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Comment by pengaru | Hacker News Reader

Usually such a question is used not to fail you for not having the specific answer, but to observe your ability to reason about it and collaborate with the interviewer on pursuing the desired answer. What questions you ask, what resources you consult, experiments you perform, creativity you demonstrate, openness to alternatives, etc.

If you just fixate on your specific first solution and choose to dig in and argue over it despite your interviewer not liking it, it's not a good sign you're someone pleasant or frictionless to collaborate with.

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> Usually such a question is used not to fail you for not having the specific answer, but to observe your ability to reason about it and collaborate with the interviewer on pursuing the desired answer. What questions you ask, what resources you consult, experiments you perform, creativity you demonstrate, openness to alternatives, etc.

Trivia questions like that are absolutely awful for demonstrating any of what you're talking about. There isn't any creativity involved. And it's not like the guy followed up with something like "where would you go to determine the answer?"

There were 6 or 7 other interviews I went through that had interesting, open-ended questions that allowed me to bounce ideas off the interviewer and share my thought process. This particular interview was not one of them.

You're right, just like you were in the failed interview.

"not a good sign you're someone pleasant or frictionless to collaborate with"

That sreet must run both ways or it's an invalid charge. If you're reasoning is valid and the interviewer doesn't provide better arguments, then it's the interviewer who is not pleasant or frictionless to work with.

The mantra of every unreasonable person.

I hear a mantra myself.

Shit that was easy. Turns out anyone can say that.

It's almost like "I know you are but what am I?" doesn't mean, prove, or disprove anything, except to identify people who say things like that.

the interviewer already has the job

Uninteresting.

Eh, maybe, but I’m guessing not in this case. Poor interviewers abound.

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