In the given scenario: - interviewer asks programming question I can feel I'm gonna fuck up Would it be a "good" strategy to say something like: - oh, just to let you know I just practiced that very same question on leetcode 10min ago. Do you want to pick another one? Here are the foreseen outcomes: - interviewer still wants to go through the question and it becomes obvious I lied, - interviewer says we can work on the generalized version of the question, and I'm fuck too unless I can pretend what I just practiced on was the generalized version - interviewer feels they're fucked because they don't know any other question well enough (as it's often the case), so they'll pick an easy one out of nowhere to make sure they don't look like fools and it's a big win for me One could say this wouldn't be very ethical, but I see it as thinking outside of the box and "hacking" the interview. It seems that there is more to win than to lose with this strategy... but you can burn yourself. If the company keeps a record on you, you're screwed. Any thoughts? Interviewers, what do you do when someone says they just solved that question a few min ago?
Np.. if you solved it just 10 mins back, you should be able to do it again in 10 mins. Do it and I will give you a new question to solve!
This outcome is not as bad as it sounds. You're going to give me a "no hire" which I would have gotten anyway.
at least at Google if you lie during an interview it goes in your "permanent" record and you have little chance of being hired again
Seems really risky to me. You'll have better luck attempting to solve the question on your own. Ideally, that's how things should be though. How do you approach/think about a problem you've never seen before?
I agree and that's what I do when I actually interview. But sometimes the interview really feels like a pissing contest. I see my colleagues do interviews over the phone all the time and criticize the candidate for not picking up the ins and outs of the problem right away. The thing is, they always ask the same question they've seen over and over. So to them it feels easy. I'd love to see some candidate taking them to uncharted territory....
You didn't read the original post. It's about tricking the interviewer into asking another question.
It is better to just say "I am sorry, but the recruiter assured me that my religious beliefs would not be a factor in this interview. Can we please go on to the next question?"
Oh damn, that would confuse the shit out of me. I might move to the next question in that case.
If they start asking you what belief you have, you are golden. Just walk out.
I would ask you to summary quickly the solution, if you can't then you obviously lie, and it's a definitive no hire no matter how you perform on the others interviews... so you're losing, if you try, you might succeed, you might fail this interview, or do something in between. regardless you have other interviews to build your case. if you lie, then it's over, I'll figure out as I won't let you off the hook before you prove to me you know the answer, and then it's over for this times and probably all your future attempts. it's a huge risk with little upside, because you're not even sure the next question is going to be easier, also you open yourself to a more difficult version of the problem which might not be on leetcode... your loss...
Oh bless your heart. If you say you saw it 10 minutes ago I'll call your bluff and challenge you to solve it in shortest time possible. And you're not just going to land in no hire. Friends and I work in various companies as engineers And over the years we created a black list of people to never hire and never work for. With dates, specifics on what happened and facts. Recently the list of people requesting access to it has been increasing. You'd go on that list. I suspect others have something like that too -even if they work for different companies
This reminds me of the Chris Jerrico's list in WWE 😂
No hire list across companies is illegal and called collusion.
Not a smart move. Most interviewers will just ask you to describe the solution in 1 min or even ask you to do it as usual. So the chance of fucking up yourself is too big. You probably have better chance if you give it a try and possibly get some hints from the interviewer. Also, failing one question may still get you an offer from my experience.
Might be better to "mishear" the question and solve something else that showed you can code. The interviewer will feel guilty about not being clear enough.
If you are going to lie, don't be so obvious about it. I've had that trick played on me once and I believed the guy, but he was way smoother. Mentioning "10 min ago", suggesting they pick another question, etc is way too obvious, it's almost as if your are challenging them to catch you in the lie!
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If they tell me the solution in a few short sentences, I'd choose a different question, but not otherwise. Lying one way or the other (I.e., I asked you if you knew the question but you lied that you didn't) would mean a forceful no-hire decision. You are not asked to hack the interview, you're asked to show that you can learn algorithms and design, if necessary, or that you have the grit to work on a solution if you don't know the answer.
Just bailing on the question will be a forceful no hire as well. I've been there. The question is, if someone told you they know the question, would you even suspect they're lying ?
Absolutely, that's an automatic no-hire situation, as well.