A Microsoft Interview Question (aka basic Bayes' Theorem)

[Ed Miller]

Then the answer is "don't spin, just clean up all of the brains on the floor and then run like hell!"

Don't forget to take his wallet and watch too.

[Ed Miller]

This is all it takes to get a job at MS? Wonder what went wrong.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

The majority of my interview candidates really struggled with this question. To me it shows how superior the Microsoft style of interviewing (solve these problems now, please) is to a more traditional style ("So, tell me about a time when you faced a challenge, and how did you overcome it, blah blah blah..."). I learned stuff in five minutes about the candidate that a traditional interviewer couldn't know in an hour or more.

You'd be surprised how many people show up with "solid" resumes for CODING positions, yet balk when you ask them to write a function in C that calculates the fibonacci series. "Can I do it in pseudocode?" "Do I have to get the syntax right?" "Can I just tell you how to do it?"

[JoshuaD]

Hey Ed,

Is my answer right? I'm not familiar with the theorem you mentioned in your original post, so I'm not 100% confident in my answer.

Thanks,

Josh

[TomCollins]

In my expirience with MS, mediocre female and minority candidates from my university (not MIT), were the only ones who ever got hired. I was pretty sure that I was there for song and dance, since they couldn't just only interview those candidates.

[TomCollins]

Check the history, I did post.

[TomCollins]

You didn't take the information that the bullets are adjacent.

[dtbog]

[ QUOTE ]
Check the history, I did post.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't imply that you didn't...

-DB

[rt1]

[ QUOTE ]

You'd be surprised how many people show up with "solid" resumes for CODING positions, yet balk when you ask them to write a function in C that calculates the fibonacci series. "Can I do it in pseudocode?" "Do I have to get the syntax right?" "Can I just tell you how to do it?"

[/ QUOTE ]

No offense or anything here Ed, but I think you are way off here. I’ve worked as a coder for about 6 years now, with no college education or any of that jazz. I don’t think there is anything wrong about writing such functions in pseudocode… I mean, when are they going to have to code something that trivial from scratch, and when wont they have the resources right there in front of them? I don’t think its knowing code the counts, but more of knowing how to apply the coding to the app (process or writing the app etc). I mean, come on, now a days it takes 2 days to learn the syntax of a language. They are all pretty much the same.

I am a little touchy on this subject. My first 4 years of coding I worked for a great company out of boston. Lots of major schools there and anyone who showed up to our door from MIT got job. While some of these guys knew theyre [censored], a lot were right out of the classroom with no experience and couldn’t code for [censored]. Sorry to get way off subject…

Thanks!

[JoshuaD]

If you're applying for a position coding C, you should be more than familiar with the syntax of C. I learned on Java, and it took about a month to get very fluent in C, until that time, I was less than 100% productive. I can understand MS not wanting you to pick up the fluency on their buck.

[Piz0wn0reD!!!!!!]

This problem is flawed; anyone you would play this game with would not be your freind. So your prolly on acid and playing it w/ the lamp and a banana.