Abhishek
BAN USER- 23 Answers Interview with Silicon Valley start-up company
Hi All,
- Abhishek October 05, 2012
I took a phone-screen interview with a start-up company last week. The interview lasted for around 30mins. I solved 2 coding problems and the interviewer agreed with the solution. But still I get a rejection for getting to the next round. I completely fail to understand the justification (i.e., speed, correctness, etc.) and asking some feedback from them don't help since they don't respond further. Recently, I am facing these problems with various start-up companies and I fail to detect my problem!
If I don't understand my problem then it becomes difficult to rectify myself.
It will be very helpful if anyone can enlighten on this matter.
Thanks!| Flag | PURGE
Specifically speaking, there is no agreement between the interviewer-interviewee that the interviewee need to disclose its list of heard problems...So what is the dishonesty here..The same thing is OK in a school exam but in an interview it is dishonest..Isn't it too subjective! I think most of the interview process is based on such subjectiveness/perception..Thanks for your comments and suggestions.
- Abhishek October 05, 2012I meant...Do we expect to get credit for being honest for a heard problem to answer.."Sorry..I have seen the problem..Can you change it!"...in a school exam will be fetch me zero credit.
Now, by your logic knowledge/learning which are tested in school exams, do not portray skills/aptitude!
This argument will go to a different domain out of computer science.
At the end, I find every interview problem (barring a few from Google, etc.) is solved/discussed in some of the discussion forums..How can it be interviewee's fault when the interviewer is unable to put effort to pose new problems!
Thanks!
Thanks a lot for your comments!
But the 3 points you mentioned seems to be subjective in nature and relying more on perception.
I would also like to have your comments on the following:
How is a problem solving exercise in an interview different from a one taken in an exam (in schools). Do we expect to get credit for being honest for a heard problem to answer.."Sorry..I have seen the problem..Can you change it!"...I am very curious about the interviewer's perspective on judgement of a candidate!
Thanks for your reply!
Your reasons make sense.
(1) I don't think that they are so easy for a 30 min session..Is there any norm or is it entirely upto the interviewer..Though it may sound stupid but what is the expected time to solve a problem of avg difficulty level.
(2) Am I supposed to mention if I heard the problem before? Do you think that every interviewer gives new problem! After given a few interviews, I hardly found any original problem from the interviewers..All the problems are found to be discussed in the forums which I discovered after the interview!
(3) In one interview, they asked me to write the search function of a BST..Do they suppose it to be an unheard problem to the candidate!
Thanks for your reply!
I am absolutely sure about my solutions since I have already practised the same problems before. For the 2nd problem, I discussed with him about the approach, and he told me to go forward with the coding. Then, I thought to improve the time complexity from n^2 to nlogn, which was approved by him and he told me to go forward with the typing.
I fail to understand the reason. If any specific requirement is there, then it can be cleared by a prelim session rather than going through the coding rounds!
Binary search for the first part as mentioned by @gnahzy:
public static void main(String[ ] args) {
int [ ] sortedCitation = {21, 17, 12, 2, 2, 1};
System.out.println("The h-index value is: " + getHindexFromSorted(sortedCitation));
}
private static int getHindexFromSorted(int[ ] citation) {
int low = 0; int high = citation.length - 1;
int idx = (low+high)/2;
while(low <= high) {
if(citation[idx] >= idx + 1) {
low = idx + 1;
}
else {
high = idx - 1;
}
idx = (low+high)/2;
}
return idx + 1;
}
What is the definition of a path..start at root and ends at leaf? or start at root and ends at leaf or non-leaf node? or start at leaf and ends at leaf with/without root as an intermediate node? or start at non-leaf and end at non-leaf? or any combo?
- Abhishek October 13, 2012