Interview Experiences

[Mani Ram]

I have been interviewing lot of people for past few days. Here are some experts.

Scene 1:
I wanted to ask this person something about the String comparison and so I started writing the following code in a piece of paper

public class Test {
  public static void main(String args[]) {
    String a = "Hello";
    String b = "World";
    String c = a + b;

at this point, he stopped me,

He: This code won't compile.
Me: Why not?
He: You can't add two strings in Java using a '+' operator. It is not possible.

Well, I guess someone has told him to avoid concatenation with Strings, and he took it literally!

Scene 2:
Me: So, you have used Servlet in the last project. Which version was it?
He: Version 8.1
Me: Servlet version 8.1?
He: Yes 8.1. Earlier it was 5.1 and we migrated it to 8.1 recently.

I looked at his resume and found that the application server used was Weblogic. That makes things clear. But the candidate needs to understand the difference between application server versions and specification versions.

Scene 3:
Me: Say I write a line like this in a JSP

<% String a = "Hello" %>

Where does it go when this JSP is compiled into a Servlet?
He: It will go into the service method.
Me. Good. Now, what will be the case in the following scenario?

  <%!
    public void doSomething() {
    }
  %>

He: It will also go into the service method
Me: You mean, this method will go into the service method. Is it possible for a method to contain another method?
He: Yes. They are called as "Inner Methods" in Java

That sounds logical. Why Java can't have inner methods, when it can have inner classes?

Scene 4:
He: I'm responsible for designing the system and also making architectural decisions.
Me: So, I assume you keep yourself updated with the latest things happening around, so that you can make good decisions.
He: Absolutely. I read lot of magazines, articles, and reviews to keep myself up to date especially on the Java related technologies.
Me: That's sounds good. Can you tell me the features you like and/or dislike with Java 1.5?
He: (after 2 minutes of silence) You see, I have crossed that level long time back. I don't work on core Java anymore. My concentration is more on server side technologies like EJB.
Me: That's fine. So, what do you think about the features proposed for EJB 3.0?
He: Hmmm...you see...that is...I mean...I'm really busy with the current project for past 8 months, and I don't have anytime to learn these things.

[Pradeep bhatt]

Which company you work for Mani?

[jain Pankaj]

that kwel

[Helen Thomas]

Mani, do you get people who sail through your interviews ?
Nice technique, BTW.

[Gerald Davis]

I have done various Java exams at uni and a sun microsystem certification programmers and developers. The thing I have noticed about Java exams is that they require I different set of skills then doing the practical work.

Even though a passed the java exam at uni, it was not as easy as I thought; I got a list of Java code then expected to work out what the results would be. Naturally I overlooked the missing comma and slashes and because of my short memory I couldn't remember the last calculation.

The exam required me to be a human compiler and work out the errors before coming up with the correct answer. The way I work with a programming language is completely different. I do many mini tests until I get the desired results.

Sometimes when I am debugging other peoples work that I don't completely understand, I will refactor the code until I can understand it. If faced with an ugly nested loop for example, I will break them into methods. This is a fare cry from trying to understand what a nested loop does the write down the answer , like what I had to do in the examination.

[Madhav Lakkapragada]

Ok, first I am not sure what this post is doing in the Meaningless Drivel forum. Maybe Job Discussions is a better place.


Scene 1:
I wanted to ask this person something about the String comparison and so I started writing the following code in a piece of paper

code:


public class Test {
public static void main(String args[]) {
String a = "Hello";
String b = "World";
String c = a + b;


at this point, he stopped me,

He: This code won't compile.
Me: Why not?
He: You can't add two strings in Java using a '+' operator. It is not possible.

Well, I guess someone has told him to avoid concatenation with Strings, and he took it literally!


This guy sounds like a Kelso! That 70's Show.

Now that was really stupid. It wouldn't compile because the main method is not closed and then again the class is not closed.

- m

[Marc Peabody]

From Scene 3:

Where does it go when this JSP is compiled into a Servlet?

