Programming Job Skills Test? 189
eclecticgeek asks: "I've recently finished a CS/SD degree at uni and the interviews are starting to come thick and fast. I've yet to have a skills test for any of them, and it's only a matter of time before I do. I'm hoping to do one this week and I will get the choice of language. The position is quite broad and they're more after competent programmers in general, rather than any one specific language. So I'm wondering, have you done a developer skills test? What type of things did you get asked?"
Skills Test (Score:3, Informative)
Choose Your Language (Score:1)
However given a choice of language, and a desire to get the job done, did you consider APL or Brainfuck as a method of 1-upmanship?
Choose Your Language-Functional (Score:1, Interesting)
That would be Flowdesigner [sourceforge.net].
Failing that there's Lisp [cbbrowne.com] or Smalltalk [cbbrowne.com].
No (Score:2, Funny)
Interview questions (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Interview questions (Score:1)
Re:Interview questions (Score:2)
Also, the really good people come the the US. If you're Indian and on-par with people here, why would you work for 20KUSD? You want to come to the US.
There's a guy from india 2 cubes over from me, and he said that in india, they throw you in front of a pc with a book and they say: Do it. No training, no team building. He says it's brutal. That's why he came here.
I bet ther
Re:Interview questions (Score:2)
At 20K in india, it still takes longer to get the 150K together.
Can't prepare (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Can't prepare (Score:5, Funny)
That wasn't a real interview. They just couldn't find that one nasty code bug so they brought people in until someone found it.
Re:Can't prepare (Score:2, Insightful)
My company typically asks pretty broad technical questions during interviews. They try to cover general topics such as database design, OO design, and maybe a little bit that is language-specific, depending on the position.
Unless you are interviewing with a company like Google, I think they are just trying to make sure you di
sort of... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:sort of... (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:sort of... (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to know exactly the page that function pointer syntax was described in the Harrison and Steele C book (Not sure if Harrison is the right guy, but Ste
Re:sort of... (Score:2)
Granted, in all likelyhood, the real reason for asking the question was to see what the op would do when asked an impossible question (which is actually done quite a lot), but it's not the same situation that you describe.
And just for the heck of it, I grabbed my copy of the camel book (2nd edition). Page 71 deals with pattern matching.
Re:sort of... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I was a perl-head, and that was my reference material (which it would be), I'd have known the answer in an interview. Especially if I had just started learning perl. (I know some perl, but not enough to actually read up on it. C and C++ interest me enough that I consider reading technical documentation about them "fun").
Heck, that was my guess as to what it was
Re:sort of... (Score:2)
zerg (Score:3, Informative)
Re:zerg (Score:2)
I would simply update the documentation saying it had been moved. For 99.5% of our users that would be enough. For the remaining 0.5%, anybody that physically went to the new site and didn't find Mt Fuji (and called tech support to complain) I would just send them the original documentation.
Re:zerg (Score:1)
Skills test...you get lots of interviews? (Score:2, Interesting)
Skills tests are as unique as the interviews that contain them. What interests me, however, is that you say you are getting tons of interviews. Are companies hiring, again? I gave up on the IT industry last year after seeing the rotten low-hanging fruit that was available. It seemed the only open jobs were the ones that no one wanted.
Re:Skills test...you get lots of interviews? (Score:3, Informative)
There just doesn't seem to be a lot of positions that I've seen lately which aren't either senior level or "entry level" where they want 3-5 years of experience. There are a few exceptions, but not many (here, at any rate).
Don't fret over this (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are competent, you'll be OK. Every coding position I've ever had included a skills test, except one. The one exception was for a position at a company that I had already worked for in the past...
Re:Don't fret over this (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't fret over this (Score:2)
Re:Don't fret over this (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you applying for a software "design" position?
I should hope he isn't considering he is fresh out of college...
I've done a few (Score:4, Interesting)
Jobs that have required "application" programming have typically set specific tasks. One I did wanted a search engine for web pages.
Yet others have involved very specific technologies. These are usually but not always in the form of a certification-style test. One that I did of this sort involved the real-time aspects of the ACE/TAO implementation of CORBA.
It depends a lot on the company as to what they are actually looking for. Bleeding-edge companies are likely to be more interested in novel solutions, for example, because it shows you can think and not just copy. ROTM companies, on the other hand, want things done fast and never mind the details. Any company that brags about ISO 9000 is likely a stickler for standards, whether the solution is any good or not.
General Logic (Score:5, Interesting)
"You are stranded on a deserted island, thousands of miles from nowhere you are forced to survive with what you have.
