Transcript
Page 1: Ace the Tech Interviews -

Ace the Tech InterviewThe ultimate 1-hour guide to overcoming your

fear of interviewers and becoming superhuman.

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Top Tech companies are AWESOME● Surfing in the Pacific

● Party at Bill Gates' house

● Meet great people like Bjarne Stroustrup, Guido van

Rossum, ...

● Get free food, gym, t-shirts, beer, ice cream

● Work with some of the best people in the world

● Change the world and make your grandma proud!

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But only 1 in 100+ lands a job there

Most people don't know how to do the interview well

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We may be able to help

● Between the two of us we've done 6 internships at

Google, MSFT, Nvidia and we've worked for 10+

different companies.

● Combined work experience of 15+ years

● We have interviewed dozens of people

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Do you have these concerns?

● Your algorithm skills are shaky

● You freeze when you don't know the solution to a

problem

● You are very nervous during the interviews

● You aren't sure what to put in your CV

● You don't know how to get an interview

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one VERY BIG idea

Getting an interview

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● Through the site - a queue of 1 mln people

● Through a referrer - you are special

How to find a referrer?

The BIG idea

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Tricks & Actions

● Short term:○ Open FB or LinkedIn and explore your network

○ Think about groups that you are part of

○ Use the university: career center, profs, other

students

● Long term:○ Join open source projects with potential referrers

○ Get in contact with potential referrers

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Your CVThe quest to be invited to an interview

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Yes, you are smart and beautiful

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But all the recruiter sees is this

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So be careful...

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Your CV is Super Duper important

● Recruiters don't know you, care about you, or think you're special

● It's the first, and only, impression you make

● They look at CVs all day long

● Clear expectations of what a CV looks like

It's OK to be obsessed with your CV.

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Let's look at 3 CVs2 minutes each

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What makes for a bad CV

● Structure○ Standard template, photo○ Creative section ordering○ Poor formatting, weird fonts

● Content○ I don't understand what you did there○ Uncompelling past experience / underselling○ Empty words○ Typos!!○ Lying or strong exaggeration○ "Experience with Microsoft Office"○ Overusing the first person pronoun○ [email protected]

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What makes for a good CV

● Structure○ One page○ Can be read in 20 seconds○ Beautiful, clean formatting and structure○ PDF

● Content○ Education○ Work experience○ Extra-curricular activities○ Awards & Achievements○ Specific details, roles, contributions○ Explain your contributions

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Tricks & Actions

● Imitate someone else's structure● Describe each job so that the recruiter can

explain it to a third person● Use bold, but no underline● Play with the font size and margins● Always export to PDF● Make sure it prints well and choose a good

filename

Ask someone to review your CV

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At the interviewtwo VERY BIG ideas

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Designing an interview process

1. Culture fit

2. Character

3. Intelligence

4. Skills

All parts of the interview are very important.

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Preparation is everything

1. Practice

2. Practice

3. Practice

4. Practice

95% happens months before the interview.

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Part 1. Non-Technical Questions

The non-important part, right?

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● "What is your major at the university and why did you choose it?"

● "What is your favorite Microsoft product?"

● "What was your favorite course at the university? Why?"

● "What is the most challenging project you've worked on?"

A 30-second blitz game

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Tricks & Actions

● Compile a Google Doc with a list of all questions you can find

● Invest some time to write a good, thoughtful answer to each question

● Practice in front of the mirror. Each answer should be no longer than 1-2 minutes.

● Go over your CV and make sure you remember the things you outlined very well

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Part 2. Technical QuestionsWhat we all prepare for, or do we?

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Types of questions

● Programming language-specific

● Algorithmic

● Systems design

● Brain teasers

● What do we forget?

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Language-specific questions

● Do you know examples?

○ [C++] What is a virtual destructor?

○ [Java] How does the GC work?

● How to prepare well for these?

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Prepare for language-specific q's

● Choose your preferred language carefully!

● What books do you know?

○ C++: (More) Effective C++

○ Java: Effective Java

● Google the most popular such questions

● Code a lot in your preferred language

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Algorithmic questions

● Cover the important topics

● Master complexity (time vs memory)

● The only way: practice a lot!○ TopCoder, Codeforces, ...

○ How do these work?

○ How to take the most out of them?

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StrategiesHow to act when we hear the problem

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Start with...

ASK CLARIFYING QUESTIONS!!!

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Simplify the task

● There is a rectangular grid (2D)

● People are at intersection points of it

● What is the optimal meeting point with least

total distance to walk?

● Simplify: solve the problem in 1D

● Apply solution for X and Y axis

● Voila!

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Data structures and related problems

● Create a data structure, which supports:○ insert, remove with O(logN)

○ get median with O(1)

● What data structure could help?

● What is that similar to?

● Heaps do that but for min/max element

● What if we use two heaps?

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Solve a few examples first

● Cars in a parking lot, from 1 to N

● Parking spots are from 0 to N

● There is one free spot

● Order cars (1,2,...N) with least number of

moves

● Solve a few examples

● Cars are permuted and form cycles

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End with...

Test your algorithm with examples!

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Tricks & Actions

● Choose your preferred language

● Learn it well and code in it a lot

● Study algorithms from books and online

● Begin solving problems on TopCoder

● Collect strategies for solving problems

● Try using the strategies on real problems

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Conveying your ideasDon't be quiet, talk about your thoughts

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Conveying your ideas

TALK ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS!

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What to talk about?

● If you don't have the best solution:○ apply the strategies discussed

○ come up with a simpler one, say why it's not good

● Whatever it is, talk about it:○ ideas you have (even if they are distant)

○ any issues you face while solving this problem

○ the solutions you come up with

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What interviewers look for

Interviewers want to see how you think and that you can convey ideas well

... so DON'T BE QUIET FOR LONG!

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CodingWhen they ask you to write some code

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Coding

Whiteboards are not like your IDE

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Coding

● Whiteboard (paper) or shared doc○ It is much different from regular coding

○ Write code this way (start with binary search)

● Extract code in separate methods○ helps for structuring the code

○ puts your thoughts in order

● Talk about the code you write

● Test the code after it's ready!

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Part 3. Your questionsRight when you think it's all over

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Questions to ask to interviewer

● Show interest in the company and team:○ the tasks that they are working on

○ the process they have adopted in their team

○ how they test their code

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Practice and do mock interviews!

Applying

Technicalquestions

Non-techquestions

Questions you ask

CV Referrers

Skills Strategy Coding

General CV-related

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5 things to do today in 2 hours

1. Open FB or LinkedIn and find one person to refer you (10 minutes)

2. Google the 10 most popular questions and put them in a word doc (10 minutes)

3. Write your first answer to a question in your word doc (25 minutes)

4. Sign up for TopCoder or your favorite site (5 minutes)

5. Solve your first problem on TopCoder (60 minutes)

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Questions?

That's all from us!


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