Technical interview questions often consist of brainteasers, riddles and such, designed
to measure your analytic and problem-solving skills. Common technical interview
questions are along the lines of "How would you improve this pen?" and "Why are
manhole covers round?"
Simply put, manhole covers are round to prevent them from accidentally falling through
the holes. (Square and rectangular covers could fall through diagonally.) To further
impress the technical interviewer, you might add that round covers are easier to
move away from the holes, because they roll. You might also add that a cylinder
is the strongest shape against the compression of the earth, so a manhole cover
is round to fit the cylinder beneath it.
But many technical interview questions don't have "correct" answers.
For example, unless it's obviously broken, there is no single correct answer for
"How would you improve this pen?" For these types of technical interview questions,
interviewers are not interested in the correctness of your answers. Rather they
are interested in the way you logically arrive at your answers and share your thought
process along the way. They are also likely to be interested in your ability to
"think outside the box".
Sharing your thought process with your interviewer demonstrates your communication
and analytical abilities. It also helps to engage you and the interviewer in a dialogue,
from which you might pick up clues that steer you in the direction the interviewer
would like you to go. For example, if an interviewer asks which of the U.S. states
you'd remove, a good first response might be, "What do you mean by remove?"
Because there are an infinite number of technical interview questions that interviewers
can throw at you and many consist of hypothetical scenarios with no single correct
answers to boot, there are few "canned answers" you may memorize in advance. For
the hypothetical, you must have the ability to quickly manufacture answers in your
head. That's precisely what technical interviews are all about.
But you can at least hone your analytic and problem-solving skills in preparation
to answer technical interview questions, by practicing answers to the brainteasers,
riddles and such floating around the Web. Many were submitted by interviewees
after actual technical interviews. Some even include complex technical interview
questions from top-notch companies that love to challenge interviewees, such as
Microsoft.
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