HR http://www.certmag.com/articles/templates/cmag_career_tc.asp?articleid=1178&zoneid=26
http://www.developercareers.com/candidates/careerguide_interviews/page07.asp http://www.iselong.com/English/0008/8686.htm http://www.cvtips.com/career_advice_forum/tough-interviewing-questions-vt210.html http://www.redgoldfish.co.uk/cvinfo/toughquestions.asp C/C++ http://www.techinterviews.com/?p=96 http://www.onesmartclick.com/interviews/interviews-programming.html http://www.scheib.net/work/questions/ http://www.acetheinterview.com/cgi-bin/qanda.cgi?action=topics&number=5 ============================ ackling Tough Interview Questions May 2005 - Katherine Spencer Lee Email This Article To A Friend - Print This Article Every IT professional preparing for a job interview dreams of questions that are predictable and relatively easy to answer. However, most employers are likely to throw a few curveballsthe challenging questions that send a job seekers pulse racing. Interviewers take this approach to test your ability to think quickly and creatively, as well as to get a better sense of your personality and professional motivations. The key to making the right impression is careful preparation. By practicing your responses, you can keep nervousness in check and convey professionalism and confidence. Here are several sample questions and strategies for answering them: * Why should I hire you? Try to think of this question as a request for an overview of your strengths. Focus your response on the qualities you know the employer seeks in candidates. For example, Your companys ad mentioned you were looking for a network administrator with strong Windows XP and 2000 skills. I am a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and have extensive hands-on experience with these applications. I also share your firms commitment to quality service and recently received an award for my work during a major systems upgrade at my current employer. * What is your greatest weakness? The best response is one thats honest, but brief. You dont want to knock yourself out of the running by detailing shortcomings that could affect your ability to perform the job. Try to focus on minor issuessuch as the fact that public speaking is not your forteand if you can, mention ways youre working to overcome them. * Tell me about your worst boss. This isnt an invitation to go on and on about your previous managers bad habits. Instead, address one negative point and try to highlight something you gained from the relationship to balance it out. For instance, you might mention that a supervisor wasnt a great motivator because she seemed to have lost enthusiasm for the IT field and talked regularly about starting an unrelated business. However, you learned from the experience the value of maintaining your own professional drive by finding a mentor and staying active in technology associations. * What are your salary expectations? Before the interview, try to find out the salary range for the position. If the hiring manager wont share the information, cite a range that is in line with your marketability and the value of your skills and experience in todays market. Read association statistics, salary surveys and government reports to determine typical starting compensation in your specialty. That way you can respond confidently, knowing your answer is based on current research. * You are lacking skills/experience. Why should I still consider you? Since the interviewer is expressing reservations about your qualifications, you need to make a persuasive case for remaining a contender. Mention how youve overcome skill deficiencies in the past and reiterate your strongest assets. For example, While I have only one year of experience with UNIX, I am confident I could enhance my expertise very quickly. When I first joined my last employer, I wasnt familiar with a proprietary software program they used, but after some online training and additional time studying on my own, colleagues began turning to me for advice with the program! Given my ability to master new technology, my strong project management skills and my extensive knowledge of systems security, I believe I could make a positive impact at your firm. * What did you like least about your previous job? Employers will be paying particular attention to your response to this question, taking note of whether you have issues with certain management policies, business practices, responsibilities or work styles. The wisest move is to address aspects of your previous job that are different from the position for which youre interviewing. Maybe you disliked being the sole technical support professional at a small firm because there were no advancement opportunities, and you now want to be part of larger organization that will allow you to continue learning and assume greater responsibilities. While you cant predict what will come up, preparing for challenging subject matter will build your confidence and enable you to provide more compelling responses. Practice your answers to tough questions while remembering that the hiring managers goal is simply to make sure you can do the jobnot to give you a hard time. Also, keep in mind that you may not be able to anticipate every query. Our company recently surveyed executives, asking them to describe the strangest questions they had been asked during job interviews. The responses ranged from, What would I find in your refrigerator? to If you could be any animal, what would you be? In situations like these, where queries are too quirky, a better question to consider might be: Do I really want this job? ====================================================== Here are good answers to some of the tougher questions asked in job interviews. If you can smoothly supply answers like these during the interview, you are bound to make a good impression. 　　