How to answer 101 interview questions PDF

Job Interview Question 1

Are you a leader or a follower?

This is an important interview question meant to measure your personality, and how your personality

will fit with this particular job.

To answer this question well, it’s important to think about what role you are interviewing for. If

you are interviewing for a leadership role and you say that you are a follower, you probably won’t

get that job. If you are interviewing for a role where you would be part of a team (not the leader)

and you say that you are always the leader, you won’t be a good fit for the team because you can’t

work collaboratively.

You might be tempted to knee-jerk reply to this one: “I’m a leader!” In our society, we tend to

revere the ideal of the decisive, powerful leader. However, the truth is that most jobs require you to

be a little of both. We are (as a society) moving more and more toward collaborative efforts with

more fluid lines of leadership. You might easily at various times be part of a team, reporting to a

higher-up, leading a team, or heading a project. That doesn’t mean that your best answer is always a

safe “I’m both.”Think about THIS particular job and what it requires to function and be successful.

Whatever your answer, be prepared to give them an example of how you have done that.

STAR Format

The STAR format is a great way to help you structure your answers to interview questions when

you need to give an example. It helps you include everything you need to in your answer:

Situation or Task

This is whatever was going on at the time. What were you faced with? What was going on? Set the

scene.

Action you took

What did YOU do to affect this situation?

Results

Always, always finish the story by telling them what happened as a result of your actions.

This is the most important part!

If you are a leader, tell them about a time when you exercised leadership, including the actions

you took and what the results were. This could be an example of

Spearheading a multi-piece project that would demonstrate your project management skills

How you motivated a group of people to achieve a goal

How you had to make a hard decision(telling what the circumstances were and what the results

were)

Just like in your resume, you want to quantify what you are describing wherever possible:

“I led a group of 12 people in a 6-department project where our job was to streamline processes

between departments to save time and money. We decided to (X, Y, and Z) and as a result, cut an

average of 2 weeks out of each process and saved each of the 6 departments an average of $100,000

a year.”

If you are a follower, help them see how you contributed to the team and benefited the

team.Employers need followers in many roles, but they like to see followers who can take initiative.

Talk about a successful project and what your role in that was—something you did that had a

significant impact on the outcome. If you can quantify that impact, that’s even better:

“My action resulted in a time savings for us, so we got it done 8 days faster.”

Or talk about your overall responsibilities and how your contributions ensured consistently

successful outcomes.

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World Number 1 Drawing techniques ebook PDF

Introduction

Drawing, just like writing or speech, is a form of communication, and in the same way as these other forms of communication drawing can be multi-faceted, and very diverse as a means of expression of our observations, thoughts and feelings. Across the broad field of art and design, artists and designers will use drawing as a specific tool for visual communication, and at the same time use a wide spectrum of drawing techniques to express, develop, and present their ideas and work to the viewer for what ever reason. Therefore, it is impossible to make a drawing unless the artist has a clear understanding of the type of drawing that is to be created, and the visual language that is to be used which will give form and expressive dynamics to the drawing. This is often forgotten or misunderstood by most teachers of drawing.

FIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH DRAWING

Usually our first encounter with drawing is to try to copy something from observation; this could take the form of a portrait, still life, or a landscape. When we’re children we draw our observations from memory, and when we become more life experienced, we tend to draw direct from observation. This is normally when we encounter our first problems with the art of drawing, as we have fixed in our minds that to be successful with this skill our rendition of what we see must be nothing less than perfect. Usually these students of drawing that have this particular approach, those who seem to be chasing a visual truth through drawing, end up frustrated and feel a sense of failure. We cannot reproduce reality, we can only make a mark or a statement that acts for that reality, or a mark or a statement that best suits our purpose to describe that reality, and this is known as a metaphor. Instead of chasing the idea of truth, what we should be doing is embracing the medium of drawing and using it for a purpose that fulfills our needs as an artist or designer. Let me now explain how we can break down our understanding and use drawing to facilitate our needs. As I have said before there are many reasons for us to want to draw, and there are many techniques and attitudes for us to adopt that will serve our purpose with the medium of our choice. What follows is a list of the reasons for us as

students or beginners to make drawings. When using this book you should first identify the reason why you wish or need to do the type of drawing you are going to do, and then turn to the appropriate chapter in the book. That will give you the technique for the medium, and the knowledge you need to make the drawing

