Interview questions bombed or big bang

During the same time, I was in 2 interviewing process. It was the second interview of each of the applications and receive these questions:

    "Make your implementation of memcpy()" and "What is the output of this fseek(*) expression".

• For the first one, it was 1 of 3 questions of the test in an online editor and a video call with 2 people from the company, checking as I typed. I messed up some pointer casting.
• For the second one, I think it was 1 of ~12. Videocall through Skype with 3 people from the company. I didn't work with files on C before and clearly said "I don't know", it was multiple choice.

Result:

• For the first process received an email saying "Thanks for your interest in working with us, but..."
• For the second process, I was contacted for a 3rd interview and then received an offer

I've seen that smile before, unfortunately, after they were hired.

-Sean

I've been reflecting about this questions since I first saw you posted it. It's a bit tricky to know if I bombed an interview because I don't think the interviewer is going to tell me, at least bluntly. Most of the people I've been interviewed by have been polite people and polite people can usually be quiet long enough to complain about your answer to a colleague rather than the person being interviewed. This had never occurred to me until I was experienced enough in my career that I was asked to perform interviews and thusly experienced the shock of receiving, for lack of a better word, really bad answers to some of the questions I was asking. I mean, I've gotten some really bad answers where the person was completely sincere. One example comes to mind where I was interviewing for a hardware development position. In this interview I brought an oscilloscope and a function generator, pretty standard models, and I asked the candidates to hook up the function generator to the oscilloscope, generate a 5 kHz square wave, and display it on the oscilloscope without using the auto-set function. This particular candidate's response was, "that's what technicians are for", and when I explained we were a small company and didn't necessarily have enough work for a full-time technician he still refused to complete the request, all with a smile on his face. Not a smirk or a smug smile either, more of a proud smile, as if he had given the correct answer.

So, after complaining to my colleague after the interview, because I was a polite interviewer, I had to ask myself what kind of bad answers I might also be giving. I'm not sure I've figured out the answer yet.

Most of the responses I see are the Big Bang variety. I have one that, basically, tanked the interview. I won't detail the question, but the problem arose, because my expertise is in operating system design.  The question was a what happens if... The problem with the question was the interviewer wanted to know what would happen based on a particular instruction. My problem was, it created a major problem with re-entrancy and could cause issues with segmentation fault, bad pointers, and leave an orphaned processes, which was how I answered. The problem was, the interviewer was focused on the single thread, and what additional functionality is available before exiting the process.

Looking back, I am kind of glad I didn't get the position, since I would have been mending code and tracking phantoms.

"Which famous celebrity would you invite to dinner, or admire?"

Is usually a question I really couldn't care less for   I'm sure this's meant to be a character assessment type of question, it's that I don't tend to follow mainstream entertainment media..

I once was hiring for an administrative assistant role.

I asked "How do you characterize yourself under confrontation?"  I was about to ask for an example from her past where she handled such a situation, but then she replied "A loud screamer."

I liked her honesty, but I had to pass. Already had enough of those.

-Sean

As someone who has hired hundreds of people over the decades, I can say that the process you use helps determine the quality of the people you hire.

As others have identified, I spent a lot of time pouring over resumes and pitched out a lot of people for many reasons, but the biggest reason was how long they stayed with their last employer.

Reason, if they didn't stay long for them, they will probably not stay long with you.

In the Aerospace business, we always invested a lot of effort in keeping people's skills up. If I am going to invest in someone, I want some assurance that they will be around to pay us back for their education.

If you do a good job in the selection process, the interview process gets to be very easy. Primarily you are assessing if someone has the temperament to fit in with your existing staff.

Essentially, I was hiring attitude as I had already assessed if someone had the skills we needed.

So when you go to an interview, I encourage you to be attentive, agreeable, and act properly. Be someone, everyone wants to hire.

There is a time and place to be a social activist. An interview is not one of them.

I remember one lady we interviewed for a secretary position and she spent the first 15 minutes telling us all the things she would not do. Needless to say, she was not hired.

Do research on the company you are interviewing with. The more you understand about what they do, the easier it is for you to provide good answers to the questions and present yourself as someone they want to hire.

Remember, they can hire anyone they want, make sure that someone is you.

DAB

It is definitely rare to find engineers who are passionate about it as a hobby. I have interviewed many, many candidates and I know a lot of engineers, and the number that indulge in it as a hobby seems to be just a few % at most. The few engineers do have this gene get snapped up immediately.

True 'dat.  (do the kids still say that?)

I've been doing a lot of interviews in the last year due to always having one or two folks promoting out of the team.  One good trend I've seen is that every single interview candidate with experience was still employed.  They are just looking to leverage up through the Fortune 500.  In turn, I've found that the folks are very genuine and relaxed throughout the day looking for a good fit and growth.  It's a good state we are in right now for engineering at least in the petroleum and chemical industries.

Instead of a panel, we do 30 minute one-on-one interviews.  At the end of it, I take them to lunch at our onsite cafe with a couple of guys from the team and then a tour of the refinery.  Feedback has been they much prefer this over the panel grilling.

BTW, since we are a very large facility with a broader company to grow in, we have postings for opportunities just about every year for First Line Supervisors, Planners, Fixed Equipment Engineers, Chemical Engineers, and Control Systems Engineer near the St. Louis area.  A little googling and you'll know who I'm talking about. 

One attribute I have never seen from engineering applicants is the Maker.  Over my years and multiple sites, its been rare to meet engineers that show their engineering passion with projects outside of work.  I remember two that taught at a community college, but no Maker projects.  That even includes woodworking.  However, many of the craft employees (millwrights, tin shop, electricians, etc) have shown some amazing projects from wood carving of canes to 800 HP engines.  I would love seeing such resumes from engineers as I find people with that constitution often bring great respect for training, documentation, innovation, and long term empassioned improvements.

See ya',

Sean

The one that stands out the most was during my interview for element14, the question was (hopefully) less about right or wrong answers and more about how I answered.

"Star wars or Star trek?"

... keep your answers to your self, I don't want to start a civil war