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In the Interview: Look for Leads

Technical interviewers are notorious for asking a question with dozens of potential right answers, but wanting to hear only one of these answers for a completely arbitrary reason.  If the interviewer asks you a question, and you give an answer (that you know to be right), and they’re still pushing for a response, look for any hints they might be giving you to lead you into a certain answer.  

If you're confused on the question, it's totally understandable.  You've already answered the question, and in a way that any sane person would find acceptable and correct - but these aren't normal, sane people, they're geeks.  Try to think through the problem from the beginning, and don't be afraid to ask if there's a direction you should be moving in.  Unfortunately, the typical interviewer in this situation is the kind of person who is going to answer every question with a question (when asked, "Am I missing something?" they will respond with, "I don't know, *are* you?" which is always a big help).

I’ve worked with a lot of guys that ask a technical question, get a perfectly acceptable response, and then tell people that the candidate “didn’t know the answer” because they couldn’t come up with some obscure line of reasoning that the interviewer was expecting.  The best you can do here is answer the question to the best of your ability, try to go in different directions, and when all else fails, move on to the next question.

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