@MaskedMan Your answer here has gotten a number of noise comments focusing on a (perhaps imperfect) analogy instead of requesting real clarification. I was about to delete them but wanted to check with you first if you think they add value or not.

I think it's sufficient to edit part of your comment into your answer and then clean up the comments? (Haven't read through it all in detail)

@Lilienthal Uhm, I am undecided if they add value. They comment on a hastily made-up analogy, which is anyway an add-on, and not the main answer. I will just remove the analogy from the answer, feel free to delete all the comments. I will clean up my comments to save you some trouble. :)

Right then, I have removed the analogy and deleted my comments.

Cheers.

hi guys

hi

hi guys, a very quick question

I'll have a interview soon, a face to face one, and I have the job description of such interview, but I haven't been given much information about the steps.

for example, last time was told I would have had a telephone interview. But it wasn't specify it would have been a technical one or not

at last it was a technical one, and so far I did well

So I have to do the last face 2 face interview

but again, I haven't been given much information about it

So I was wondering whether or not I can ask them for giving me some more details about this final step

what kind of question should I expect etc

Are you going through a recruiter or the company's HR?

I've applied to the company web site

I've applied *through the company website

In that case, probably not. You're going to want to be "the one who's ready for anything". In my experience, the last f2f interview is to get the sign-off from someone higher up than the person you'd be working for

Have you had a f2f already?

not yet

Ok, well it could be anything then. Usually there's stuff like whiteboarding and I've had cases where they give you a computer and a problem to fix. Did they tell you how long the interview should be?

No, I haven't been told anything

you can also likely ask what the format of the interview will be

I'm not sure how long it should be, the telephonic interview was quite long

At the minimum, you can ask how long to expect for the interview. You're busy, you have other things to schedule your day around. :) Length often tells a lot.

Yeah, it's also a natural way to ask about it, "Hi, can you let me know what I should expect for the interview format and length so I can plan accordingly?"

ok

thx guys

Honestly, I wouldn't sweat it. They're going to check your personality and have you meet a few people for certain. Where I've had long phone interviews, they tend not to do extensive technical stuff on the face to face except to verify that you're the one on the phone. :)

Unless it's a huge company, then all bets are off. They tend to do things however they want and often weirdly too.

For instance, Norfolk Southern is known for having a hiring process that takes months, They get away with it because of the size and they're supposedly a good place to work.

It's a quite large company

it's not a small one

I'm trying to review everything they asked in the telephone interview

If I were to guess then, I'd say it'll probably be a mix of technical and interpersonal. But there's really no telling. I've had interviews last for 2-3 hours because they just passed me from one group to the next.

And who knows, this could also be just the first face to face. They may have another.

I would try to think what you may ahve been weakest on the phone screen and brush up on that, but above all try to exude confidence when you get there. They liked you enough to bring you in so they obviously want to get to know you better.

And remember, you're also interviewing them. It's a two-way street. Even if you really need a job, you need to approach it somewhat like a relationship. They have to be good for you too, not just you being good for them.

out of curiosity

it happened to me in past interviews

face to face interviews

they asked me

just

I've found that 2 things make the most difference, when technical ability is no longer a question. Confidence in your abilities and passion for the the work.

"do you have any question?"

I've never understood what am I supposed to answer

bring a list of questions

You've got to have questions, yeah. That's a definite.

I've printed off lists of questions before

I don't trust myself to think of them in an interview, so I bring a list ahead of time

ok but I mean what kind of questions am I supposed to ask

I mean I usually go through the website etc

One I always ask is "what kind of turnover is there?" It can make them uncomfortable if there is, which isn't a bad thing.

I already know what I want to know about the company

ah

so asking about the turnover is ok?

google "interview do you have any questions)" (without the quotes) and there are a lot of exambles

Asking about anything is ok as long as it's not inappropriate. Remember, you're interviewing them them.

but more than the question itself I wonder what they're up to

when they ask that

They're giving you an opportunity to participate, nothing more complex than that.

@user8469759 interviews are for both the candidate and the employer, it's bad for either if the wrong person gets hired

as an interviewer, I want any candidate I interview to be fully confident of what working for us would be like if they get an offer - allowing them plenty of time to ask questions is important to that

I've asked about the hardware that developers use, I've asked "I understand that sometimes a team has to work over, can you tell me about the last time the whole team had to do that?"

I like, "how do you prioritize work?" because it is revealing

I've asked "What do you like most about working here?" and if I'm in the mood, "what would you say is the most challenging part about working here?"

@enderland that's a good one.

But if you're asking about a negative, use neutral terms (like I did with "challenging").

workplace.stackexchange.com/q/4259/2322 and workplace.stackexchange.com/a/12391/2322 are good references too

But I can't stress enough to try to show passion for your work, assuming you have it. If you love what you do, let them see that. It's ok to get a little excited when describing something you've done that you're proud of.