To compilation purgatory. You forgot the semicolon!

Gosh, I'll be laughing about Scene 4 for a week now.

[Michael Ernest]

Those interview scenarios are hauntingly familiar. Just change it to Oracle dbas. You'd be surprised how many of them have masterminded vast databases for Fortune 500 companies, but seem to regard RDBMS questions as "too basic" for a person of their qualifications.

This topic does seem better suited to Jobs Discussion, however, so off it goes.

[Matt Kidd]

Stories like this hurt my feelings in some respects. I mean not to the point I'm crying but based on these accounts here, and assuming these interviewees were once employable, I still somehow find myself outside the industry when I find myself fully capable of answering similar questions. I don't get how you can be so versed on minutia it seems but can't even recall the basics upon which that minutia is built.

I hate this job search more and more each day.

[Varun Khanna]

As an interviee too I have faced stupid questions :

Once a guy asked me in an interview "how will you open an xml file in a browser" ... initially I thought it to be a tricky questions .... but atlast I answered (and was damn afraid while answering) that
"Open Browser -->File --> Open --> Browse --> Select your XML file"

He seemed satisfied with my answer :roll: :roll:


and yeah I was selected. But didn't joined

[Sonny Gill]

I once got a resume where the applicant mentioned having attended a workshop on XP, she was a recent graduate.
I thought it would be an interesting interview, turned out that she meant Windows XP

[Arjun Shastry]

Interviewers should try to avoid following questions like
1)Whats new in version x.y.z of abc?
2)Whats the difference between zz.xx.yy and zz.xx.ww of some product pqr?
I have found that majority of the interviewers ask the questions about the topics which they like(or the topic on which they have been 'researching'! during idle time)
When Servlet was introduced,most popular question was
Interviewer:Whats the difference between CGI and servlet?
Candidate:Servlets do not require the creation of a new process for each request. Servlets support threads, so there can be one servlet invocation to support multiple clients.CGI requires heavier weight process during startup and initialization code on each request...........
Interviewer:Great,Have you worked on CGI?
Candidate:No,What about you sir?
Interviewer:I also haven't worked.

[Mani Ram]

Well I posted it in Meaningless Drivel, because I thought it was Meaningless!
Actually I thought of posting it here initially, but changed my mind thinking that the moderators will move it to MD!

Now, since it is in Jobs Discussion, let me write something meaningful

I'm not harsh in interviewing. I don't mind if people make mistakes while writing some examples in a piece of paper. I don't expect them to carry a compiler in their brain. In fact, I encourage them to skip as much as they can, to save time.
The problem is when people claim something wrong, thinking that the interviewer is a fool. The "Scene 1" person promised me that he has tried it (concatenation using + operator) himself and has got that error.

[Pradeep bhatt]

Originally posted by Mani Ram:
Well I posted it in Meaningless Drivel, because I thought it was Meaningless!
Actually I thought of posting it here initially, but changed my mind thinking that the moderators will move it to MD!

Now, since it is in Jobs Discussion, let me write something meaningful

I'm not harsh in interviewing. I don't mind if people make mistakes while writing some examples in a piece of paper. I don't expect them to carry a compiler in their brain. In fact, I encourage them to skip as much as they can, to save time.
The problem is when people claim something wrong, thinking that the interviewer is a fool. The "Scene 1" person promised me that he has tried it (concatenation using + operator) himself and has got that error.

Please post more questions that you ask.

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Arjun Shastry:
Interviewers should try to avoid following questions like
1)Whats new in version x.y.z of abc?
2)Whats the difference between zz.xx.yy and zz.xx.ww of some product pqr?

I generally don't ask about the differences in versions between products. But when someone claim that they keep them updated on the latest things happening around, I expect them to know something relevant on those fields.

