Can you use pen and paper during coding interview?

A pen and paper is just a bad idea. If you have a whiteboard and you don’t have unusual physical challenge in using it, then use it. Your standard physical discomfort with writing on a vertical surface does not overcome our difficulty in collaborating with each other.

Why do companies whiteboard?

Whiteboard interviews provide an interviewer a defensible reason for passing on a candidate that their gut tells them they don’t like. Instead of attributing a no-hire decision to a poor “culture fit”, the interviewer can tell themselves and their superiors that “she just didn’t know how to invert a binary tree.”

Can you use Internet during coding interview?

Yes, coders should be allowed to use internet during coding interviews. The majority of coding interview questions will not be the cookie-cutter “Reverse a linked list” type questions.

What are whiteboard coding interviews?

A whiteboard interview is a technical problem-solving assessment that takes place in real time and typically involves a candidate writing code and sometimes diagrams on a whiteboard while onsite. * A similar kind of interview can be done in person with pen and paper.

Are whiteboard interviews useful?

In terms of assessing developer candidates’ hard skills, in person whiteboard interviews just aren’t cutting it. They can be useful for conducting a brainstorming or idea-hashing session but not for writing actual code.

Is it okay to Google during coding interview?

Your ability to Google the answer is irrelevant. This is what a good interviewer should do because whiteboard coding is about brain power not Google power. If you have a bad interviewer, well, all bets are off.

What is the purpose of coding interview?

A coding interview, programming interview or Microsoft interview is a technical problem-based job interview technique to assess potential employees.

Why do interviewers use whiteboard coding problems?

Interviewers use whiteboard coding problems to evaluate how a quickly, clearly, and concisely candidates articulate their designs. Common factors in a unsatisfactory interview performance are writing messy code, running out of space, and forgetting essential parts of the question.

Do whiteboard interviews really test competence?

Supporters of the whiteboard interview will argue that it tests one’s ability to solve problems under pressure, or that it tests fundamental competence. Whiteboard interviews provide an interviewer a defensible reason for passing on a candidate that their gut tells them they don’t like.

Why do whiteboard interviews filter out great engineers?

We were concerned that [the whiteboard interview] process filtered out many other great engineers for reasons other than their abilities. Some possible reasons include variation between interviewers, candidate nervousness, or the unnaturalness of whiteboard coding generally.

How to write code without a whiteboard?

Writing code by hand can be tricky even without doing it on a whiteboard. A candidate can improve their legibility by writing slowly. Legible writing also allows the candidate to write with smaller font, which saves valuable space. 4. Use double-spaced lines. Adding space to make small changes can save time and avoid messy code.