should be testing for \0), or is there another reason I'm not picking up?
1. It's a good indicator of how much you know for simple problems.
A few weeks ago I started helping a friend with a particular language and framework. He claimed to know it, having read several books on it. So I said great, go to the board and write a function that adds two numbers together. And he couldn't do it. Who knows, maybe he could have done it on a computer? Maybe he would have Google'd it quickly, or relied on code autocompletion, or the muscle memory from his fingers typing it, etc. But that's not what I wanted to know. Anyone who's written thousands of functions in a particular language could write a simple one like this on a wall, using paint, while hanging upside down. His inability to do so told me: he is not well-versed in this language. PERIOD.
2. You can practice.
"So what", you protest. "Google isn't going to ask simple problems. They'll ask hard ones." And maybe they will. And maybe having to solve it in a foreign way really will fuck you up. But my question to you is: If you know you're interviewing at Google soon, why the hell would you allow whiteboard coding to remain foreign to you? If you suck with whiteboards and you care at all about getting the job, then buy one and practice solving problems on it. Why would Google want someone who doesn't care enough to prepare for their interview? It's not that hard of a skill to pick up. And I daresay it will make you a better, easier-to-communicate-with programmer.
Google doesn't solve simple problems.
> 2. You can practice.
Maybe if the interviewee was still in college they could "practice" coding on a whiteboard, but considering they may have other obligations like family and work they probably won't have time to practice such a pointless skill.
Personally, I wouldn't need to practice in the first place as I interview extremely well and could easily code on a whiteboard, I just find it antiquated and pointless to do so which was the reason for my comment - not because I am bad at it.
Google doesn't solve simple problems.
they may have other obligations like family
and work they probably won't have time to
practice such a pointless skill.
This.
If there was one thing I could tell all applicants at Google, it's to read up on the process, and practice. There is a huge amount of information out there[1]. I feel sad interviewing really smart, capable people who could have breezed through with just a few hours of review and practice.
[1] eg. http://courses.csail.mit.edu/iap/interview/materials.php
Whiteboard coding is good because interview questions are not about specific 100% solutions to complex real-world problems like programming usually is. Interview questions are about general problems whose solutions will fit nicely onto a whiteboard. You lose the ability to get realtime syntax highlighting, but you gain the ability to have multiple trains of thought, the ability to draw diagrams and arbitrary symbols, and the ability to point at things as you explain your thoughts to the interviewer. Do you really enjoy it when someone comes over to your laptop to ask you a question about code? Now imagine that for four hours in a row. That's what a laptop interview would be like.
When I was interviewing at Google, someone asked me a question that required me to remember some math. I did not remember it, but I knew how to derive the answer I needed. So I went to another whiteboard, talked my way through the sub-problem while drawing some math symbols, and then transferred the answer back to the original problem, halfway completed on a different whiteboard. Try doing that while hunched over your laptop.
I agree that this process is nothing like the job you're interviewing for. That's because it's an interview, not the job. We try to get a picture of who you are and what you know in a few hours, and that's just not enough time to let you loose with a laptop to see how you approach real-world problems. Not to mention, real world problems don't often involve much "computer science" knowledge. But you still need to know that so you can confidently attack problems that venture into that area.
And largely, the process works. There are very few programmers at Google that can't program. If I have an idea, I can explain it to pretty much anyone, and get good feedback. At other jobs I've had, I've had to explain thing like arrays to coworkers. That means I'm not going to get any feedback on my complex idea, and that sucks. Google is not like that, because we filter those people out at the interview.
> Try doing that while hunched over your laptop.
Which brings us back to the whiteboard interview. I ask: If I am correctly interpreting what the psychologist said, why force interview candidates to use their brains differently than they normally would while coding?
Also, if you do interview, keep in mind you'll have to travel to MV for a full day interview and also a full day interview in DC. Which is actually nice if you have the time; the DC team is so small that they want to be selective with future team members.
The DC projects were cool too, one was google code I believe, and the other was a tool to allow the collection of data sets such as water well tests in developing Africa, etc.
Perhaps someone should take a look at your resume to find out why?