1. What is important to you in a job? 　　Mention specific rewards other than a paycheck for example, challenge, t he feeling of accomplishment, and knowing that you have made a contribution. 　　2. Why do you want to work for this organization? 　　Cite its reputation, the opportunities it offers, and the working condit ions. Stress that you want to work for this organization, not just any organ ization. 　　3. Why should we employ you? 　　Point to your academic preparation, job skills, and enthusiasm about working for the firm. Mention your performance in school or previous employment as evidence of your ability to learn and to become productive quickly. If the job involves management responsibilities, refer to past activities as proof of your ability to get along with others and to work as part of a team. 　　4. If we hire you, how long will you stay with us? 　　Answer by saying along these lines: "As long as my position here allows me to learn and to advance at a pace with my abilities." 　　5. Can we offer you a career path? 　　Reply: "I believe you could, once I know the normal progression within the organization. Can you tell me about it?" The answer may be revealing. 　　6. What are your greatest strengths? 　　Give a response like one of the following: "I can see what needs to be done and do it", "I'm wiling to make decisions", "I work well with others," " I can organize my time efficiently." 　　7. What are you greatest weakness? 　　Identify one or two, such as the following:" I tend to drive myself too hard", " I expect others to perform beyond their capacities", " I like to se e a job done quickly, and I'm critical if it isn't." Note these weaknesses c ould also be regarded as desirable qualities. The trick with this question i s to describe a weakness so that it could also be considered a virtue. 　　8. What didn't you like about previous jobs you've held? 　　Discuss the things you didn't like, but avoid making slighting reference to any of your former employers. 9. How do you spend your leisure time? 　　Mention a cross section of interests-active and quiet, social and solitary -- rather just one. 　　10. Are there any weaknesses in your education or experience? 　　Take stock of your weaknesses before the interview. Practice discussing them in a positive light. You'll find that they are minor when discussed along with all the positive things you have to offer. 　　11. Where do you want to be five years from now? 　　Saying that you'd like to be president is unrealistic, yet few employers want people who are content to sit still. You might say, "in five years, I'd like to have my boss's job. " If you can't qualify for your boss's job by then, you may not be the fright candidate. 　　12. What are your salary expectations? 　　If you are asked this at the outset, it's best to say, "Why don't we discuss salary after you decide whether I'm right for the job? "But if the interviewer asks this after showing real interest in you, speak up. She or he will probably try to meet your price. If you need a clue about what to ask for, say, " Can you discuss your salary range with me?" 　　13. What would you do if....? 　　This question is designed to test your reposes. For example: "What would you do if your computer broke down during an audit?" Your answer there isn't nearly so important as your approach to the problem. And a calm approach is best. Start by saying, "One thing I might do is ..." Then give several alternative choices. 　　14. What type of position are you interested in? 　　Job titles and responsibilities vary from firm to firm . So state your skills instead, such as "I'm good at figure work," and the positions that req 　15. Tell me something about yourself. 　　Say you'll be happy to talk about yourself, and ask what the interviewer wants to know. If this point is clarified, respond. If not, tell why you feel your skills will contribute to the job and the organization. This question gives you a great opportunity to sell yourself. 　　16. Do you have any questions about the organization or the job? Employers like a candidate who is interested in the organization. so this is a perfect time to convey your interest and enthusiasm. ====================================================== C interview questions A frequent reader of this site sent this in. No answers, but a nice set of questions. Consider getting Kernighan and Ritchie title if you find many things puzzling here. 1. What does static variable mean? 2. What is a pointer? 3. What is a structure? 4. What are the differences between structures and arrays? 5. In header files whether functions are declared or defined? 6. What are the differences between malloc() and calloc()? 7. What are macros? What are the advantages and disadvantages? 8. Difference between pass by reference and pass by value? 9. What is static identifier? 10. Where are the auto variables stored? 11. Where does global, static, local, register variables, free memory and C Program instructions get stored? 12. Difference between arrays and linked list? 13. What are enumerations? 14. Describe about storage allocation and scope of global, extern, static, local and register variables? 15. What are register variables? What are the advantage of using register variables? 16. What is the use of typedef? 17. Can we specify variable field width in a scanf() format string? If possible how? 18. Out of fgets() and gets() which function is safe to use and why? 19. Difference between strdup and strcpy? 20. What is recursion? 21. Differentiate between a for loop and a while loop? What are it uses? 22. What are the different storage classes in C? 23. Write down the equivalent pointer expression for referring the same element a[i][j][k][l]? 24. What is difference between Structure and Unions? 25. What the advantages of using Unions? 26. What are the advantages of using pointers in a program? 