Google Interview Cheat Sheet

Google Interview Cheat Sheet Printable
Cheat Sheet For Interview Questions

Does the thought of interviewing for a new job send shivers down your spine? It doesn’t have to! Whether you’re searching for your first job, changing careers, or looking to advance in your current field, shine in every job interview by staying positive and overcoming negatives, such as getting fired or your own shyness.
Debut’s job interview cheat sheet. There are so many things to remember in the lead-up to an interview, you can easily get your wires crossed. So much good advice that you just don’t know how to act on. This job interview cheat sheet collates it all, so you can go into the boardroom with confidence knowing that you’ve got your bases covered.
It goes without saying that preparing for your job interview will only help you when it’s game time. But when it comes to preparing, are there actually tactics that could hurt you? Let’s take a look at a Google job interview. In January, Businessweek posted an interview preparation cheat sheet with questions from actual Google interviews.

Cheatsheet This is a straight-to-the-point, distilled list of technical interview Do's and Don'ts, mainly for algorithmic interviews. Some of these may apply to only phone screens or whiteboard interviews, but most will apply to both. It's not really a cheat-sheet, but for me I setup a 'java' search keyword in Google Chrome to search over the javadoc, using site. You could do the same but also add the domain for the Sun Java Tutorial and for several Java FAQ sites and you'd be OK. Otherwise, StackOverflow is a pretty good cheat-sheet:).

You’ve written your resume and followed all the best practices: it’s fewer than two pages, chronologically highlights your experience and accomplishments and substantiates them with real, concrete examples.

You’ve sent off your cover letter: it’s tailored for the job you want, illustrates your professional narrative and crafts a story explaining why this potential employer should consider you for their position.

Then, bam! You’ve landed the interview. Congrats!

Now what?

One of the best ways you can prepare for an interview is to anticipate the questions you may be asked. Here are some typical questions to expect, and how to answer them:

What is the greatest accomplishment in your life to date?

Let’s be honest: your greatest accomplishment probably isn’t a professional one—it’s probably marrying the love of your life or raising a child or something personal. So feel free to say that, but follow up with your greatest work accomplishment. You are applying for a job, after all.

What is your greatest disappointment?

Logitech k200 driver download. This one can be tricky. Don’t just say your disappointment. Instead, make sure you add what you learned from that disappointment and, ideally, how you’ve used that knowledge since.

What are your strengths?

Organized, creative, strategic—whatever your strengths may be, be prepared to give detailed examples of how you’ve put those strengths into action in a way that has benefited your employers.

What do you need to do better?

Translation: What is your weakness?

Go ahead: state your weakness. We all have them—but, again, be sure you say how you’re addressing it. The key here is to show you’re proactive.

Why are you interested in this company?

Do your homework and have specific examples of what you’re interested in. Do a Google search for recent articles about the company. Check out their Facebook page, like them and see what people are saying. Browse their website, learn about their product line, read their mission and check out recent media releases. The more you know, the better prepared you’ll be.

Why are you unhappy with your current company?

This is a bit of a trick question. It’s generally better to say your decision is not based on leaving your current employer, but instead is about pursuing a better opportunity with this company. Do not badmouth your current company—even if you hate the place. Business is a very, very small world.

Where do you see yourself in three to five years?

If you know the company well enough to have a specific job in mind, that is optimal. If not, it’s perfectly alright to say you want to continue to develop a functional expertise and assume positions of increasing responsibility.

Can you give some examples of successfully working with others?

This is a great time to articulate that you have been part of successful teams and, if applicable, the leader of successful teams. If you have minimal work experience, feel free to use examples from college, summer jobs or your extracurricular activities. Fontdrvhost.exe usermode font driver hostdigishara.

Google Interview Cheat Sheet Printable

Why should I hire you for this position?

Give a concise summary of your key skills and how you will make a difference in this job. Your track record should prove it.

Image: Flickr

This is a straight-to-the-point, distilled list of technical interview Do's and Don'ts, mainly for algorithmic interviews. Some of these may apply to only phone screens or whiteboard interviews, but most will apply to both. I revise this list before each of my interviews to remind myself of them and eventually internalized all of them to the point I do not have to rely on it anymore.

