Normally I would explain what this blog is about first, but I just came out of my worst Computer Science interview of my life, and I need to vent.
The interview was an online 48 question multiple choice test. I'll let that sink in first. There was 0 coding involved, there was no interviewer, and to top it off there could be multiple correct choices out of 5 answers per question.
So, what kinds of questions did they ask you say? It was a C++ test in the strictest of terms. It only asked questions that were extremely C++ specific. Some were 'read this code, understand it, and figure out which of the 5 snippets at the bottom would work', and others were 'how does this keyword work in C++?'
I quickly found myself hating my life, as I, like most programmers, don't sweat the crazy detail they were going into. And in my 3 years of experience coding in pretty much only C++ professionally, I've utilized less that 2% the knowledge they were testing.
That's because language specific details DON'T MATTER. What matters are concepts, thought processes, problem solving abilities and communication skills. A good programmer is language 'agnostic' and the recruiters like to say. They have the core CS concepts down, and can pick up a language easily. Not 100% mastery of the language, because literally no on needs that (ok, maybe people who write compilers, but still).
Anyway, that was my worst interview related experience, it's all down hill from here.