27. What is the difference between Strings and Arrays? 28. In a header file whether functions are declared or defined? 29. What is a far pointer? where we use it? 30. How will you declare an array of three function pointers where each function receives two ints and returns a float? 31. What is a NULL Pointer? Whether it is same as an uninitialized pointer? 32. What is a NULL Macro? What is the difference between a NULL Pointer and a NULL Macro? 33. What does the error Null Pointer Assignment mean and what causes this error? 34. What is near, far and huge pointers? How many bytes are occupied by them? 35. How would you obtain segment and offset addresses from a far address of a memory location? 36. Are the expressions arr and *arr same for an array of integers? 37. Does mentioning the array name gives the base address in all the contexts? 38. Explain one method to process an entire string as one unit? 39. What is the similarity between a Structure, Union and enumeration? 40. Can a Structure contain a Pointer to itself? 41. How can we check whether the contents of two structure variables are same or not? 42. How are Structure passing and returning implemented by the complier? 43. How can we read/write Structures from/to data files? 44. What is the difference between an enumeration and a set of pre-processor # defines? 45. What do the c and v in argc and argv stand for? 46. Are the variables argc and argv are local to main? 47. What is the maximum combined length of command line arguments including the space between adjacent arguments? 48. If we want that any wildcard characters in the command line arguments should be appropriately expanded, are we required to make any special provision? If yes, which? 49. Does there exist any way to make the command line arguments available to other functions without passing them as arguments to the function? 50. What are bit fields? What is the use of bit fields in a Structure declaration? 51. To which numbering system can the binary number 1101100100111100 be easily converted to? 52. Which bit wise operator is suitable for checking whether a particular bit is on or off? 53. Which bit wise operator is suitable for turning off a particular bit in a number? 54. Which bit wise operator is suitable for putting on a particular bit in a number? 55. Which bit wise operator is suitable for checking whether a particular bit is on or off? 56. Which one is equivalent to multiplying by 2? * Left shifting a number by 1 * Left shifting an unsigned int or char by 1? 57. Write a program to compare two strings without using the strcmp() function. 58. Write a program to concatenate two strings. 59. Write a program to interchange 2 variables without using the third one. 60. Write programs for String Reversal. The same for Palindrome check. 61. Write a program to find the Factorial of a number. 62. Write a program to generate the Fibonacci Series? 63. Write a program which employs Recursion? 64. Write a program which uses command line arguments. 65. Write a program which uses functions like strcmp(), strcpy(), etc. 66. What are the advantages of using typedef in a program? 67. How would you dynamically allocate a one-dimensional and two-dimensional array of integers? 68. How can you increase the size of a dynamically allocated array? 69. How can you increase the size of a statically allocated array? 70. When reallocating memory if any other pointers point into the same piece of memory do you have to readjust these other pointers or do they get readjusted automatically? 71. Which function should be used to free the memory allocated by calloc()? 72. How much maximum can you allocate in a single call to malloc()? 73. Can you dynamically allocate arrays in expanded memory? 74. What is object file? How can you access object file? 75. Which header file should you include if you are to develop a function which can accept variable number of arguments? 76. Can you write a function similar to printf()? 77. How can a called function determine the number of arguments that have been passed to it? 78. Can there be at least some solution to determine the number of arguments passed to a variable argument list function? 79. How do you declare the following: * An array of three pointers to chars * An array of three char pointers * A pointer to array of three chars * A pointer to function which receives an int pointer and returns a float pointer * A pointer to a function which receives nothing and returns nothing 80. What do the functions atoi(), itoa() and gcvt() do? 81. Does there exist any other function which can be used to convert an integer or a float to a string? 82. How would you use qsort() function to sort an array of structures? 83. How would you use qsort() function to sort the name stored in an array of pointers to string? 84. How would you use bsearch() function to search a name stored in array of pointers to string? 85. How would you use the functions sin(), pow(), sqrt()? 86. How would you use the functions memcpy(), memset(), memmove()? 87. How would you use the functions fseek(), freed(), fwrite() and ftell()? 88. How would you obtain the current time and difference between two times? 89. How would you use the functions randomize() and random()? 90. How would you implement a substr() function that extracts a sub string from a given string? 91. What is the difference between the functions rand(), random(), srand() and randomize()? 92. What is the difference between the functions memmove() and memcpy()? 93. How do you print a string on the printer? 94. Can you use the function fprintf() to display the output on the screen? 95. Gautam Pagedar adds this question: What is a linklist and why do we use it when we have arrays? - I feel the correct answer should be linklist is used in cases where you dont know the memory required to store a data structure and need to allocate is dynamically on demand. 