But what I do ask them is the version(s) they have worked with or familiar with. This help me to

i) Frame some questions to suit them (what is the point of asking about Static imports, when he isn't familiar with JDK 1.5)

ii) To find whether they have really worked with those technologies are just faked it to join the bandwagon (I remember interviewing a person who worked as a Weblogic 8.1 administrator, but couldn't answer very basic questions. But he was good at Weblogic 5.1 stuff. Looks like he has just made it 8.1, so that it looks better in resume than the outdated 5.1. Not a big deal for me really, but why lie?)

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Pradeep Bhat:
Please post more questions that you ask.

I can't
That is mainly because, I don't have a list of ready-made questions. The questions I ask are mainly based on what the interviewee's response to my previous question(s) and from his/her resume.

That reminds me of something. I knew that many people have a favorite list from which they ask questions, but I was once surprised to see a interviewer who took out his list from his pocket and started reading those questions to me when I was interviewd by him!
[ December 15, 2004: Message edited by: Mani Ram ]

[Grishma Dube]

Even I've faced some interesting situations as an Inveterviewer as well as an interviewee.

As an interviewee:-

I was facing an interview in a big reputed company. The interviewer asked me some standard java/j2ee questions in the beginning and then asked me "which App Server do u use?". My answer was "Oracle9iAS". He is said, its fine "Oracle as a Database" but which "Application Server". when I answered the same thing again, then he made a face like "poor thing, doesn't know what is an Application Server".

And the funniest thing is, they offered a job to this poor girl....

As an interviewer :-

I was taking some interviews with my senior. Basically he was not a Java guy, he is a Lotus notes person. Just 2 days before this interview, I was explaining him about the 2 designs in jsp Page centric and MVC design.

1) Remembering our discussion, he asked to the interviewee, what are 2 layers (he meant designs here)in JSP. The interviewee was confused with the word "Layers" and obviously couldn't answer it. So my senior modified his question just to help the interviewee and asked him "Tell what do u understand by JSP and 2".

The interviewee must be searching for the answer for the lifetime.

2) we asked another interviwee(to a fresher) to explain the "features of Java". The interviewee told many features, but the funniest part was since "java is an object oriented Language, it is very much case sensitive".

Regards,

Grishma

[Grishma Dube]

That reminds me of something. I knew that many people have a favorite list from which they ask questions, but I was once surprised to see a interviewer who took out his list from his pocket and started reading those questions to me when I was interviewd by him!

After that you took out ur list of answers
[ December 15, 2004: Message edited by: Grishma Dube ]

[Pradeep bhatt]

I had attended an interview in a major software company in Electconic city,Banaglore. These guys did not know java/j2ee and started asking questions on c, c++ even though I told them that I havent worked on them since 2-3 years and I had not applied for c,c++ openings. The opening was for BEA Weblogic. You can guess the outcome.

[Pradeep bhatt]

I generally don't ask about the differences in versions between products. But when someone claim that they keep them updated on the latest things happening around, I expect them to know something relevant on those fields.

Right. Dont put anything that you haven't worked.

interviewer : Have you worked on struts?
Candidate: Yes , i have a good exp.
interviewer : ok What is struts
candidate: well...
....[After some silence]..
I dunno much because I only developed a small component.
interviewer: What was small component?
candidate: Some data access code, so I dont know much abt struts.

[Manish Hatwalne]

Some of the questions I asked long back (2001 I think), real experience no kidding!!!

ME: So you've worked on ASP, right?
Candidate - Yes, I am comfotable with ASP.
ME: So you used VBScript, or JScript mostly?
Can - Not JavaScript, only VBScript. I know VB as well.
ME: Fine, so where does this ASP get executed? (I wanted to ask her about ISAPI, DLLs etc)
Can - Internet Explorer, I mean browser!!!
ME: Netscape???
Can - Yeah, Netsape also. I have tested my ASP pages in Netscape 4.6 as well.
ME: Good, but isn't ASP microsoft technology? How come it gets executed in Nescape.
Can - <smiling> Microsoft monopoly, you know!
ME: I see. BTW, what does this acronym ASP stand for?
Can - acronym???
ME: Short form...
Can - Oh, Active Server Pages!
ME: <smiling> Great!
Can - <<HAPPY>> -
No hint was taken
ME: So, tell me about yourself...