Legend#

✅ = Do
❌ = Don't
⚠️ = Situational

Cheat Sheet For Interview Questions

Before interview#

Things
✅	Prepare pen, paper and earphones/headphones.
✅	Find a quiet environment with good Internet connection.
✅	Ensure webcam and audio are working. There were times I had to restart Chrome to get Hangouts to work again.
✅	Request for the option to interview over Hangouts/Skype instead of a phone call; it is easier to send links or text across.
✅	Decide on and be familiar with a programming language.
✅	Familiarize yourself with the coding environment (CoderPad/CodePen). Set up the coding shortcuts, turn on autocompletion, tab spacing, etc.
✅	Prepare answers to the frequently-asked behavioral questions in an interview.
✅	Prepare some questions to ask at the end of the interview.
✅	Dress comfortably. Usually you do not need to wear smart clothes, casual should be fine. T-shirts and jeans are acceptable at most places.
✅	Stay calm and composed.
⚠️	Turn off the webcam if possible. Most remote interviews will not require video chat and leaving it on only serves as a distraction.

Introduction#

Things
✅	Introduce yourself in a few sentences under a minute or two.
✅	Mention interesting points that are relevant to the role you are applying for.
✅	Sound enthusiastic! Speak with a smile and you will naturally sound more engaging.
❌	Spend too long introducing yourself. The more time you spend talking the less time you have to code.

Upon receiving the question#

Things
✅	Repeat the question back at the interviewer.
✅	Clarify any assumptions you made subconsciously. Many questions are under-specified on purpose. E.g. a tree-like diagram could very well be a graph that allows for cycles and a naive recursive solution would not work.
✅	Clarify input format and range. Ask whether input can be assumed to be well-formed and non-null.
✅	Work through a small example to ensure you understood the question.
✅	Explain a high level approach even if it is a brute force one.
✅	Improve upon the approach and optimize. Reduce duplicated work and cache repeated computations.
✅	Think carefully, then state and explain the time and space complexity of your approaches.
✅	If stuck, think about related problems you have seen before and how they were solved. Check out the tips in this section.
❌	Ignore information given to you. Every piece is important.
❌	Jump into coding straightaway.
❌	Start coding without interviewer's green light.
❌	Appear too unsure about your approach or analysis.

During coding#

Things
✅	Explain what you are coding/typing to the interviewer, what you are trying to achieve.
✅	Practice good coding style. Clear variable names, consistent operator spacing, proper indentation, etc.
✅	Type/write at a reasonable speed.
✅	As much as possible, write actual compilable code, not pseudocode.
✅	Write in a modular fashion. Extract out chunks of repeated code into functions.
✅	Ask for permission to use trivial functions without having to implement them; saves you some time.
✅	Use the hints given by the interviewer.
✅	Demonstrate mastery of your chosen programming language.
✅	Demonstrate technical knowledge in data structures and algorithms.
✅	If you are cutting corners in your code, state that out loud to your interviewer and say what you would do in a non-interview setting (no time constraints). E.g., 'Under non-interview settings, I would write a regex to parse this string rather than using `split()` which may not cover all cases.'
✅	Practice whiteboard space-management skills.
⚠️	Reasonable defensive coding. Check for nulls, empty collections, etc. Can omit if input validity has been clarified with the interviewer.
❌	Remain quiet the whole time.
❌	Spend too much time writing comments.
❌	Use extremely verbose or single-character (unless they're common like `i`, `n`) variable names.
❌	Copy and paste code without checking (e.g. variables need to be renamed).
❌	Interrupt your interviewer when they are talking. Usually if they speak, they are trying to give you hints or steer you in the right direction.
❌	Write too big (takes up too much space) or too small (illegible) if on a whiteboard.

After coding#

Things
✅	Scan through your code for mistakes as if it was your first time seeing code written by someone else.
✅	Check for off-by-one errors.
✅	Come up with more test cases. Try extreme test cases.
✅	Step through your code with those test cases.
✅	Look out for places where you can refactor.
✅	Reiterate the time and space complexity of your code.
✅	Explain trade-offs and how the code/approach can be improved if given more time.
❌	Immediately announce that you are done coding. Do the above first!
❌	Argue with the interviewer. They may be wrong but that is very unlikely given that they are familiar with the question.

Wrap up#

Things
✅	Ask questions. More importantly, ask good and engaging questions that are tailored to the company! Pick some questions from this list.
✅	Thank the interviewer.
⚠️	Ask about your interview performance. It can get awkward.
❌	End the interview without asking any questions.

Post interview#

Things
✅	Record the interview questions and answers down as these can be useful for future reference.
⚠️	Send a follow up email to your interviewer(s) thanking them for their time and the opportunity to interview with them.