Eye contact, without staring. (don't be creepy in other words). Lean forward and hang on every word.

Is such a question

supposed to be asked

And believe it or not, smile. I have to force myself to do that one. literally force it. I've got "resting jerk face" where if I don't look at least amused, I look pissed off.

from either the hiring manager

or

the technical

sorry

sorry for what?

Let me make the question again, is such a question supposed to be asked from either the Hiring manager or the HR employee?

the "do you have any questions?" question? Either.

Or both

I'm asking this because my guess would be asking different things to different person

I'm not sure for example that talking about specific achievements to HR would make much sense

I'll often ask them something semi-personal (but job related) like "What brought you here?" or "How long have you been with the company?"

No, but there are generics that you can ask anyone like "what do you like most about working here?" That gives them a chance to brag on their company a bit. and same with the ones I just mentioned "how long" etc.

And the most open ended generic question of all. "How would you describe the company culture?" can be asked of anyone.

All the interviews I've had asked me to talk in english too

One company even went all out and had the whole interview in english, since I wrote "Advanced written and spoken english skills" on my CV

@Magisch I'm not sure what that means... unless you're applying in a country where speaking english inside the company is not a requirement

In germany

What I mean is if you claim a skill in your CV, expect to be asked to present it

Sure, I'm with you now

So avoid including buzzword technologies or skills on your CV if you can't demonstrate them if necessary

how about the technical stuff instead

do you have any suggestions?

I've been asked many many algorithms in the telephone interview

with many tricky parts as well

How'd you do?

They told me "they think it went very well"

There was one specific "silly question" I haven't answered well

like a puzzle basically

I personally wouldn't ask for algos in the phone screen beyond "How does quicksort / bubblesort / heapsort work?" and "What is the best/worst case complexity of $ridiculouslypopularalgo"

awesome! I suuuuuuck at those kinds of things. My recall isn't great and I'm not very encyclopedic. Yet I'm very skilled so technical interviews can go either way depending how they approach it with me.

I personally only remember for things that I dont use/implement often where I can find it

not the thing itself

@Magisch I graduated from the school of hard knocks so I'd bomb on both of those

I wouldn't know how exactly to implement a djikstra on top of my head

I don't even know what that is.

well... they haven't asked me how to implement these algorithms

Also I wouldn't expect they ask me to implement many of the algorithms they asked me

What was the silly question?

@ChristopherEstep that's actually my main weakness in software dev, the more "computer sciency" things

But I wouldn't expect they ask me for formal proofs as well

@ChristopherEstep It's an algo to find the shortest path between nodes in a graph: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra's_algorithm

@enderland exactly what I'm talking about.

It's so silly that I'm ashamed of telling it xD. But basically it was a kind of those puzzle questions that I'm not particularly ever good at

like I said, I only know what its named and what it does, a CS graduate could probably implement it for you on paper in java or python

The sad part is I'm still better at many of those than most of the students we have interviewed for internships/graduation who are in CS/Computer Engineering programs >.>

I worked out the answer later

you didn't make it up, so don't be ashamed.

@user8469759 one of the things I always tell people I interview is it's their thought process I want to see, not necessarily the "right" answer -- I know an interview is stressful

I don't think people who remember exactly how to implement every popular algo from CS101 are particularly good either

Another piece of advice: If you don't know, tell them. Far better to admit what you don't know than to get caught trying to bullcrap your way through.

also what country are you in @user8469759?

I mean, sure, but that knowledge is next to useless unless you have to re-implement them yourself, and even then you can look online about how they work.

UK (But I'm not british)

Ah, ok. Wanted to make sure all our perspectives were still relevant and if you're in the UK they are probably pretty relevant still

I think bubble sort was the O(n²) one and quicksort the O(n log n) one

But I'm not very sure anymore. It's been too long since I've had these in front of me

I still wanna know the silly question. :)

I'll tell you after I get discarded or I get the job xD

hah

I was both right and wrong

Quicksort has a worst-case complexity of O(n²) and an average complexity of O(n log n)

Depending on how badly I want the job, I'll ask a silly question right back. I loathe them and don't appreciate being put under pressure to see how I'll react.

If you want to put me under pressure, pay me.

@ChristopherEstep what do you mean?

@ChristopherEstep Imagine you come to an interview with a german company and barely speak english, and they make you do the whole interview in english

Some of the people that were interviewed with me were in that boat

@user8469759 I was going to type it all out but I remembered, I answered this recently....

@Magisch yeah, that would be a sweaty moment I'll bet.

@Magisch that's why you should ask:

what kind of answer I can expect from "what's the interview format?"

Hopefully, the interview format. :) How long, who it's with, that sort of thing. And the format. There are many different ways they can be conducted.

I've had group interviews (1 candidate, 3 interviewers), 1 on 1, and "meet and greet" style interviews.

If there are multiple candidates in the same interview though, that's almost always a bad sign.