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Cracking The Coding Interview 5th Edition PDF Ebook

About Book

Introduction

Something's Wrong

We walked out of the hiring meeting frustrated, again. Of the ten "passable"candidates we reviewed that day, none would receive offers. Were we being too harsh, we wondered? I, in particular, was disappointed. We had rejected one of my candidates. A former student. One who I had referred. He had a 3.73 GPA from the University of Washington, one of the best computer science schools in the world, and had done extensive work on open source projects. He was energetic. He was creative.He worked hard. He was sharp.
He was a true geek in all the best ways. But, I had to agree with the rest of the committee: the data wasn't there. Even if my emphatic recommendation would sway them to reconsider, he would surely get rejected in the later stages of the hiring process. There were just too many red flags. Though the interviewers generally believed that he was quite intelligent, he had struggled to solve the interview problems. Most successful candidates could fly through the first question, which was a twist on a well-known problem, but he had trouble developing an algorithm. When he came up with one, he failed to consider solutions that optimized for other scenarios. Finally,when he began coding, he flew through the code with an initial solution, but it was riddled with mistakes that he then failed to catch.
Though he wasn't the worst candidate we'd seen by any measure, he was far from meeting "the bar."Rejected.
When he asked for feedback over the phone a couple of weeks later, I struggled with what to tell him. Besmarter? No, I knew he was brilliant. Bea better coder? No, his skills were on-par with some of the best I'd seen. Like many motivated candidates, he had prepared extensively. He had read K&R's classic C book and he'd reviewed CLRS' famous algorithms textbook. He could describe in detail the myriad of ways of balancing a tree, and he could do things in That no sane programmer should ever want to do.
I had to tell him the unfortunate truth: those books aren't enough. Academic books prepare you for fancy research, but they're not going to help you much in an interview. Why? I'll give you a hint: your interviewers haven't seen Red-Black Trees since they were in school either.
To crack the coding interview, you need to prepare with real interview questions. You
must practice on real problems and learn their patterns.
Cracking the Coding Interview is the result of my first-hand experience interviewing at top companies. It is the result of hundreds of conversations with candidates. It is the result of the thousands of questions contributed by candidates and interviewers. And it's the result of seeing so many interview questions from so many firms. Enclosed in this book are 150 of the best interview questions, selected from thousands of potential problems

My Approach

The focus of Cracking the Coding Interview is algorithm, coding and design questions. Why? Because while you can and will be asked behavioral questions, the answers will be as varied as your resume. Likewise, while many firms will ask so-called "trivia"questions (e.g., "What is a virtual function?"), the skills developed through practicing these questions are limited to very specific bits of knowledge.The book will briefly touch on some of these questions to show you what they're like, but I have chosen to allocate space where there's more to learn.

My Passion

Teaching is my passion. I love helping people understand new concepts and giving them tools so that they can excel in their passions. My first "official" experience teaching was in college at the University of Pennsylvania when I became a teaching assistant for an undergraduate Computer Science course during my second year. I went on to TA for several other courses, and I eventually
launched my own CS course at the university focused on "hands-on" skills. 

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301 Smart Answers To Tough Interview Questions PDF Ebook

About Book

How to Prepare for the Most Harrowing Forty-Five Minutes of Your Life:
The Job Interview

In today’s “buyer’s market” jobs are scarce, and hundreds of candidates compete for all too few positions. Companies have been forced to become incredibly selective as they sort through resume after resume from scores of qualified candidates. Due to other forces in the marketplace, glowing references do not carry nearly as much weight as they used to. As a result, the interview has become more like a final exam in college or even graduate school, complete with trick questions, curveballs, and ludicrously tough questions designed to shake out the applicant “plum tree” by deliberately putting candidates on the spot. While the average interview still lasts for approximately forty-five minutes, it could well be the most harrowing forty-five minutes of your life. Interviewers no longer tend to ask “How well do you respond to pressure?”; they seek to determine it for themselves instantly, in your very first meeting, by mercilessly tossing you into a simulated pressure cooker situation. How do you prepare for today’s new, rigorous, psychologically draining interview? You need to treat it like the final exam (or trial) that it really is, and study for it.

