Whether it’s in verbal Q&A or in whiteboard exercises, people often bump up against the limits of their technical knowledge. It’s to be expected, after all; we can’t know everything, and it’s the interviewer’s’ job to probe the extent of our knowledge.
I’m reminded of a quote from a former Secretary of Defense. To paraphrase: we know what we know; we know what we don’t know; but we don’t know what we don’t know. And when people go into an interview, they often don’t know what it is they don’t know until it’s pointed out to them.
So how do people handle it when they realize they can’t answer a question? Some people deal with it better than others. Some simply say, “I don’t know”, which is usually the best answer. However, others may guess or try to be more creative.
However, saying that you can simply “Google” the answer to a question is not being clever. Neither is saying that you rely on IntelliSense. I roll my eyes and groan (silently) whenever I hear those responses from candidates.
Don’t ever say, “I can’t answer that, but I really do know this stuff.” You’re not fooling anyone, and you’re just making yourself look bad. The reality is that you may think you know the subject matter, but you may be rusty. Just because you knew something five years ago doesn’t mean you still know it now.
Perhaps the worst kind of response is where the candidate rattles out a bunch of different answers hoping that one of them will stick. It’s kind of like one of those games on “The Price is Right”, where contestants have a few seconds to guess the price of an item. Whenever they get close they’ll start blurting out prices in succession, hoping they’ll hit the right number before time is up. But an interview is not “The Price is Right”, and offering up a dozen different answers hoping that one of them is correct will not win you any prizes.
Finally, keep in mind that if at the start of the interview an interviewer asks you to gauge your skill level in a technology, don’t say you’re an expert; they’re just setting you up to shoot you down! That’s why when asked, I never rate myself as higher than 7/10 in any technology. It’s better to set expectations low and impress than to build up and then disappoint your audience.
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2 comments:
Hi,
> However, saying that you can simply “Google” the answer to a question is not being clever. Neither is saying that you rely on IntelliSense. I roll my eyes and groan (silently) whenever I hear those responses from candidates.
However this is the reality of software development these days. Given the width and breadth of todays frameworks, and the multitude of technologies you are expected to know, it is impossible to keep more than the basics of any language in your head.
I think this is a point that has dramatically changed over the last few years
It may be legitimate to google the finer details of a particular framework. However, if you have to look up the basics of a technology you have listed on your resume, that shouts "Cargo Cult Programmer" to me.
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