Obviously, the candidate wasn't selected!!!
I still recall this when requesting ASP/JSP urls in my Firefox browser!

- Manish

[Mani Ram]

One more:

Me: What is your role and what are you responsibilities in your current job
He: I'm a project lead, leading a team of 8 members
Me: That's good. What are your responsibilities as a team lead?
He: My responsibility is to lead the team to develop the software.
Me: (Trying to put the question in a different way) So, what extra activities you perform as a project leader?
He: Sorry. I don't understand you. Could you please be more specific?
Me: Okay. Do you do the estimation?
He: No. Estimations are done by the Senior Managers
Me: Do you allocate tasks to your team members?
He: No. It is the duty of the Project Manager to do that.
Me: Do you do coding?
He: If it is critical, yes. Most of the time, my team members will do the coding.
Me: Do you do design? Do you monitor the quality process? Do you keep track of the project status? Do you review the deliverables?
He: No. You see, the company for which I'm currently working for, is a bigge. We have got different dedicated teams to do that
Me: So, what do you do as a project leader, apart from coding occasionally?
He: (At last understanding my question) Oh. I'm responsible for arranging telephone conferences between our clients & my team
Me: Good. Anything else?
He: (After thinking for sometime) I think that covers all.

Hmmmm...so, the only thing he does as a project leader is to perform the duty of a telephone operator

[Joe King]

Originally posted by Gerald Davis:
I have done various Java exams at uni and a sun microsystem certification programmers and developers. The thing I have noticed about Java exams is that they require I different set of skills then doing the practical work.

Its the same with many exams - they test a student's ability to memorise stuff, but not any base skills.

There are two sides to a person's programming abilities - the first being the ability to remember what to do, and the other a bit harder to describe, a kind of instinctive feel for conceptualising the problem in a logical fashion. While the second is probably 90% of what makes a programmer good, the first is the one that most exams test for, and what interviews ask about.

I know that I'm not bad at the logic side of programming, and can pick things up fairly quickly, but my memory is awful - I'm OK with recognition but very bad at recollection. This means that if I sat down at a computer and loaded a programme I've used before then I'll have a good idea how to use it, but if I was asked how to use it in an interview I most likely wouldn't be able to answer the questions.

Its a bit frustrating, but I suppose its just another part of the job - the skill of being good in interviews is just as useful (to me) as the real skills that are used in the job itself.
[ December 15, 2004: Message edited by: Joe King ]

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Grishma Dube:

After that you took out ur list of answers

Actually, it was funny. He wrote a piece of code (from his question list of course) and asked me to modify it for better performance. That code was something like this

public String append() {
String s = "";
for(long i=0; i<1000000000; i++) {
s += "*";
}
retrun s;
}

I rewrote the code using a char[] array. He was totally puzzled. He looked into his question list (which had the answers too, I guess!) and started scratching his head.
Finally he asked me why didn't I use StringBuffer. The way he asked it made it clear that he thinks that using StringBuffer is the best possible way

But I neither made an attempt to rewrite the code nor told him that using a char array is faster than using a StringBuffer.

[Manish Hatwalne]

Originally posted by Mani Ram:
One more:

He: (After thinking for sometime) I think that covers all.

Hmmmm...so, the only thing he does as a project leader is to perform the duty of a telephone operator

I think at least he was honest, most team leaders I know do the same!!!
They are extremely incompetent in estimates and task allocation...

