Interview tales

Sup Forums, have you ever had to conduct an interview? Any hilarious stories.

Today I was asked to conduct an interview for an intern position. Usually the guys who show up use Java, Python or C# with the occasional C++ user. The guy I got was a Rust user.

Not knowing much about Rust, I decided to give him a simple problem:

Remove all duplicate items in a vector of strings.

Ultimately, I wanted him to do it without overhead and in linear time, but I was happy if he could demonstrate functional code. The moment I asked him the question though, I could see his eyes widen. I could sense his hands fidgeting when I gave him the whiteboard marker. It was honestly a simple task and being an intern I wasn't expecting much.

After 20 seconds of silence, the kid started writing out a for loop (I think, I didn't pay attention to the syntax) which made me feel relaxed because he was going for the right idea. No function definition though, which I wasn't impressed with.

Then he suddenly stopped and slowly turned around, asking me if he could start again. Why not, go ahead I said, wondering where he's going with this. Is he going to write the definition? There was room above...

No, he rubbed the whole thing out and wrote a single line statement to remove duplicates. What the fuck?

I told him I wanted him to do it without any external functions, he then started talking about crates and code reuse. I had no idea what this kid was on about but I didn't want to make things stressful so I listened to the end.

I then shook hands with him and thanked him for coming. No, he's not going to get the job. Despite him being a college student, he didn't leave me with a good impression of Rust users though.

nice blog do you have an rss feed?

Glad he didn't get the job. He wouldn't have known his employer is such a perverted weeb.

I had a misfortune of interviewing for sysadmin/engineer positions a few times.

It's was either cringy, self taught nerds who knew their shit, indian immigrats who sort of know what they were doing, in a bad english sort of a way, or worst of all, university graduates who have absolutely no clue what they are doing.

I'd start feeling like the kid too if I had a retarded employer use the word "vector" in the same sentence as strings.

What the fuck are you on op? How are you even a developer if you can't make a request that everyone can understand first try?

I'd hate to see the convoluted software you create.

Wait, I'm not getting the job?
>t. Rust user that got interviewed today

this. vector string, seriously?

bamp

Some notable interviews:

1- Guy with 5 years of programming experience. Could not do the 12x12 table. Could not count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13.

2- Girl with 1 year of programming experience. Did not know what is the modulus operator.

3- Candidate came to the interview a hour early.

4- Candidate had a phone interview. I always let the candidate choose the time, so the candidate asked for noon. When I called, candidate was on a crowded train where I could barely hear any answers.

5- Candidate passed the phone interview. Scheduled a face-to-face interview, also at noon. Candidate cancelled it... at 11:55am.

Non-interview oddities:

1- Candidate sent us a shirtless picture in resume (male candidate)

2- Candidate included blood type in resume

People are weird.

I obviously didn't say vector during the interview, I wrote out exactly what I was going to give him on the white board.

Control your autism.

>perverted weeb
Just a random image, user

>It's was either cringy, self taught nerds who knew their shit, indian immigrats who sort of know what they were doing, in a bad english sort of a way, or worst of all, university graduates who have absolutely no clue what they are doing.
There's no middle ground

>vector of strings
Is it different from "array of strings" or "collection of strings"?
From what I understood you tasked him with something like removing duplicate database entries(because somebody could make a mistake while adding things or something).

>people on Sup Forums don't know what a vector of strings means
wat

>2- Girl with 1 year of programming experience. Did not know what is the modulus operator.
Instant dropped.

>1- Guy with 5 years of programming experience. Could not do the 12x12 table. Could not count down from 700 to 200 in decrements of 13.
Wait, what? Why did you ask him for that?

Exactly the same thing, we just tend to call it a vector where I work. I of course explained its a sequence of strings in an abstract way because I had no idea how Rust would store it.

>Why did you ask him for that?
Me: Hello! We are hiring. Do you know programming?
Him: Yes! I have 5 years of experience!
Me: Cool! I have a few questions for you to test your programming skills! Let us start with the EASIEST TWO QUESTIONS! This should take just 1-2 minutes each!
-30 minutes later-
Him: I cannot do this.