You have a handful of nails, a hatchet with a hammer head, 100 feet of rope, a large lens and a few dozen square yards of sail cloth.
The island has a variety of birdlife, fishing and crabs, but mostly inedible seeds, very acidic but edible berries and a large grove of coconut palms.
One side of the island seems to be geothermally active with several hot springs and some sulfer smelling vents, and a large variety of volcanic rock, obsidian and flint along with some hematite and copper deposits.
Now given this very restricted and scientifically unplausible situation, how would you survive?
Please take as much time as you need and give as thorough an answer as possible."
Are you serious? (Score:2, Interesting)
With nails, hatchet, rope and cloth you could probably build some sort of raft but whether that would be sea worthy is another matter.
Probably would be a mistake to eat the berries as they would probably rot your teeth and then you wouldn't be able to eat much of anything. Perhaps, there is some other chemical use for acidic berries?
You could probably build a crab trap with the rope.
You could probably start a fire with the flint.
Re:Are you serious? (Score:2)
Using the acidity of the berries in conjunction with the nails, you could make a battery of some kind. Probably not enough to do much given your other equipment, but its at least a use.
MacGyver a Powered Transmitter? (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, yes. You could build some sort of very primitive crystal radio using the hematite and copper. Additionally, you might be able to power a transmitter by using the berry acid as a battery. Of course, even if you were able to reach someone by short wave radio or whatever you might not be able to tell them where you
Re:General Logic (Score:3, Funny)
Re:General Logic (Score:2, Funny)
Re:General Logic (Score:4, Funny)
Re:General Logic (Score:5, Interesting)
Immediately, you need water, food and shelter. Shelter is the easiest: tie a length of rope between two palm trees, drape the sail cloth over the line and weigh down the corners appropriately; you've got a basic pup tent or tube tent to (somewhat) protect yourself from the sun and the wind.
You can get water from coconuts a la Cast Away. Use the obsidian to fashion spear heads for fishing, and the flint to sharpen your axe. (You can actually catch fish in a river with your hands alone - I'm not sure if that applies here. In any case, tools are a good thing. ) Crabs should be pretty easy to catch with the help of a cup or a basket or a spear.
Use the "large lens" to start a fire for warmth at night and to cook the fish. And perhaps to look for ships.
Medium term: Build a big SOS sign and have moss handy to throw on the fire for smoke to signal any passing plane or boat. Build a more permanent shelter. Explore the entire island and inventory everything on it.
Long term: Build a smokehouse. Find ways to accumulate and stockpile excess water and food and firewood beyond your daily needs -- especially water. If no rescue boat shows up, ultimately build a raft or sailboat and take your chances.
Eat the berries every once in a while so you don't get scurvy. I don't know enough metalurgy to do anything with the sulfer/hematite/copper, but it's not clear you need it anyway. Do you? What am I missing? If I knew metalurgy I'd probably want to cast more nails or make a drill bit...
Re:General Logic (Score:2)
Doh! I should have known that.
In that case, after the small things -- tools for acquiring a dinner that could be roasted over the fire or in the coals -- the thing to make given sufficient copper and spare time is nice big copper pots. Cisterns to hold rainwater, mostly. A cooking pot for boiling crabs. Copper sheeting would also make a nice roofing material for a house.
Re:General Logic (Score:2)
Re:General Logic (Score:2)
Re:General Logic (Score:2)
I want to call bullshit (Score:2)
I'm sure that if you ingest a lot of copper then you could get ill but if you cook with a clean copper pan and avoid acidic foods I'm sure you'll be ok.
Re:I want to call bullshit (Score:2)
So I guess I did overestimate the 'poisonous' part, but it was coming off the top of what I remembered rather than actual research I did right then.
Re:General Logic (Score:5, Interesting)
In order to extract the copper, all you really need to do is break the rocks up into smallish pieces and toss them in the fire. when the fire has gone out, remove the rocks, and dig the copper out of the sand. To work it, just build another fire to heat it.
You don't want to hammer it cold. It cracks like you wouldn't believe.
To extract the iron from the hematite, you'd basically need to make a crude bloom forge or a primitive smelter. The palm fronds would provide the carbon content if you could get the fire hot enough (The Japanese used rice stalks and charcoal to smelt the black sand that was used in the production of swords before they started trading for higher grade materials that were easier to work with). The main difficulty in getting the fire hot enough is forcing air through the fire, so it's really not all *that* difficult.
