This blog is a guest contribution from Algodaily.com
The way most people study/prepare for technical interviews with coding problems isn’t conducive. An average person will go on a site like HackerEarth or AlgoDaily and will only spend a few minutes actually trying to solve a problem.
Often, they’ll then jump to the solution after getting stuck. Then they’ll read the solution, try to memorize it, and call it a day.
Here’s a more effective way, and it’s why the AlgoDaily system was designed the way it was:
One interview problem a day seems to be the ideal amount. If you do 2 or 3 a day in the manner described, you’ll be spending 3-4 hours doing it, which is quite ambitious unless you are preparing full time.
It’s also mentally tiring, and you are unlikely to derive a whole lot of marginal benefits from the 3rd or 4th problem. At a certain point, you’ll probably begin to eagerly jump toward obvious solutions, which will not help you understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie.
The below suggestions nudge your thought process toward retaining the patterns and eventually help you solve problems you’ve never solved prior.
Before jumping to the solution, dedicate about 20-30 minutes to a problem and try to solve it all by yourself. Try to get some semblance of a correct output.
Brute force it if you have to—try to reason about any working solution, no matter how slow it is. It will help you understand the necessities to optimize it later.
If you’re stuck at a problem, restart by looking for hints and then keep trying to solve it. Repeat until there are no more hints.
When you run out of hints, start going through the problem statement or solution very slowly. As soon as you are unstuck, STOP READING. Use the bit of insight to start coding again.
Even though you’ve read a part of the solution, the vast majority of learning comes from the struggle of thinking it through yourself. That is what will help you retain it for the next time.
Before we jump into the importance of mock interviews, here are some things you must cover.
Without a solid understanding of the following concepts, you may struggle during mock interviews:
For this knowledge, the best way to study might be the flash-card style. There are tons of flash-card applications online, and there are many guides and quizzes at AlgoDaily. You could also pull in a friend to conduct a mock interview, speaking of which—
You must practice some mock interviews before attending an actual interview. Ideally, this would simulate as much of the real interview as possible.
If it’s a whiteboard interview, grab a whiteboard and a knowledgeable friend, and force yourself to answer random algorithm/data structure questions from them.
Check out HackerEarth for some fantastic resources that I’ve used when preparing for mock coding interviews. The competitions really help with time management and on-your-feet thinking that you’ll need.
Best of luck and happy coding!
AlgoDaily provides a visual technical interview course. HackerEarth members can email team@algodaily.com for a discount.
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