>Could not do the 12x12 table.
You mean like a program that outputs a multiplication table?

How did the bloodtype guy fare kek

I'm surprised he'd pass screening to be honest.

That doesnt answer the question

I just realised I don't remember writing a custom fuction to remove duplicates, never been taught that. The last time I had to to such task was done with Edit-Permute Lines-Unique.
When I start to think about it, I see bubble sort style loop as a solution. Or sort it all anyhow and run through the array once to check neighbouring members but it all would seem to run very slow.

Me: Hello! In ANY LANGUAGE THAT YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH, write some code that will output the 12x12 table.
Him: Uh...err.... ummm...
>var a1 = 1;
>var a2 = 2;
>var a3 = 3;
>...
>var b1 = 2;
>var b2 = 4;
>var b3 = 6;
-I interrupt-
Me: Perhaps you can shorten this by using loops. It would take you a pretty long time if you use this method and I changed the question to 100x100 table, no?
Him: Oh... ah... umm... err....
-30 minutes later-
Him: I cannot do this.

I asked him to give me solutions to some simple programming questions, in order to gauge his programming capabilities.

I could give away the solution since it's not a programming thread, but I really like this question and I don't want candidates to rock up with a solution in hand. But I'll say you can do it in linear time with a single scan to find duplicates and a second scan to remove them

>no programming experience
>hey, isn't it is just two for loops?

Holy shit how can someone be that bad.

O(2*n) time?

Look up FizzBuzz. 99.5% of programming grads looking for a job cannot program at all.

Spot the Rust users

>get interview for a video editing job
>IT guy interviews me
>doesnt now shit about what i do or i would do there
>hires me anyways

confused_pepe.jpg

>99.5% of programming grads looking for a job cannot program at all.
That's because they all cheat their way through school. I've noticed that ThinkPad users tend to be genuine though.

>we just tend to call it a vector where I work
Sounds like you do some math a lot there.

That's because they're the autists

e

My stupid powershell solution
for($i=1; $i -le 12; $i++){for($j=1; $j -le 12; $j++){$i*$j}}

we both know that you are a jobless neet trash.

>t. projecting neet

>t. phony

>t. butthurt neet, unemployable unloveable

>t. phony who's trying too hard

>blood type
was he japanese?

Question:

If I don't have any sort of compsci degree (I'm EE) but I know C++ syntax, OOP, memory allocation, can I get a C++ programming drone job?

>
>OOP, C++
Yes, most definitely.

I don't know shit about programming. I wanna start with perl for web or c++. Where can I go to get questions interviewers would ask so I could get hired easily.

Big companies will ask you dumb shit about data structures like making a doubly linked list or a binary tree from scratch.

Wait, what? That's what the thing is called. Why would you go all wide-eyed on something as basic as this?

Math has nothing to do with it. It's the name of one of the most common data structures.

>99.5% of programming grads looking for a job cannot program at all.
That's not actually true. The vast majority of graduates can solve these exercises just fine.

Rather, what is going on is that a large percentage of INTERVIEWEES can't answer this question. The reason is simple: there are some people out there trying to get programming jobs without any of the necessary skills or qualifications. These people never get any jobs, and then they KEEP interviewing, which means they make up a very large proportion of interview candidates even if they only make up a small proportion of the people in the job market.

Honestly, if this takes you more than zero thought, you should practice your fundamentals more.

>Math has nothing to do with it. It's the name of one of the most common data structures.
Actually, the real name is dynamic array. Who knows what idiots came up with vector in C++.

A dynamic array is a different thing than a vector, user.

A dynamic array is a very simple construction consisting of a pointer to an allocated array, and a capacity counter. It can resize itself, and can access any of its elements in constant time.

A vector is a (slightly) higher-level data structure built on top of a dynamic array, that models a *sequence*. It consists of a dynamic array plus a length field (and optionally a start field). It has meaningful contents only in the start -- start+length range, and has operations such as `append`, but not operations like `write to item length+3`. It auto-resizes according to some specific resizing scheme that provides amortized constant-time behavior, and all that good stuff.