As far as the iron being too hard to work with a rock, it's not. The master I studied with did an amusing trick by making horse shoes using a glass coke bottle for a hammer. To make a basic hammer, all you need is to take a piece of steel (which you can make and mold, or even shape with the hammer head of the axe) that is rectangular and affix a handle to it.
You all have the wrong idea (Score:3, Funny)
The first order of business would be to bring the local population around to accepting the new order of things. This would mostly involve chasing the birds, fishs and crabs around with the hatchet while screaming obscenties at them - I expect the berries and coconuts will acquiesce to my dominion, as they are known to be sanguine in nature.
Once the locals have been frightened into disorder, the next order of business would be setting up a hierarchy of power. The most loyal and strongest of the flora and fau
Gilligan's Island (Score:5, Interesting)
Make shoes - you won't live long if your feet give out. Any injury could kill you by way of infection. Make clothes from the cloth, and conserve it. It will deteriorate in the sun, but better it than your skin. If you can clothe yourself with feathers or anything else, you want to do that instead. Depending on how long you are on the island, you may need to make a sail from the cloth. It is also a source of fine thread. You might use it to skin a boat.
Make a prominent distress sign, visible from the air.
You can distill water from the hydrothermal vents, or at least use the heat to distill seawater.
Can you make a compass from the hematite or nails? If the hematite is specular hematite, it may be possible to polish it into a signalling mirror. Try the copper too.
With the copper & nails as a battery (voltaic pile) you could make a spark gap generator to produce radio noise. It's a little Gilligan's Island, but you could probably rig a machine (powered by wind, or gravity by way of ported water or sand) to use this to constantly transmit SOS. Depending on your ability to work the copper, you may be able to make enough wire to make a simple radio receiver & speaker. You may need to use your battery to magnetize pieces of nails.
If the wind is constant enough, you might make a kite to hoist an antenna.
Can the seeds be made edible after making into flour and treating with ashes or the acid from the berries? Acorns aren't edible either, but lot's of people have survived on them. Vary your diet to avoid scurvy, ricketts or worse.
How large is the lens? If it's a page sized fresnel lens, then you can melt concrete with those, so smelting small quantities of iron is not entirely implausible. A blind spot in the center of your vision won't improve your survival odds, so don't look at the hot spot. Hang the lens on a frame.
Prepare a signal fire, & keep coals ready to light it. Don't burn down your coconut trees.
Can the berries be fermented? Not just for entertainment, but alcohol can clean wounds, and could be useful for fuel.
Nothing gets thrown away or tossed into the sea. Make a latrine in a place that won't cause any trouble. Even your waste is a resource. Look out for birdlime. You might just be able to make a black powder flare for signalling from that, the sulfur & some charcoal. Burn as little as you must, as you don't have time to wait for fuel to grow. Besides, you've got free heat from the hydrothermal vents.
As others have said: Obsidian & flint: Knives, spear points. Coppper -fishhooks. You could probably work the nails too. Lots of other excellent suggestions here. With the copper & hematite, you should be able to make a diode, and from that a radio receiver. Good luck making a speaker or earphone. Homemade wire, nail fixed magnet, diaphragm of palm or cloth. Handy, but probably impossible: Triode amplifier.
Finally, use wax from the berries & feathers from the birds, & make wings. Fly away, but don't get too close to the sun, or the wax will melt and you'll fall into the sea, to the dismay of your father.
A related problem is how does one make accurate tools or measuring devices without already having them? One way to start is by making a flat surface by rubbing two things together.
Re:General Logic (Score:2)
You have everything you need for basic survival - multiple food sources. Volcanic soil - implicitly suitable for farming. Materials suitable for building a shalter.
One approach is to stay put, and start building with the coconut trees. This could be a business and lifestyle opportunity. You could have your own private Island !
The next boats that approach ar
Re:General Logic (Score:3, Insightful)
When clarified I would then pursure to come up with some fantastic, amazing, impossible method of surviving in nowhere (somewhere?) until I could be rescued.
And as a side note, if
Remember your weirdass C functions (Score:1)
Re:Remember your weirdass C functions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Remember your weirdass C functions (Score:2)
If they're expecting you to know a bunch of obscure functions by rote, you're probably better off not working for them. I believe "weirdass" is slang for strange or obscure.
Simple tests (Score:2)
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
Ok, you've piqued my curiousity. What sort of "amazing answers" did you get back?
