Core skills! How to deal with the algorithm questions in the interview written test?

This article originated from the public account: Coder Liang, welcome to follow

Hello everyone, the school recruitment season is approaching recently. Today, I would like to talk about the recruitment link, which many people have a headache.

Many people think that the problem will only appear in the pen test, but in fact, not only the written test, the interview will also encounter. The interviewer gives you a problem on the spot and gives you a link to an editor that lets you code the solution on the spot. Not only will they be watching you as you write code, but they’ll be there to catch bugs when you’re done and point out where you went wrong. A lot of people were nervous about the interview, plus the topic is often not prepared unexpectedly, on the spot covered a blank in the mind. I think many of you have similar experiences.

Today, this article is going to talk to you about this topic and share with you how we should prepare for these problems.

Range of questions

First of all, the first thing we have to do is to make clear the scope of the interview and the written test. Generally speaking, the scope of the questions in regular companies, especially big companies, is often fixed, and there will even be a corresponding question bank. Even different interviewers will encounter similar problems. Even if the questions are different, at least the directions or points of investigation are the same, so just as the teacher needs to draw the key points before the exam, we also need to prepare in advance before the interview and written test. One of the most important things is to know the scope of the question.

What about the range of questions? In fact, it is very simple, with the developed Internet, we can find a lot of information about the company and interview.

The simplest method is to look for the question bank of enterprise interview or written test, some students estimate to laugh, how can this possibly have question bank, these companies are stupid, still can put the topic out? Companies aren’t stupid, but candidates who can’t stand interviews do. But also there are like a cow from such official institutions and enterprises, while sharing some internal written test or interview questions, but it also attracted more job seekers, the other students has carried on the brush to do the preparation in advance, have a good interview performance, enterprises are easier to find people, you know the domestic companies tend to be very short of people, So they’re happy to share.

In my previous articles, I have written a lot about the solution of the bytedance and Spelling exam papers. I believe that those who have seen it should have a reflection. If you have not seen it does not matter, the relevant information in a lot of niuke network, are free, we get is.

Niuke network is good but it is not omnipotent, you may ask again, if I want to interview the topic of the enterprise niuke network has no income?

Also very easy to do, you can use the search engine to search. As long as there is a certain size of the company, there must have been a lot of candidates, some of the interview information to share in some places.

For example, I take Flush as an example. Flush is an Internet financial company in Hangzhou. It is not so famous, and there is no corresponding title in Niuke.com. But when I googled “flush pen exam”, it was easy to find some key information.

Read a few more, and you can easily find some of the original problems. Even if we don’t happen to meet the same questions in the interview or written test, there is no problem in at least making sure the scope of the investigation and the difficulty of the questions.

Some of you may ask, what should I do if the company I’m interviewing for is very small and I can’t find any information on the Internet?

In this case, there is no need to panic. Since there is no information on the Internet, we just prepare according to the conventional preparation process, that is, the combination of LeetCode + reference offer. If you finish the first 300 LeetCode questions or finish the offer with a sword, basically there will be no problem with the algorithm pen questions. Since the interview is not a show-off, there will be no examination of difficult algorithms. I have met with so many companies, and the difficulty is basically no more than LeetCode Hard. The occasional LeetCode Hard questions are only asked because I have the ACM award experience.

Familiar with whiteboard programming

When it comes to preparation for interviews and written exams, many people can only think of brush questions. Brush questions is necessary, but there is another thing we need to prepare well is whiteboard programming.

Because when you’re interviewing or writing a written test, it’s not just whether you can come up with solutions to write code, it’s your code style as much as your code quality. Another point is that whiteboard programming itself is a test, because IDE code completion is so good these days that many people can’t even program without IDE. You might not remember the arguments to main, or you might not remember to follow some of the specifications, etc. Although these are small details, but in the interview will affect the evaluation, so do not relax guard.

I once had an interview where a candidate had written out the solution, but the code was stinky, long and unreadable. To make matters worse, he even misspelled main (mian). He didn’t remember either return 0 or using namespace. I could see that he had made full preparations before, but it was just because of these small details that we doubted his code ability, so we did not approve him.

Another common thing that a lot of people don’t realize is code style. Some great people go over the Google naming conventions before interviews and written tests, just so they don’t get caught up in whiteboard programming. Although domestic enterprises have less strict requirements on code style, beautiful code style is also a big plus. On the other hand, a bad code style can also result in a negative score.

So I suggest you take a leaf out of Daniel’s book and spend some time familiarizing yourself with the formal code style. Don’t name variables in pinyin.

Thinking strategy

And finally, I’m going to talk to you about the strategies that we think about when we get the problem.

Many students were unprepared and nervous when they got the questions. They didn’t know what to do and their brains froze. When that happens, the interview is obviously half done.

So the first thing to do is calm your mind and don’t panic. A good tip is to check with the interviewer first, on the one hand, to make sure that you understand correctly, and some of the boundary conditions of the question. On the other hand, it can also ease the tension.

After understanding the meaning of the questions, we can follow the way of easy first, then difficult. Share the easiest ideas with the interviewer first. After you have the simplest ideas, think about solutions to the defects or problems. For example, it is too complicated, or there are some problems that have not been solved. So you’re following the analytical approach, and even if you don’t come up with a solution, your whole thinking path is still valuable.

Do not jump thinking, all the places are knocked down, and then stuck in one place has been stuck. You don’t talk to the interviewer, who doesn’t know you’re close and thinks you don’t have a clue. In addition, you can also communicate with the interviewer when you are at a loss for ideas. It is also ok to ask him for a hint. Don’t just think. Give feedback and your thought process. In some ways the process of thinking and your methodology is much more important than your final result.

The end of the

Whether it is interview, written test or whiteboard programming, although there are some on-the-spot skills, the most important thing is not the on-the-spot play but the preliminary preparation. I personally feel that at least 80% of the preliminary preparation, through full preparation, I even had the experience of winning the original interview question.

Finally, I wish everyone can make good preparation and get the desired offer.

That’s all for today’s article. Thank you for reading it. If you like, don’t forget the triple link.