Yes, the vector is a pretty thin layer on top of the dynamic array. But conceptually they are different things; a dynamic array implements a generalization of an array (in the sense of a chunk of random-access memory), a vector implements a sequence, which has different meaningful operations and involves different cleverness on top of the dynamic array abstraction. Other array-backed data structures, such as circular buffers or hashtables, are built on top of dynamic arrays -- not on top of vectors.

Can you lost some common programming exercises you would give to a person you're interviewing? It would be really helpful so I'm not blindsided when I go in for an interview.

>Girl with 1 year of programming experience. Did not know what is the modulus operator.
How though
>Candidate came to the interview a hour early.
Okay that's not too bad
>Candidate included blood type in resume
Japanese

Just go through the green meme book and you'll do fine

>be Rust genius
>go to interview
>no questions about my previous experience
>OK, whatever
>dude ask me about "vector of strings"
>all of my what
>20 seconds pass
>idea.png
>he means an array!
>start coding this wierd requerst
>suddenly realize this is bullshit, there's a already built-in function that does this job perfectly fine
>guy tells me to not use functions
>at first I think he's joking, but no, he's dead serious
>try to explain him that everybody uses functions
>try to explain him it would be a code smell to not the language as it's meant to get used
>tell him not to be afraid of higher order functions
>guy doesn't listen, can't give any reasons either
>realize company just wants bootlickers that don't think for themselves
>lets_get_the_fuck_outta_her.cpp
>smile
>shake hands
>next week got a job at a different company that appreciates that I know my language

>Rustfags unironically believe this

I have my first ever interview this Friday.
Any advice? I have no idea what to expect

black up and end every sentence with "thank ssir"

whats the greene meme book

>rust programmers
>capable of making anything useful

>knows c++ syntax
lmfao

Hi wagie

common practice to include blood type in pajeet land.
source: being a pajeet.

>university graduates who have absolutely no clue what they are doing
I'd shit on the education system for making universities be highschool-tier in recent years, but the truth is that if you don't have self-taught skills then you will probably be a very shitty software engineer. Programmers who don't have the drive to teach themselves new skills related to their job probably expect Stack Overflow abuse to fix everything, which is a bad mindset to have when you're in a position that's not so easy to outsource and have to come up with solutions yourself to problems that no one knows how to solve yet.

>that female candidate who won't suck my dick for the job
>that female candidate that thinks she got the job because she sucked my dick
>anyone who comes doesn't know java

don't get me started on the pajeet cartel at my alma mater. They had answer keys for exams going back at least three semesters circulating amongst them, half the normies at my school graduated without knowing shit thanks to connections to them.

>programming drone job
Learn either Java or C#

wow that's terrible. what the fuck is wrong with people.

from itertools import combinations_with_replacement
[x * y for x, y in combinations_with_replacement(range(1, 13), 2)]

nice NEET fantasy

at least its a creative RUST SUCKS thread.

This is the algorithm you wanted OP?
#include
#include

struct byte_bitset {
uint64_t chunks[4U];
};

static void
add_to_bitset(bitset, byte)
struct byte_bitset bitset[static 1U];
uint8_t byte;
{
if (byte < 64U) {
bitset->chunks[0U] |= (UINT64_C(1) chunks[1U] |= (UINT64_C(1) chunks[2U] |= (UINT64_C(1) chunks[3U] |= (UINT64_C(1) chunks[0U] & (UINT64_C(1) chunks[1U] & (UINT64_C(1) chunks[2U] & (UINT64_C(1) chunks[3U] & (UINT64_C(1)

>tfw I like to think I'm not cringy and know my shit
>and then I realize I hang out on Sup Forums

LOL

My weird things always come from a question I ask at the end in the last 5 mins or so: please teach me something I probably dont already know about any topic whatsoever.

Its amazing how many weirdos fuck up this question:
-guy rambled about karma like a prison junkie for 10 mins
-guy told me about his sex fetishes with cartoons
-guy literally refused to say anything at all, like was afraid of it or something. Everything was fine up to that point but then I thought he was going to cry

>Honestly, if this takes you more than zero thought, you should practice your fundamentals more.
Not arguing with that, after all, that's not me who's looking for a job.
Is there a real use case to implement a function of removing duplicates by yourself?

