Talk:Coding interview

Disagreement

I strongly disagree with the claim is intended to seek out creative thinkers and those who can adapt their solutions to rapidly changing and dynamic scenarios. As I've interviewed with MS in the past, and have encountered some of the questions back in the days when they were still hooked on the cargo cult of straight fermi problems like How would you move Mount Fuji?, creative thinking was not part of the agenda and a quick way to fail the interview. The approved method of answering such questions was to start estimating - not ask why one wanted to move it, nor where to move it. By obsessing on how good candidates are at solving puzzles and answering trivia, Microsoft gets away from finding folks who are smart and gets things done and instead only selects for candidates who are good at solving puzzles and answering trivia. While fun, and keeping in the spirit of the founder Bill Gates, they do a poor job at finding software developers which leads to Microsoft claiming that they cannot find enough domestic candidates (consequently they ask for H1B limits to be raised). Tangurena (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Relevance

Pick the right column as "smart", the left column as "not smart", then pick the top row as "does not get things done" and the bottom row as "gets things done".

Many companies continue to "follow the tail lights" of Microsoft and use these interviewing techniques, so one encounters this style of interview quite frequently in American software development. Joel Spolsky, on his website and in the book How Would You Move Mount Fuji describes the problem as finding out what the candidate is based on a 2-value Karnaugh map, with the values smart and gets things done. Ideally, a company wants to hire candidates in the lower left colum: smart and gets things done, and hopefully HR screens out all the resumes of people in the upper left corner neither smart, nor gets things done. The remainder of the interviewing process is to find out which square the candidate fits in. If others want to rename this article something like "Modern Programmer Interview" instead of "Microsoft Interview" then I'd see no problem with this. Since significant numbers of software companies use this interview format, it is a relevant article for Wikipedia despite the 3 previous attempts to delete it. Tangurena (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

When used by other companies, sometimes one gets interviewed over lunch with 1 or 2 interviewers. In addition to technical issues, these are testing to see if you can be shown to customers or must be kept in the back, and if you're the sort of person who orders the most expensive item on the menu (which is a bad sign) or not. Tangurena (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Revelance?

Is this really encyclopedic? Obviously if we wish to retain our reputation as The Encyclopedia that Slashdot built then it will be useful, but one company's interviewing process (not significantly different from many others) is hardly worth of a real encyclopedia. (And the I should be lowercase) DJ Clayworth 14:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

...I usually call it Geekypedia... 131.111.8.101 00:53, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... if you don't feel that it is needed; then request a deletion. Unless you can name any other large compaines that use unusual interview techniques, I would say that it should stay. But feel free to leave another comment! 14:47, 9 September 2005 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.122.56.139 (talk • contribs) 14:47, 9 September 2005

Plenty of other companies use this interviewing format. Tangurena (talk) 16:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Advert

WHOAH, what happened, this page used to list lots of quirky facts about the unusual questions microsoft would ask people, and why. now its like an infomercial for prospective future employees. someone change it back!! -scared casual user, 1 nov 2005 PS - its annoying how so many compaines are sticking near advertisements in wikipedia entries.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.168.58.201 (talk • contribs) 13:09, 1 November 2005

• No no no! It's not Microsoft or another company that posted this entry. In the candidate for deletion entry, the creator of this article said he only created because there was not a link to "Microsoft Interview" and was just acting on good faith to contribute. Also, please sign your talk posts with four tildes (~~~~). --★Ukdragon37★^talk 17:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This sounds like infomercial advertising to me...--Dwarf Kirlston 15:34, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

"Not a link to microsoft interview" is not the reason it was kept. It was kept because of notability, deriving from it's innovation. Little of which is shown in the current article. The current article would perhaps would be better off as "Microsoft Recruitment Practices" (there isn't a link to that either is there?)--Dwarf Kirlston 21:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree, I came here from the Microsoft article hoping to find some examples of their quirky questioning technique, only to find a piece riddled (IMHO) with NPOV points and OR. As a new editor I don't trust myself enough to attempt a resurrection of the original unbiased edit. Plus I don't know if the editor(s) concerned were genuinely working in good faith. Blitterbug (talk) 20:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)