96. How do you detect a loop in linked list? 97. Sunil asks: What is the difference between main() in C and main() in C++? 98. ajz at his interviews asks what will be printed out when the following code is executed: main() { printf("%x",-1<<4); } ====================================================== Technical Interview Questions For Computer Science Programmers The following is a list of questions which have been floating around some Internet circles. They are excellent prep questions for a technical interview. I haven't made any attempt to clean them up, spelling or organization wise. Don't bother asking me for the answers, 1) I don't have an answer key. 2) It'd do you good to think. 1. Given a rectangular (cuboidal for the puritans) cake with a rectangular piece removed (any size or orientation), how would you cut the remainder of the cake into two equal halves with one straight cut of a knife ? 2. You're given an array containing both positive and negative integers and required to find the subarray with the largest sum (O(N) a la KBL). Write a routine in C for the above. 3. Given an array of size N in which every number is between 1 and N, determine if there are any duplicates in it. You are allowed to destroy the array if you like. [ I ended up giving about 4 or 5 different solutions for this, each supposedly better than the others ]. 4. Write a routine to draw a circle (x ** 2 + y ** 2 = r ** 2) without making use of any floating point computations at all. [ This one had me stuck for quite some time and I first gave a solution that did have floating point computations ]. 5. Given only putchar (no sprintf, itoa, etc.) write a routine putlong that prints out an unsigned long in decimal. [ I gave the obvious solution of taking % 10 and / 10, which gives us the decimal value in reverse order. This requires an array since we need to print it out in the correct order. The interviewer wasn't too pleased and asked me to give a solution which didn't need the array ]. 6. Give a one-line C expression to test whether a number is a power of 2. [No loops allowed - it's a simple test.] 7. Given an array of characters which form a sentence of words, give an efficient algorithm to reverse the order of the words (not characters) in it. 8. How many points are there on the globe where by walking one mile south, one mile east and one mile north you reach the place where you started. 9. Give a very good method to count the number of ones in a 32 bit number. (caution: looping through testing each bit is not a solution). 10. What are the different ways to say, the value of x can be either a 0 or a 1. Apparently the if then else solution has a jump when written out in assembly. if (x == 0) y=0 else y =x There is a logical, arithmetic and a datastructure soln to the above problem. 11. Reverse a linked list. 12. Insert in a sorted list 13. In a X's and 0's game (i.e. TIC TAC TOE) if you write a program for this give a gast way to generate the moves by the computer. I mean this should be the fasteset way possible. The answer is that you need to store all possible configurations of the board and the move that is associated with that. Then it boils down to just accessing the right element and getting the corresponding move for it. Do some analysis and do some more optimization in storage since otherwise it becomes infeasible to get the required storage in a DOS machine. 14. I was given two lines of assembly code which found the absolute value of a number stored in two's complement form. I had to recognize what the code was doing. Pretty simple if you know some assembly and some fundaes on number representation. 15. Give a fast way to multiply a number by 7. 16. How would go about finding out where to find a book in a library. (You don't know how exactly the books are organized beforehand). 17. Linked list manipulation. 18. Tradeoff between time spent in testing a product and getting into the market first. 19. What to test for given that there isn't enough time to test everything you want to. 20. First some definitions for this problem: a) An ASCII character is one byte long and the most significant bit in the byte is always '0'. b) A Kanji character is two bytes long. The only characteristic of a Kanji character is that in its first byte the most significant bit is '1'. Now you are given an array of a characters (both ASCII and Kanji) and, an index into the array. The index points to the start of some character. Now you need to write a function to do a backspace (i.e. delete the character before the given index). 21. Delete an element from a doubly linked list. 22. Write a function to find the depth of a binary tree. 23. Given two strings S1 and S2. Delete from S2 all those characters which occur in S1 also and finally create a clean S2 with the relevant characters deleted. 24. Assuming that locks are the only reason due to which deadlocks can occur in a system. What would be a foolproof method of avoiding deadlocks in the system. 25. Reverse a linked list. 26. Write a small lexical analyzer - interviewer gave tokens. expressions like "a*b" etc. 27. Besides communication cost, what is the other source of inefficiency in RPC? (answer : context switches, excessive buffer copying). How can you optimise the communication? (ans : communicate through shared memory on same machine, bypassing the kernel _ A Univ. of Wash. thesis) 28. Write a routine that prints out a 2-D array in spiral order! 29. How is the readers-writers problem solved? - using semaphores/ada .. etc. 30. Ways of optimizing symbol table storage in compilers. 31. A walk-through through the symbol table functions, lookup() implementation etc - The interv. was on the Microsoft C team. 32. A version of the "There are three persons X Y Z, one of which always lies".. etc.. 33. There are 3 ants at 3 corners of a triangle, they randomly start moving towards another corner.. what is the probability that they don't collide. 