I'd Start With Google

We're hiring and we've been doing many interviews with potential job applicants recently. Whenever possible I try to attend the interviews. The value for me is to have a grip on the state of the engineering talent we could potentially reach out for. After all in my opinion it is the team that defines what you can or cannot do. The strategy, the ideas, the money are relatively easy compared to assembling the team.

At the interview I try to learn how a candidate thinks, how she or he approaches a problem. Not how the problem is solved. Among many skills I value creativity and problem solving the most. So I present some real design or implementation problems we have and see how they are approached.

Personally I have one general rule I use when working on a solution. I assume we are never the first to face the particular problem. Meaning somebody must have already done something with it. And if so, I want to learn about the approach and the solution. So I start with Google search. And then depending on the outcome I may take one road or another. But Google is always the starting point.

The funny thing is nobody, and I do mean nobody has ever told me they would start with Google. People either give up immediately or start improvising without proper analysis. Nobody has ever asked for a minute or two with a tablet connected to the Internet. Interesting, because I think this is the interview - only behavior. And should I decide to hire them, they would start with Google anyway.

Today the skills of searching for and finding a solution are probably more important than the skills to solve the problem on your own. Google, Twitter, Internet forums are the most valuable learning tools of the 21st century.

So next time when you are asked to solve a problem, ask for a little time and access to the Internet. This will give you a chance to prove you are capable of moving swiftly through the Internet jungle and can harvest bits and pieces of relevant information that can form an input to the process of synthesizing the solution.