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
If I was taking that test this question would annoy me greatly since it is so badly expressed. Strictly speaking you don't describe methods as having a 'format' at all, and if they did, proper for what? If you mean for use in invoking an application then you would state the question as something like "what should the main method signature be in the controlling class in order for the application to be succesfully started".
Re:Simple tests (Score:4, Insightful)
You should get a blank stare. "Typically two tabs in" is another reasonable response.
Sorry, but when you're testing the knowledge of the candidate, your knowledge is being tested too. The worst developers I've had to share code with haven't known what a "function signature" was, and I figure that's a pretty good rule of thumb.
Testing potential employers at interview (Score:2)
That's very true. My current employer's interview process was pretty good. The first was a technical interview, wherein I was asked some relevant mathematical questions and to write a fairly straightforward function to do some floating point work without kindergarten errors
Re:Simple tests (Score:3, Interesting)
As for weird answers from the programming question -- here are a few that I remember:
- "What's a linked list?" (bad answer)
- Arguing about the definition of a Singly Linked list (they wanted to use the back pointers of a Doubly linked list)
- A popular one was writing a routine that walked through the list but didn't actually reverse it
- Another popular one was the "repeatedly walk to the end of the first list, remove the las
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
Just wondering, how else would you do it without making a copy of the list? The recursive solution makes a temporary copy on the stack. Here's what I came up with, please tell me if I messed up (also please excuse the Slashdot misformatting):
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
In addition, it is tail-recursive, which means that (if the compiler understands tail recursion) reversing long lists doesn't take up any more stack than reversing short lists.
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
You can do it in-place, iteratively, with just a little temporary storage. Something like this ought to do it (he says, just knowing there's going to be an embarrassing error somewhere :-)):
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
Re:Simple tests (Score:2)
Just out of interest, did you specify whether you wanted the list reversed in-place or non-destructively? I could generate a simple and efficient algorithm for either, but I'd be interested to see the interviewer's reaction if I had to ask them which they wanted before proceeding. Nothing like subtly turning the tables in a technical interview. :-)
Re:Simple tests (Score:3, Interesting)
When I bring new techos into a team, I want them to have the following tech background/skills:
- strong communication skills. Very very important in any coding environment, and becoming moreso as outsourced development, Extreme Programming etc become mainstream. You'd better be able to talk to peers, superiors and underlings, or you're going to waste a lot of time and money. You don't have to be the best speaker in an interview, but you need to be able to sustain a technic
Don't Lie (Score:3, Interesting)
I can't tell you how many times now I've interviewed some little fresh-out-of-school-all-eager-and-willing twat who has every language any one ever mentioned to him in school listed on his resume.
Don't lie about what you know.
If you cannot answer a simple question in a language you've listed on your resume then it shouldn't be there.
If you really think you need to bone up a lack luster resume with lists of useless abilities be smart about it. Make a grid and list the language and your current level of proficency. Then the interviewer isn't appalled when you're asked to answer a simple question in Perl but you can't remember how even declare a scalar in Perl because you only ever wrote one Perl script...
...five years ago...
...but really you just copied someone else's Perl CGI script and changed the HTML output to match your own amateur porn site's look and feel.
Re:Don't Lie (Score:3, Interesting)
Amen. That is the kiss of death. I interviewed three guys today and busted one guy on two different "keywords" he slipped on his resume but didn't know. We shot him down and told the placement agency that his skills didn't match his resume.
Re:Don't Lie (Score:2, Interesting)
Java is pretty much the only language that I feel comfortable enough with to start off coding right away, but I've dabbled into lots of other languages and I'm of the oppinion that anyone with a proper programming background can pick up pretty much any language.
In this case, will it help to write a list of languages I've used (more than copying someone's script
Re:Don't Lie (Score:2)
Could I answer questions about them in the middle of an interview? Mabey, but I'd probably make mistakes. Can I be productive in them in an actual setting? Yes, give me about 20 minutes and my reference material.
Not Language Specific (Score:2, Interesting)
1.
Re:Not Language Specific (Score:2)
In the past, I've not had the opportunity to do in-writing skills tests. When I do them verbally, I usualy focus on similar topics in increasing complexity. I try to choose questions that allow me to prod the interviewee along (to see how they react to new ideas, etc.) as well as get them into a discussion with me about the "right" answer. I find it helps me learn how someone attacks a problem.
Might never see one. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Might never see one. (Score:2)
Testing was an afterthought... but I wanted to get a feel for the programmer's style before we got to working t
I lost a job to one (Score:2)
The test was along test of:
Re:I lost a job to one (Score:3, Interesting)
And that is about the stupidest part of the hiring process. I went through about the same thing with a company a few years ago - they wanted two years of embedded code experience in some obscure language (which of course I didn't have.)
