Repetitive Interview Questions
Dear JobsBlog: I went through a full time interview loop two months ago and during two of my interviews, I had very similar questions. Do the interviewers not talk to each other?
-Feeling Repetitive
Dear Feeling Repetitive: Our interviewers definitely talk to each other before the next person goes and meets a candidate. Part of that is to prevent them from asking the same questions, but the other reason is to make sure you get an opportunity to demonstrate a range of technical prowess – from coding, problem solving, creativity, design and more.
I’m not sure what questions you received, but if you had 2-3 test questions in a row and you’re interviewing for an SDET position, they are probably just assessing your testing skills through different questions.
I’ve also heard of cases where a candidate coded a question but ran out of time so the second interviewer continued on with the same question, but asked the candidate to test the code once he finished with the problem.
If anything, I would take the second opportunity like it’s a golden ticket since it’s another chance for you to talk or think about a problem (out loud always helps!) that you might’ve missed earlier in the day.
With this in mind, I would also suggest preparing several good questions you’d like to ask the interviewers so they don’t all get the same questions from you either!
- Ginny
4 Comments
Ens said:
They also sometimes ask questions which have similar solutions but are different problems on the face of it. It shows:
a) You learn from your experiences, even in a high-stress interview where learning isn't your focus.
b) You are capable of generalizing concepts.
It shows that only if you get it right, mind you.
I was asked a very similar question in my second interview in the loop and I started going into the same answer I had worked out with the last guy, and he cut me off and said "alright yeah, you've got that one, let's move on to another question".
bigkissy said:
I don't know how I feel about the whole loop concept. On one hand you get the benefit of super quick feed back on areas where you can press the candidate...but on the other hand the whole social / political aspect of a corporation comes into play. Now it's possible that the interviewer can be influenced by one or more of the persons before him, which can put an early bad interview for a candidate at a huge disadvantage. It decreases the chances of an interviewee walking into an interview situation without a biased perception.
Also, the whole idea of cutting the interview loop short if a candidate has not performed well is kind of mean and fraternity initiation like. IMO, interviewing is such an in exact science dependent on so many variables, that you only decrease your chances of getting a consistent read on a person by offering them less interviews. Are people at Microsoft that busy that cutting off a final interview will save them that much time?
Ens said:
Do they cut anybody short on interview numbers? My loop was everybody gets 3, and most people got hired or not hired based on that, but I and one other got a 4th interview, which was really stressful after being told there would be exactly 3, and I got hired and the other guy, sadly, did not.
Also, the vast majority of places I've seen just use one real interview (with maybe a separate screening, which MS also has separate from the loop). In this case, one early bad interview is all you get :).
bigkissy said:
"Also, the vast majority of places I've seen just use one real interview".
From my experience, nearly every place that has brought me on site has had atleast 3 interviews. This ranges from companies on a similar competitive level to Microsoft, to defense companies and to even much smaller scale local companies. And yes, Microsoft will cut your loop short on some instances, like if you're interviewing with two groups, you may only get only one interview with the second group if you performed poorly in your early interviews.