34. Write an efficient algo and C code to shuffle a pack of cards.. this one was a feedback process until we came up with one with no extra storage. 35. The if (x == 0) y = 0 etc.. 36. Some more bitwise optimization at assembly level 37. Some general questions on Lex Yacc etc. 38. Given an array t[100] which contains numbers between 1..99. Return the duplicated value. Try both O(n) and O(n-square). 39. Given an array of characters. How would you reverse it. ? How would you reverse it without using indexing in the array. 40. GIven a sequence of characters. How will you convert the lower case characters to upper case characters. ( Try using bit vector - sol given in the C lib -> typec.h) 41. Fundas of RPC. 42. Given a linked list which is sorted. How will u insert in sorted way. 43. Given a linked list How will you reverse it. 44. Tell me the courses you liked and why did you like them. 45. Give an instance in your life in which u were faced with a problem and you tackled it successfully. 46. What is your ideal working environment. ( They usually to hear that u can work in group also.) 47. Why do u think u are smart. 48. Questions on the projects listed on the Resume. 49. Do you want to know any thing about the company.( Try to ask some relevant and interesting question). 50. How long do u want to stay in USA and why? 51. What are your geographical preference? 52. What are your expecctations from the job. 53. Give a good data structure for having n queues ( n not fixed) in a finite memory segment. You can have some data-structure separate for each queue. Try to use at least 90% of the memory space. 54. Do a breadth first traversal of a tree. 55. Write code for reversing a linked list. 56. Write, efficient code for extracting unique elements from a sorted list of array. e.g. (1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 9, 9, 9, 9) -> (1, 3, 5, 9). 57. C++ ( what is virtual function ? what happens if an error occurs in constructor or destructor. Discussion on error handling, templates, unique features of C++. What is different in C++, ( compare with unix). 58. Given a list of numbers ( fixed list) Now given any other list, how can you efficiently find out if there is any element in the second list that is an element of the first list (fixed list). 59. GIven 3 lines of assembly code : find it is doing. IT was to find absolute value. 60. If you are on a boat and you throw out a suitcase, Will the level of water increase. 61. Print an integer using only putchar. Try doing it without using extra storage. 62. write C code for deleting an element from a linked listy traversing a linked list efficient way of elimiating duplicates from an array 63. what are various problems unique to distributed databases 64. declare a void pointer a) void *ptr; 65. make the pointer aligned to a 4 byte boundary in a efficient manner a) assign the pointer to a long number and the number with 11...1100 add 4 to the number 66. what is a far pointer (in DOS) 67. what is a balanced tree 68. given a linked list with the following property node2 is left child of node1, if node2 < node1 els, it is the right child. O P | | O A | | O B | | O C How do you convert the above linked list to the form without disturbing the property. Write C code for that. O P | | O B / \ / \ / \ O ? O ? determine where do A and C go 69. Describe the file system layout in the UNIX OS a) describe boot block, super block, inodes and data layout 70. In UNIX, are the files allocated contiguous blocks of data a) no, they might be fragmented how is the fragmented data kept track of a) describe the direct blocks and indirect blocks in UNIX file system 71. Write an efficient C code for 'tr' program. 'tr' has two command line arguments. They both are strings of same length. tr reads an input file, replaces each character in the first string with the corresponding character in the second string. eg. 'tr abc xyz' replaces all 'a's by 'x's, 'b's by 'y's and so on. a) have an array of length 26. put 'x' in array element corr to 'a' put 'y' in array element corr to 'b' put 'z' in array element corr to 'c' put 'd' in array element corr to 'd' put 'e' in array element corr to 'e' and so on. the code while (!eof) { c = getc(); putc(array[c - 'a']); } 72. what is disk interleaving 73. why is disk interleaving adopted 74. given a new disk, how do you determine which interleaving is the best a) give 1000 read operations with each kind of interleaving determine the best interleaving from the statistics 75. draw the graph with performace on one axis and 'n' on another, where 'n' in the 'n' in n-way disk interleaving. (a tricky question, should be answered carefully) 76. I was a c++ code and was asked to find out the bug in that. The bug was that he declared an object locally in a function and tried to return the pointer to that object. Since the object is local to the function, it no more exists after returning from the function. The pointer, therefore, is invalid outside. 77. A real life problem - A square picture is cut into 16 sqaures and they are shuffled. Write a program to rearrange the 16 squares to get the original big square. ====================================================== ====================================================== B.Surendiran, If u have time Visit Website: http://suri.tk/ http://www.suri.0catch.com/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <font face=arial size=-1><a href="http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h594364/M=362329.6886308.7839368.1510227/D=groups/S=1705115386:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1123531176/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 ">Fair play? Video games influencing politics. 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