Two years later they still haven't filled the position - for fux sake, if they had hired me back then I would have two years in their exact application by now. If a company leaves a position
Re:I lost a job to one (Score:2)
Exactly. I mean, once you've seen twenty or thirty procedural languages, it's honestly not that hard to learn the syntax of another one. I assume that they actually needed the productivity of a programmer or they wouldn't be trying to hire one, so they've lost at l
Re:I lost a job to one (Score:2, Interesting)
1) They have no intention of hiring someone that answers the job posting.
a) They're establishing that they can't find anyone qualified for the position, making it H1-B eligible.
b) They've already picked out a candidate, or plan to only fill it internally, but regs, such as if it's a govt. job, require them to announce it publicly.
2) Overworked programmer bitches to his boss about being overworked, and that they really need to add another body. B
Re:I lost a job to one (Score:2)
And that, my friends, is why the job is still unfilled two years later.
Re:I lost a job to one (Score:2)
#include
int main() {
printf("Result: %i\n", 1 + 5 / 10 * 8);
return 0;
}
Will print out 1.
Re:I lost a job to one (Score:2)
And since I forgot to mention it earlier, just about any language that uses RPN expressions would have evaluated to "not enough operands" after the "+" sign. You're making the (naive) assumption that all languages have the concept of "precedence". Don't worry; you'll get to that in a couple of semesters.
Its about how you think (Score:2)
You are not expected to know everything or solve every problem. You are expected to prove that you have good enough skills that you could solve every problem given more resources (a net connection for instance).
For my last interview I listed C++, but was honest on the phone interview that I was rusty on it. There were several things on the test that I had no idea where in C++, because they were added between when I learned and when then language was standardized. (these also happen to be things that the
My experience (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My experience (Score:2)
Are you really saying that you would always hire someone who's contributed to a FOSS project over someone who hasn't, just because they made a public contribution?
I would because it means they know the OS world (Score:2)
Re:I would because it means they know the OS world (Score:2)
I'd add "if and" before "how", but sure.
Wow. Is this one of those posts with a "..." step in the middle you have to fill in yourself? :-)
Re:Yes (Score:2)
So would you also include someone who appeared to fall into both categories but for other reasons? For example, someone who regularly participates in on-line programming forums might have plenty of sample code available there, and might be a great help to less experienced users of whatever languages or tools are being discussed. More gener
Relax and be yourself (Score:2)
I do give a written exam to candidate developers where I work. Most of the questions on the test came about when a developer, who knew the right textbook answer, couldn't apply the concept to the required work. There is stuff like study this SQL script and tell me what it is doing or study this UML class diagram and answer the following questions.
Most of the places that I have interviewed at do not give a written exam. They ask questions during the interview. We do that here is well but I believe that a
Smartest Test (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Smartest Test (Score:3, Interesting)
So if you put on your resume
- Mastery of C
- familiar with Java, Perl, C++
I wouldn't expect them to ask you to write a Python webserver or something "to see how you think" during an interview.
RiM [the blackberry makers] are big on quizzes too. I posted for a job online and they made me solve some "number of shapes with N sides" puzzle. I was 99%
Re:Smartest Test (Score:2)
Worst interview ever! Ever! (Score:4, Interesting)
So I heard through the grapevine that a small computer consulting company I knew was looking to develop a game, and they were looking for a programmer. I decided I would try moonlighting on the game while keeping my day job. I showed up after hours, and was met by the top three people that ran the place.
I was ushered into a small dark office. They sat in a rough semicircle around me. After a brief introduction, they started firing difficult logic problems at me. For about an hour and a half. No paper, no time to myself, I was expected to work out the answer out loud. It was intimidating as hell.
But I'm good at that type of stuff, and although I needed a little prodding on one of the problems I eventually came up with the right answers. They seemed satisfied. I explained what sort of compensation I would require, they agreed, and we decided I would come in after hours the next day to get started.
So the next day rolls around, and I show up. I get setup on a machine, but clearly the president of the company wants to talk to me about something.
So he comes out and says it. "Well, I've talked to my associates, and we've decided we don't want to pay you. We're a little cash poor right now. So what we want you to do is create a prototype, and we'll market it, and cut you in for a percentage of the profit."
I was floored. They wanted to make all the decisions, while I did all the up front work, for the possibility of some of the profit later on. They wanted me to be their bitch.
