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Ace the Programming Interview: 160 Questions and Answers for Success

 
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Author/s    : Edward Guiness
Publisher   : Wiley
Category   : Other
Review by : Jeanne Boyarsky
Rating        : 5 horseshoes

I saw this book at the library and borrowed a copy. I like to review a programming interview book periodically to see what candidates are being told. That way I'm not asking questions people have been coached on or could memorize the answers too.

The first four chapters are about resumes, general interview tips and negotiating. The author talks about a CV. I wish it was clearer what region his advice is based on. (I'm guessing London since he talks about Skills Matter).

I was somewhat turned off by page 10 saying "Ignore anyone who tells you 'strictly one or two pages'" and "Ignore all the advice about keeping a CV short. That's for people with short attention spans and for recruiters who don't care about details. If you have lots of experience it should be reflected in your CV". Great so now I'm insulted by the author saying I have a short attention span. I don't see why a document can't be concise and show experience. I'm also turned off by mixing up resumes and CVs. A resume should be short. A CV is a longer document. I'm also not clear that he understands the difference since he writes "A good CV (also know as a resume)". There are not the same thing!

The rest of the book is technical questions and answers for a variety of programming languages. Some were good. Some felt like edge cases especially in the "Quirks and Idioms chapter". It was mostly things you shouldn't do rather than idioms. There were also the stupid logic puzzle type questions.

Each chapter listed the questions together and then alternated questions and answers. I wound up skipping the questions part and going straight to the consolidated document.



More info at Amazon.com
 
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It does sound like a book written for the British market since CVs remain common in UK. I think however the advice about ignoring stipulations from the employer would be counterproductive.
 
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