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Yesterday I read the first chapter of the book titled “Cracking the Coding Interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell who founded the website www.careercup.com. I found the introduction to be extremely valuable because I was able to relate to it from an Interviewer’s perspective.
Very smart people often don’t get job offers, and they don’t know why. I love to mentor people. Every time I would interview someone I would want to have a debrief session to tell them why they would not be receiving further opportunities with me. Gayle has made a business out of this and does a great job of communicating what a company should be looking for in future employees.
I have one thing I look for in every candidate regardless of their experience or skills. I don’t care if they are the most brilliant individual and have memorized pi out to 200 digits, if they can’t solve problems, they are not useful. I want to see how someone approaches a problem. I don’t even care if they get the answer wrong…I want to see how they think.
The other skills such as patterns, frameworks, even languages can be taught. But, for some reason, problem solving skills are difficult to measure, and are not necessarily the part of most computer science curriculum in school.
If this is not making sense to you, then take a look at the first chapter of Gayle’s book available on Amazon for preview. You decide for yourself if reading the rest of the book makes sense for you.
If you’re having to hit the job market having been employed for a number of years, this may well be the answer to helping you prepare yourself to compete with others, and to present your best self when you do have those interview opportunities.
Share your personal development or interview preparation favorites here online, or drop me a note at btaylor@sswug.org to be included in a future editorial.
Cheers,
Ben