Ferozeh !

You Must Remember . . .

Know your resume cold ! Never put anything on your resume which you can't explain or don't understand. At almost all interviews I attended I was always asked about projects that I had put up on my resume or on languages I wrote on my resume I knew well. Pay special attention to recent or current project/work you have done.

Honesty is the best policy ! This ages old proverb couldn't be more true in an interview. If your interviwer ever asks you about a particular technology or topic that you don't know feel free to let him know. Even if you put something in your resume and you did it two three ago and it's not fresh in your mind let the interviewer know that you had indeed worked in the technology but don't remember the finer details of it right now however invite him to ask you questions and you'll try your best to answer. Don't try to answer questions you have no clue about. This will never impress your interviewer.

Start small ! If answering a coding question always start with the most simple solution that comes to your mind rather than trying to find the most efficient one immediately. Work your way upward from the easy solution to the better one. This has two benefits. One as you narrate the easy solution you yourself start to better understand the problem and second you get more time to think about the solution.

Big O ! I have always found analysing the running time of proposed solutions impressive for interviewers. Remember that people interviewing you have generally in the industry for long times and don't know because they have switched careers (my former landlord was a PhD in music before he started coding for a living) or vaguely remember complexity analysis so voluntarily informing the interviewer of the big O analysis will always make you stand out of the crowd. However a note of caution if you don't have grasp over the subject it's better to keep quiet than say something wrong.

Don't dress to impress ! If you are interviewing for a coding position at Google wearing a three piece suit will make you look like a fool. Always wear what the guys who would be interviewing you would be wearing that day. Try to look as much like them so that they see you as one of them on the interview day. No one would discriminate you for wearing a suite but subconciously they might get influenced in a negative way if you are over-dressed. Always ask you recruiter what would be the dress code for the interview day.

Be comfortable ! I have often heard from interviewers that in addition to technical and academic competency they are looking who they would feel comfortable with stuck on an airport for a couple of hours i.e. they the person's company and generally like him. In one feedback I received from Google interviews I was specifically told by the interviewer that the only thing in my interview was that the interviewer felt a sort of tension in the first five mintues. It didn't sound like a conversation rather a strict question and answer session. This makes sense also, since we are humans and no matter how objective we try to be in our evaluations we tend to get influenced unknowingly from people who are difficult to talk to.

WYSIWYG ! is never true in an interview. Most questions especially brain-teasers almost always have the obvious answers as the incorrect answers.

Ask, Clarify, Cofirm ! Always make sure to ask a lot of questions. Even if everything is clear to you just ask your interviewer some questions about the problem he is posing you. It shows you in a good light that you don't immediately jump into solutions rather take your time to plan and think, an important trait required of all techn positions.