The purpose of this book is to give you a quick reference guide to the 301 questions you are most likely to hear, and a way to answer them with intelligence, passion, and a certain flair that will help

you best your competitors. Tips, brief analyses of why these techniques work, and helpful suggestions on how to rise above the pack will be peppered throughout.

Make no mistake: in order to prevail, you are going to need to trounce your competition. With all of

the layoffs that have taken place during the past few years, it’s entirely likely that the company where

you really want to work will be interviewing people from several different levels to fill the position

you seek. You could be competing against someone with three times your experience, or conversely,

against someone who can do the job at half your salary level.

How do you get over the hump? How do you convince this organization that you are the ideal

candidate for the job, and to hell with the competition? Here are the 10 critical steps that you need to

take to ace your first interview, so that you can move on to your second, third, and fourth interviews

(at which point, hopefully, they’ll offer you the job already).

Top 10 Ways to Nail the Interview

1. Breathe deeply, and try not to panic. That was easy. Phew!

2. Try to set up your meeting for one full week (five business days) from the time that you first receive the call to come in. Your tendency will be to go for an earlier meeting to “get it over with.” Do not yield to this instinct. You will need the time to prepare for your meeting. (Of course, if the interviewer insists on an earlier date, graciously accept it.)

3. Do your homework. Get on the Internet, and pull every article you can find about the company.
Don’t just read the articles; study and dissect them. Start crafting a “master list” of questions of your own about the company, based on the information that you unearth.

4. Go wider and deeper. Look up the company’s website. Obtain past Annual Reports from the organization, and review them as if your life depended on it. Buy trade publications from your field; and brush up on what the company’s competitors have been doing. Be certain to add some
of this competitive information to the list of questions that you are preparing to ask in your interview.

5. Call any contacts that you have from the company, and start gently picking their brains about
your upcoming interview. Ask your contacts about initiatives that are taking place in the
organization right now; find out about the management structure; figure out where your
interviewer is on the internal “totem pole.” If you don’t know anyone in the company, call any
contacts you have in competing organizations to learn what they know about the company. Go out
for drinks with them at night; treat them to dinner if necessary. Do not ignore this important step!

6. Review the questions and answers in this book thoroughly. Then, very importantly, change the
answers a bit to reflect your own situation. (You never want to come off as “textbook”; rather
you will need to be you, at your most charming self.) Add the questions and answers from this
book that you feel you are most likely to be asked to the “master list” of questions that you are
creating.

7. Write down your goal. Isn't that simply to get the job, you ask? Yes, of course if it is, but
phrase your goal in a way that is very specific to the company. “My goal is to land a job as vice
president of Customer Relations at the ADR Corporation, and to make $XXX,XXX a year.”
(You will know the perfect salary level based on the research you've already done on the
organization.) Studies show that writing down goals helps people achieve them faster. Try it;
what do you have to lose?

8. Review your “master list” of questions, answers, company history, and competitive insights every single day until exactly fifteen hours before your interview. Lock yourself in a quiet room in your house or apartment if you have to, and ask yourself the questions (and state the answers) aloud. This simple step, which so many candidates fail to do, can help you memorize your answers in advance. Won’t that sound canned, you wonder? No, it won’t. When you really know your material, you will actually come off as sounding far more “spontaneous” in an interview.

9. Decide, well in advance of your meeting, which outfit you will wear. This is to avoid any tough decisions at the last minute. Be certain that your outfit is pulled together and appropriate for the job you really want. Also, on the day of, make sure that you have showered, brushed your teeth, and have clean, well-kempt nails and hair. Carry a roll of breath mints with you just in case.

10. Then fifteen hours before your interview, force yourself to stop studying for it, and try to relax. Do yoga if you enjoy it, or listen to a favorite tune. Lay off the caffeine so that you can get a good night’s sleep. Realize that you are now the best-prepared job seeker in the universe, and use your wits and charm to add some joie de vivre to your all-important meeting.

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