|
|
|
|
|
|
by geofft
3362 days ago
|
|
|
Google has apparently very recently rolled out Chromebooks as an alternative to the whiteboard format. The devices don't compile anything or run test cases for you, but they've got an editor with syntax highlighting that projects on the screen. (They reportedly care a bit about clear variable names, which I never do on a whiteboard for wordiness, so even in Python I'm inclined to opt for the Chromebook.) Another thing that surprised me is that the interviewer records your actual whiteboard code (by transcribing it into their notebook by hand) or your Chromebook code (by clicking a button), and the hiring committee sees it and evaluates it. And it seems the hiring committee has the ability to re-evaluate the result of the interview and second-guess the interviewer in the room, if they feel that it's necessary. It's entirely possible that your code was seen by folks who did know Objective-C well, although yeah, it seems like it would have gotten them more signal if they put people who knew Objective-C in the room with you.... |
|
|
But that wasn't the only reason I wasn't hired, I'm sure. I was only given a week and a half to prepare, while working a stressful job at the same time, where the Google recruiter basically gave me ten links (including a long TopCoder algorithms link I think) and said "Prepare by doing and reading everything on these links")
During the interview, I struggled with a couple of the problems in particular, and I was late to the first interview because I under-estimated just how bad the traffic would be and how lost I'd get on Google's campus.
Google's gotten in touch since, and I basically just have to tell this one recruiter to set me up for another interview if I wanted one, but I've been hesitant to go through that again and I'm no longer sure if I want to move out to SV (I'm from Chicago).