>Candidate sent us a shirtless picture in resume (male candidate)
Was he hot?

>whats the greene meme book

Is this "move mt Fuji" level read in terms of usefulness?

Most of it is a pep talk for the interview, then the real meat is in the exercises and solutions. It contains hints like you'd receive in the interview.

It's about as useful as how seriously you take it. A previous version of it helped me immensely.

I seriously hope this is a troll. OP is no way fit to interview someone. using a term like vector, which is a c++ library reference for a list has different meaning in maths and physics.

As for your candidate, depending on the interviewer they might be looking at different things. Someone at Google will be looking to see if they understand computer science and can get the problem done faster. A start up will be looking to see if they can use frameworks to not reinvent the wheel. You failed to give proper instructions because you're a retard.

>get tasked to interview some rejects
>explicitly told to only hire grads
>at least 5 dudes with pretty impressive resumes, loads of volunteer stuff and working webpages. Linked githubs looking pretty good too.
>none of them went to uni
>cant hire them because "only professionals here"

The professionals
>"alright, so you did telecomms."
>yes sir
>"what languages can you use? theres nothing linked here"
>english and spanish

This is the most frustrating position in this shitty company. i want to go back to my chilly server room

Are most interview questions a test on how much you remember from CS course?

>2
do people get asked such simple questions in interviews
i have never been in an interview ;-;

Only if you're a grill

>suddenly realize this is bullshit, there's a already built-in function that does this job perfectly fine

If you think he wanted you to call a built in function to do the job when he clearly wants you to make a for loop and explain your logical reasoning for the implementation clearly, you're completely autistic.

>well he shouldn't ask dumb questions

I hope every interview includes these stupid questions just to weed out these fucking autismo's

If the interviewee can't handle a slightly unclear question, they don't deserve the job.

If they don't know what a vector is that's probably fine, they can ask. If they don't ask then there's an issue.

if the interviewee expects everyone to change terms to suit them then they don't deserve the job.


If any interviewee argues like this thread is currently doing they surely are autistic.

>K&R function declarations
Good one.

>job interview for IT support/admin position
>barely ask any questions
>no real skill test
>get job

That was easy.

Why don't you tell them you can't find a single qualified grad?
They probably don't realize you passed up 30 good candidates because they didn't have an unrelated degree.

Haven't actually ever had to pass a technical interview since I always got positions by having relations in companies who knew I was competent. From what I can read in the different threads it's very stressful though, even though most interview questions seem easy to me (even from Google and the likes) I wonder if interviewers acting chill don't contribute to making the interviewee feel helpless in some situations.

A PR girl and a chairman were in the room at all times, as usual.
They review the cvs, for some reason, but because they dont know shit about how this works, they need some IT dude to ask the pertinent questions.

They dont really care about not hiring people. Company policy is "if we dont find anyone we outsource". Pretty popular policy.

Cue jquery shitters

>Phony
Calm down Holden Caufield

>remove duplicates
> linear and no overhead

Impossible. Rearanging in memory would be sorting wich is at best nlogn.

Linear is possible with just inserting into a hashtable but that would require additional memory =overhead.

Don't be autistic, just use one for loop that increments by 13 instead of 1. i++ is equivalent to i+=1. Simply change that to i+=13.

Ohp, definitely thought this was answering the count question, not the 12x12 table.

Gonna give 1.b a try.

Im just a shitty network monkey that wants to learn Shakespeare forgive me, feel free to laugh (Java)

Class w/e

Package w/e

Public class shitty
{
private int start =700;
private int end =200;

public int count down(int end)
{
While (start > end)
{
if(start>end)
{
Start -13;
System.out.println start;
Break;
}

if(start.< forgive little shit plz)

>public int count down(int end)
what the fuck

public int countdown(int start, int end, int step)
{
for (int i = start; i > end; i -= step)
System.out.println(i);
}

...

countdown(700, 200, 13);