I don't like group interviews

Where there's X candidates and X interviewers

these are always so competitive and I hate making other people look stupid

what's the "meet and greet" style?

or being made look stupid, for that matter

@user8469759 they won't call it that, but it's where you "meet the team" possibly some internal clients (people who'll affect the work you do) and your prospective boss and possibly his boss. That sort of thing. Mostly a personality compatibility interview.

@ChristopherEstep german central bank does that

you're put in a group of 4 or 5 and among other things made to participate in a team task

@Magisch X to X group interviews are deal breakers for me I'll walk out right then and there.

And then there's a sheet where they rate your team play abilities

for what it's worth that was 1 interview out of a 2 day long asessment center marathon

complete with at least 7 tests

I work great with teams, but I have to know my team and not be in competition with them. they learn very little from those.

I just didn't act like I was in competition then

didn't help that they all wore suits and I walked up in a hoodie

the interview specs said come in casual clothes so I didn't think a suit and tie were necessary

I probably wouldn't do a 2 day long marathon either unless i was convinced it was a really great place to work. But that alone would probably convince me otherwise

In which case, I'd only do it if I were desperate.

When something says "casual" I wear a button down shirt and bring a tie that I haven't put on yet.

I took casual very literally

aka jeans and hoodie

like i'd come to work in a casual office

what ended up happening there?

I got the job

No clue why they have some real arcane mandated criteria

It happened to me

But It also happened to me

that I was doing a face to face interview, and I wasn't wearing a suite

and both the interviewer

IMO, "Casual" is always a relative term, not an absolute one. It's "casual" relative to industry norms, but those vary quite a lot in the first place.

and the employes

were in short pants and slippers...

and I didn't get the job

and among the NON MAIN REASONS

there was the non formal dressing

that was odd

one of them actually was barefoot

@Kaz Which is why I go for the button-down shirt. It can pass for casual but rarely looks like being overdressed.

@user8469759 did they specify casual?

@ChristopherEstep Yeah. I work in a "Casual-Ish" Finance Office. It means I can wear jeans & shirt rather than a suit, but that's the limit.

Business casual. In other words, no t-shirts.

They didn't say anything, I assumed as long as I'm dressing decently (I don't have any tattoos neither I was wearing short sleeves t shirt or stuff like that)

I was wearing a jumper because it was cold xD

@ChristopherEstep Pretty much. I also get to wear my boots rather than shoes, which is quite nice.

but anyway since then I changed to classic shirts

but again that wasn't the main reason

@user8469759 That was dumb of them. I always wear a jacket and tie unless they specifically tell me don't. If they say "wow, you're way overdressed for what we wear here" I simply say "nobody specified casual so I consider it a sign of how seriously I'm taking this position. I can take off a jacket and tie, but I can't undo jeans and a polo."

and I've had that said twice.

I understand

but I don't actually think that the code dressing should actually matter (as long as it is decent)

and it should depend from the position you're applying for

If I had to speak to external customers as a job

I would speak differently

@user8469759 Whether you or I think it matters is irrelevant. It's whether the person interviewing does. That's why I err on the side of formality.

You only get one chance to make a first impression and until I know what they think of casual dress, I'm not going to guess.

@ChristopherEstep fair point

anyway surfing the web

I've seen that usually

for this specific company

the last step is a "techinical interview + potentially test involved"

any rough guess of that could mean?

That's weird that the last step is a technical interview, especially given how lengthy the phone interview was.

well maybe it's not that strange

In my current company

I had like half an hour of telephonic interview

but I'd say it was quite generic

and then a final f2f interview

of like 3 hours or so

this one was longer

If true, they'll probably sit you down and have you complete a task for them, or debug for them. I've had both. I hate that crap because it's like a "gotcha" question. They're looking for something specific and if you don't do it that way, it can be held against you.

how long was the phone interview where you're looking?

I think it was slightly more than one hour

but I'm not entirely sure

maybe one and an half

it was long anyway, but not extremely long because I had to head at work

but it was quite... exhaustive

There's a possibility they'll count that as their technical interview. If it were me, I'd expect a "does he fit" type of interview as the face to face with some light technical stuff. Could be wrong, but that's been my experience with long phone screens.

Probably I'm overthinking this stuff

I just have to get there and see what happens

they told they'll get in touch as soon as they finish with the other candidates for this stage

I would also inquire as to how many "stages" there actually are.

I think the next one is going to be the last one

Good luck

XD thanks!

@Kaz In my case I was definitely underdressed

Casual in a place where literally everyone but the cleaning staff walks around in suits and ties is probably not a hoodie and a jeans

my reading comprehension is really sucking today.

@ChristopherEstep Don't know how you take linguistic feedback, but "is really sucking" sounds, not-quite-right. It should be "really sucks today".

I'd rather be corrected than wrong, so it's all good. Yeah, "really sucking" seems more visceral but my thinking was that it's ongoing and not likely to stop sucking. :)