When I interviewed at Google for a front end position they didn't ask me a single CSS question. It was all algorithms and easy JavaScript questions. It was just really weird, like at least ask me how to center something. They bothered to ask me how I'd deal with diversity issues if I was in HR, though. I probably didn't get the job because of my answers there...
You should probably be glad they didn't ask you to center something. From my experiences interviewing at Google, the engineers there usually have one and only one answer they are looking for. Used flex box? Too bad, we were looking for margin 0 auto.
Haha yes, at that point, nailing the interview will just come down to how well you are able to gauge what the person at the other side of the table wants to hear. "Hmm, is this a tabs or a spaces guy?"
I'm not a developer, I can do some light code and make changes to existing code, but I am just not a developer. It isn't my particular skillset.
However, I am in consulting, and was on the bench. My manager forced me to do an interview for coding. The questions were absurd. Literally reading vocabulary terms and looking for exact definitions to things.
I continually asked what their problem was, what they were trying to solve, what steps they faced, etc. They just kept asking questions like above. And every time I'd get it "wrong" they'd say "we were looking for... <googled definition here>.
Honestly what is the point? I feel really bad for kids today. I get all my jobs through word of mouth and networking now. Why? Because it's much easier and those ways almost always have better outcomes.
Ironic, because I work at Google and just found a bug caused by using percent-based border-radius CSS rules on a non-square element - something anyone with even intermediate CSS experience wouldn't write.
> They bothered to ask me how I'd deal with diversity issues if I was in HR, though. I probably didn't get the job because of my answers there...
Strange postscript that suggests you hold some problematic opinions that indicate you can't play nicely with others?
Did you fail to get the job because you didn't have the tech chops or is it because you said something wildly inappropriate on the behavioural questions?
How much of that 2/3 is college educated in the software industry, and is technically competent enough to pass the bar at Google?
But that's being overly provocative.
Ultimately this started with you saying that a question about diversity could be heard by some as a dog whistle that only leftists are welcome.
I simply don't agree with that premise. I do think there is a percentage of people who think diversity is a left-only issue, but I don't think that's 2/3rd of Americans. Then again, Donald Trump hovers around 50% approval rating regardless of what he does, so maybe I have too high an opinion of Americans.
I'm not trying to start a fight on HN. I just said that you should hire the best people you can. I screwed up a sorting impl. that I never bothered to practice.
Sour grapes, more like. If simply asking how they'd work with people from diverse backgrounds was triggering enough for this person, the process worked perfectly in rejecting them.
I could be very wrong and am no HR expert, but I don’t think that question was actually about what would happen if you were an HR director. They wanted your thoughts on those situations in regards to the position you were apply for.
I was interviewing for a position and when they got to asking me in the initial phone screen various diversity questions I politely told them I didn’t think the company would be for me. I’m all about diversity but if you’re trying to project your “wokeness” in the first conversation I’ll pass thanks.