If they had told me this up front, I would have walked out the door right then, but instead I had to sit through the most stressful interview of my life, fighting for their approval. Blech.
Re:Dont leave us hangin! (Score:2)
Re:Dont leave us hangin! (Score:2)
The hours are long for the paycheck you're getting. (on the project I was on, we went into "crunch time" 60 hour weeks for 6 months straight).
But the worst part was that generally, the work I did was about as boring as the Windows apps I had been writing before. I remember spending 1/2 a day adjusting the AI of a pidgeon to get the poop to come out at the correct intervals.
I discovered to my chagrin that I enjoyed playing games and writing code, but not work
Who cares? (Score:2)
Specific skills are way too easy to study for - you never know what you'll get no matter how well someone passes the test.
In my experience it has much more value if you try to get your answer indirectly... Like I was looking for a new sysadmin for my team. He has to answer questions of a ton of users that just walk up and at the s
Quizzed in an invented language (Score:4, Interesting)
HR guy told me I had to get 18 out of 20 right or I was done. Then he said I had about 3 minutes per question, and walked out. I finished it, checked my answers, changed about 5 answers...and scored an 18. Turns out the 5 I changed were indeed wrong and I'd changed them to correct answers. Phew!
Most annoying part was when I asked the HR guy why I'd gotten the two wrong. He said he had no idea, he only knew the correct multiple choice letters, not any logic behind them. So being a geek I opened the book back up, rethought the two I'd missed, and came to the correct solution for both of them. Of course at that point he didn't care, but damnit I did.
Compare that with the job where I currently am. I was asked a programming question, I wrote some code, the interviewing manager told me that it was a good "brute force" answer. Well that bugged the crap outta me, so I thought about it all the way home, thought of a better answer, and emailed it to him with a note saying "It may be too late for this to matter but my head will explode if I don't send it." During the next round of interviews I told one of the engineers that story and he laughed and said, "Well, I know two people that did that exact thing, and both of them work here now." make that 3.
Algorithm design (Score:2)
- Red cards are positive, black cards negative
- Aces are 1 or 11
- you only use half the deck each (play one-on-one)
- your score at the end of the round is 20 if your cards total less than 15, 20 minus (cards total) if total is 15-20, and 50 if it is over 20
- Winner is player with lowest score after a few rounds
The trick is in the statistics: the black and red card values cancel out on average, leaving only the a
Programming Interviews Exposed (Score:3, Informative)
Even if you don't get asked the specific questions they speak of in the book, the concepts will be of value to you.
ITA software has some interesting problems (Score:2)
http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/eng/job1.php
Good, Bad, and Ugly programming skills tests (Score:3, Insightful)
The big thing to remember is that the test should be "shades of grey" rather than "black or white". If you're not sure about an answer, but you can explain why you made that choice, it's better than leaving them with a yes/no answer.
I've seen good tests, with language specific questions (without being syntax nits) like 'What interfaces or classes would you need to extend to implement a J2EE EJB service?' and general questions like 'Describe 2 Gang of Four patterns and where you'd use them?' (Note, you get more points if you admit you don't know which patterns are in GOF than if you guess incorrectly).
I've seen bad tests, like when I was asked to implement a linked list in C. My response of "I wouldn't, I'd use STL", was badly received. Eventually, I got from them that they wanted to see that I could identify boundary conditions and likely places to mess up the pointer manipulations.
The worst are the downright ugly tests. At my previous job, HR asked some engineers why none of the candidates were passing the multiple choice programming exam they were given. It turns out that a third of the "answers" on the key were wrong, and another third were ambiguous because of the wording of the question (ie, both A and C could be argued to be correct).
To sum things up, expect questions related to the skills required for the job, questions related to the skills you've listed on your resume, and questions about general theory and good practices. Often you can get partial credit for a wrong answer if you explain yourself. Always be honest rather than improvising an answer that you don't know. And you can always ask to discuss any questions you get incorrect, so you can explain your thought processes.
Talk Coherently, Intelligently, Enthusiastically (Score:2)
...about a programming project you worked on with me and a couple of other senior programmers.
Do this for 15 minutes or so and people ought to be able to figure out if you are the person they need.
Re:swap two ints without creating any new variable (Score:2)
easier than that (one line) (Score:2)
{
a ^= b ^= a ^= b;
}
Yeah, it's the same thing, but you know CS majors... we have to compete to get the shortest, most obscure code.
Re:easier than that (one line) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:easier than that (one line) (Score:2)