Comment by Marco Alka on "What is the appropriate answer to a question you don't know in programming interviews?" | Hashnode

Marco Alka

Software Engineer, Technical Consultant & Mentor

Feb 7, 2017

Be honest and motivated. Show that you are eager to learn the ropes and whatever else you need for the job. If you cannot answer a question right now, just tell the interviewers, but hint at how you will overcome the problem. No one can know everything, but it is very important to be able to solve the problem given nevertheless!

"I do not know tech X / lang Y, but I am motivated to further my horizons and confident in my ability to learn fast." Possibly add "I already know a few similar technologies, which will help me get productive in a short amount of time."
"In order to implement Z, I would require more time to think about an optimal solution and investigate possible algorithms and side-effects. In my opinion, a quick implementation results in suboptimal code, which has to be refactored later on or might lead to problems and bugs. Hence I do not want to give you a quick answer as it would not be representative of my full capabilities."

Mario Giambanco

Director of User Experience Development

Feb 7, 2017

Just don't make a guess, haha. Early in my career, an interviewer asked me something along the lines of "what's the maximum length of exposed cat5e plenum cable" - I misinterpreted the question and thought he said maximum length of exposed wire outside of the jack (as if you crimped the cable badly) and answered 2-3 inches - which clearly was wrong, haha - cat5e can be run reliably for hundreds of feet (in the range of 300 feet / 100 meters)

this is a pretty good question. i went for an interview last year and was asked about a bunch of things i should probably have known, but i didn't lie about it. if i didn't know what he was talking about, i told him so, but i asked questions, which i think is a pretty good way to go. ask what it does and get a little info out of the interviewer regarding uses for that tool/framework/thing. remember what they asked you and afterwards go read up on what you remember. you might not get the job, but you get an idea of what they're using, then next interview at a different place will go better.

interviews are great ways to find out what things you should know and what things you should brush up on.

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