Mistakes Candidates Make Part 2

Interview Preparation
#1

Hello Everyone,

I hope you have gone through the “Mistakes Candidates Make Part 1” before coming here. It’s really advisable to completely read part 1, then only continue with part 2.
Link: Mistakes Candidates Make Part 1

Let’s continue,

* Talking Too Little

Let me tell you a secret: I don’t know what’s going on in your head. So if you aren’t talking, I don’t know what you’re thinking. If you don’t talk for a long time, I’ll assume that you aren’t making any progress. Speak up often, and try to talk your way through a solution. This shows your interviewer that you’re tackling the problem and aren’t stuck. And it lets them guide you when you get off-track, helping you get to the answer faster. And it shows your awesome communication skills. What’s not to love?

* Rushing

Coding is not a race, and neither is interviewing. Take your time in a coding problem - don’t rush! Rushing leads to mistakes, and reveals you to be careless. Go slowly and methodically, testing often and thinking through the problem thoroughly. You’ll finish the problem in less time in the end, and with fewer mistakes.

* Not Debugging

Would you ever write code and not run it or test it? I would hope not! So why do that in an interview? When you finish writing code in an interview, “run” (or walk through) the code to test it. Or, on more complicated problems, test the code while writing it.

* Sloppy Coding

Did you know that you can write bug-free code while still doing horribly on a coding question? It’s true! Duplicated code, messy data structures (i.e., lack of object-oriented design), etc. Bad, bad, bad! When you write code, imagine you’re writing for real-world maintainability. Break code into sub-routines, and design data structures to link appropriate data.

* Giving Up

Have you ever taken a computer adaptive test? These are tests that give you harder questions the better you do. Take it from me - they’re not fun. Regardless of how well you’re actually doing, you suddenly find yourself stumbling through problems. Yikes! Interviewing is sort of like this. If you whiz through the easy problems, you’re going to get more and harder problems. Or, the questions might have just started out hard to begin with! Either way, struggling on a question does not mean that you’re doing badly. So don’t give up or get discouraged. You’re doing great!

Thankyou.