Job Interview Tips?

[kn]

On Friday, I have a job interview for a 12-month internship at an engineering firm that develops petroleum reservoir simulations. They've informed me that they'd like to see a sample of my code and there will be a quiz but that it's nothing I can prepare for (I have my doubts).

I'm curious as to what the quiz might be. I'm thinking it will be some sort of problem so they can see how quickly I think on my feet. I've heard some companies ask for a demonstration of code from C standard libraries but I'm not sure what that proves; it's in a library for a reason.

Anyone with tips?

Thanks.

[CaptainCrunch]

Could be a swerve, and they're going to make you write a behavior profiling exam which you can not study for.

don't sweat it.

[arsenal]

Or the exam could be to write a linked list, use recursion to display a fibonacci sequence. From what I have heard, those are some of the most popular coding questions (at least for low level programming). They could just ask for psuedo code too. Just to make sure that you know the fundamentals.

None of the jobs that I have applied for have ever required that I actually write code (OO is different).

If it is behavioral, dont worry about it. Just be yourself and I am sure you will do fine.

[Kerplunk]

I've been to a few interviews that involve a quiz and the questions are usually easy to do; they try to test basic knowledge to make sure your not faking it.

Types of questions I've seen and remember (and have asked):
- Simple logic (problem, give solution)
- Simple program (linked list, make chessboard), either psuedo code/language of choice
- Syntax in language (usually common syntax)
- Correcting logic (debug code/solution)

For the most part the tests are small (45 minutes type thing), and if you know your stuff its not a problem. I've had one exception (3 hour quiz + 3 hour interview), but it doesn't sound like it's the case here.

If it's a behavior profiling test, theres nothing you can really do. Just go in and be yourself.

[HelloHockeyFans]

Are you certain the quiz is going to be on programming?

Take a look through the job description and the key responsibilities... there might be some information there for you on what you should study.

[kn]

Thanks for the tips. I'm not certain at all that the quiz is on programming. I just want to review some stuff in case it is. They want me to bring code I've produced so the quiz might be behavioural.

Thanks again.

[maverickeastwood]

If you know your stuff and tell good truth, everythings cool

[Phanuthier]

When I had an interview with Microsoft a couple weeks ago - after some technical questions, they asked a couple "IQ" questions:

If you were designing a kitchen for a customer, and you could ask 9 questions, what would you ask?

Microsoft has a pretty tough hiring process