- Manish

[soniya saxena]

That is not very surprising. Some companies actually stress on that. This is bcuz if there are 5 different interviewers and depending on availability they r chosen to conduct the interview for different candidates, the complexity of the interview for a given position can range widely depending on the perception of the interviewer who is chosen to conduct the interview. Interviewer 1 cud be asking abt differences between 1.1 and 1.2, Interviewer 2 cud be asking puzzles to check out the candidate's IQ, Interviewer 3 cud be asking the candidate to point out faults with given code samples, Interviewer 4 cud be asking for pseudo-code, Interviewer 5 cud be asking for live code. I know that many companies dont even care what their interviewers ask their candidates. But some companies want to ensure that all the candidates are interviewed and judged fairly and consistently and hence they recommend having a list of questions. And depending on the candidates responses, they are given scores. And then u pick the winner. Now this becomes a calculated process and there is no confusion involved at the end of the day as to who was the better candidate.

Originally posted by Mani Ram:

That reminds me of something. I knew that many people have a favorite list from which they ask questions, but I was once surprised to see a interviewer who took out his list from his pocket and started reading those questions to me when I was interviewd by him!

[ December 15, 2004: Message edited by: Mani Ram ]

[soniya saxena]

But for such a question, isnt it pretty evident that the interviewer is looking forward to hear the StringBuffer solution from u rather than the char[] solution which might be better in only this specific case. If u serious abt getting the job, do u think it is bad to give the interviewer what he is looking for. And even if u feel the interviewer is dumb, u cannot judge a company by a given interviewer, and practically speaking, u may still want to secure a position in that company and u for that u may want to make the interviewer happy at the cost of a slight inconvenience.

Originally posted by Mani Ram:

public String append() {
String s = "";
for(long i=0; i<1000000000; i++) {
s += "*";
}
retrun s;
}

I rewrote the code using a char[] array. He was totally puzzled. He looked into his question list (which had the answers too, I guess!) and started scratching his head.
Finally he asked me why didn't I use StringBuffer. The way he asked it made it clear that he thinks that using StringBuffer is the best possible way

But I neither made an attempt to rewrite the code nor told him that using a char array is faster than using a StringBuffer.

[Helen Thomas]

From Tom Van Vleck : Nasty Question

I have a favorite question to ask of people trying to sell me software. I let them go on & on about features, functions, benefits. Then I smile and say, "What do you do to make your product high quality?" I've gotten some interesting answers. "Oh, the programmers are very sincere. They work really hard." or "After we write the code we run a lot of tests we found somewhere." or my favorite one, "Well, you see, I am Swiss, and I am very precise."

When I get an answer like this I smile more, and say, "Yes, but what exactly do you do to make your product high quality?" Some people still don't get it. I asked one prospective supplier my question, and they answered with a lot of charts about the bug rate in their shipped products. They were very proud that as the product matured, the bug rate went down. Another prospective supplier had a better answer: they talked about their systematic testing, generated from an assertion language and validated by a coverage tool. But these are both about how they recover from quality problems, not about how they put quality in.
[ December 15, 2004: Message edited by: Helen Thomas ]

[Vedhas Pitkar]

I disagree with Mani.I gave my SCWCD1.4 Beta some months back >now am working on plain ol' JSP & Servlets.If I go to an interview now & someone asks me about JSTL or taglibs, I will give the same answer as given by the candidate in Scene 4.Technical knowledge is of no use unless you use it.

[Kripal Singh]

Reminds me of recruiters with non-technical background .some question like

1)how do you rate yourself in C++ out of 10
2)here are 10 quick question in C++ ( probably reading from a sheet of paper )

[Arjun Shastry]

4 years back,one recruiter from outside India called me asking whether I have any experience of Visual C++ on UNIX.

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Manish Hatwalne:
I think at least he was honest,

Very much possible.

I know people who work as Project Leaders, just because of the company policies (say, once you have 5 years of experience, you will be promoted as a Project leader, no matter what you have accomplished in that 5 years).
But my point here is, what extra value one adds to the company, as a project leader. He seems to do less coding than a standard programmer and he his not doing anything extra. At least you should be a mentor, if not anything else.

If I remember right, after few more rounds of interviews, he was asked to join as a senior software engineer instead of a project leader, because to work as a project lead in our company need certain skill sets, and estimate is one among the mandatory skills.
But we never heard from him again - understandable

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by soniya saxena:
That is not very surprising. Some companies actually stress on that.

