Ace the Tech Interviews -
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Transcript of Ace the Tech Interviews -
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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!