Then why do you need an interview? All you have to do is to give the same question paper to all the candidates and validate their answers! The purpose of interview is something different. It is not only to check the ability of the candidate to answer some basic readymade questions!

I would say it is a bad way to select people. When this works well for people with less experience (say less than 2 years), it is not appropriate for people with higher levels of experience.

You need to ask different questions to different people with different experiences having different skill sets.

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by soniya saxena:
But for such a question, isnt it pretty evident that the interviewer is looking forward to hear the StringBuffer solution from u rather than the char[] solution which might be better in only this specific case.
How do I know he is expecting a StringBuffer solution? What if I gave him the StringBuffer soltion and he was actually expecting solution using char array?

However my argument is that, when I give a different (and better in this case) answer, the interviewer shouldn't be surprised. He should be able to appreciate it instead of scratching his head. If he wanted a StringBuffer solution, he should have tried to get it from me differently (like, "That's good. Do you have some other simple approach without using these arrays and all")

And even if u feel the interviewer is dumb, u cannot judge a company by a given interviewer
When did I say that?

[Arun Prasath]

Just had a funny experience with one of my friend working in a BPO company.
Me: One what applications you work on??
Friend: We work on application which has got different screens like pegasus, blah blah blah....
We used to navigate those screens and get the details to the person on phone.
Me: Great. Is the application good?
Friend: hmm.. No. not actually. For my previous client we used to have 12 screens and we need to be very fast to navigate across those. But now we only have 5 screens.
Me: hmm.. So where is the database located?
Friend: Database???
Its in the monitor only!!!

Me:

(Never asked anymore questions to him.)

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Vedhas Pitkar:
I disagree with Mani.I gave my SCWCD1.4 Beta some months back >now am working on plain ol' JSP & Servlets.If I go to an interview now & someone asks me about JSTL or taglibs, I will give the same answer as given by the candidate in Scene 4.Technical knowledge is of no use unless you use it.

How does your case relate to the Scene 4?
In your case, I will be interested mainly in knowing how good are you at JSP & Servlets. However, if you have JSTL listed on your resume, I expect you to know the fundamentals, no matter how long it is since you have worked on it. If you don't remember the exact commands or syntax, that is absolutely fine. You won't get any negative marks.

But, if you don't remember even the basics of something, better don't put it in your resume.

Otherwise, everyone can mention all the buzzwords in their resume, and can just keep on answering, "Oh. That was way long back. I don't remember it now"

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Kripal Singh:
Reminds me of recruiters with non-technical background .some question like

1)how do you rate yourself in C++ out of 10

Do you think this question itself is funny or is it that this question is funny if it is asked by a interviewer with non-technical background?

[Mani Ram]

Originally posted by Arjun Shastry:
4 years back,one recruiter from outside India called me asking whether I have any experience of Visual C++ on UNIX.

Probably he wanted to know whether you have any experience programming C++ in UNIX using the Visual editor (vi that is)

[Warren Dew]

Kripal Singh:

Reminds me of recruiters with non-technical background .some question like

1)how do you rate yourself in C++ out of 10
2)here are 10 quick question in C++ ( probably reading from a sheet of paper )

Actually, those can be excellent questions. I once had an interviewer - not a recruiter, a very technically savvy guy - ask me questions like that, and I had to reduce my C self assessment from a 10 to an 8 or 9 when he started throwing obscure pointer to function declarations at me. (I was able to tell what they were, but I wasn't able to instantly parse out exactly what kind of function was being declared.)

[Mani Ram]

I completely agree with Warren. Asking the candidates to rate themselves is one of the first thing I do. I normally ask them to rate themselves on various technologies (like Core Java / Servlets / EJB / JDBC etc), they have mentioned in the resume.
By looking at their rating, I will decide what sort of questions I have to ask them. What is the point of concentrating more on RMI, if the candidates rates himself only 2 out of 10?