Technical Interview?

[homercles337]

I have a technical interview via phone on Tuesday for an image processing/color scientist post with an imaging (camera phones, cameras, etc) company. Any idea what kind of questions i can expect. I have been in academics for a LONG time and wonder if they are going to ask asinine questions.

BTW, this is a phd level post (i have a phd and 3 years of postdoc experience).

 

[spidey07]

On a guess I'd think they would ask you technical questions.

 

[jaedaliu]

It'll be like your orals, but with a written test too.

They'll ask more practical stuff, you should probably review some of the general stuff you haven't touched in years.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: spidey07
On a guess I'd think they would ask you technical questions.

General knowledge based or odd programming questions?

Like, give a one-line C expression to test whether a number is a power of 2. Now implement it without using loops. Or more like what can you tell me about your experience with steerable pyramids?

 

[spidey07]

On the technical interviews I've given and taken...

Ask the candidate general technical questions about the field. You can feel around judging by their answers if they are just winging it/fumbling around, just flat out wrong, etc.

Tip - if you don't know the answer just say "I'm not familiar with that concept, etc" Worst thing is if you are flat out way off base and its clear you don't know what you are talking about.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: jaedaliu
It'll be like your orals, but with a written test too.

They'll ask more practical stuff, you should probably review some of the general stuff you haven't touched in years.

Phone based, so there cant be a written portion, but thanks for the suggestion. It has been SOME time since i touched a lot of that stuff.

 

[Koenigsegg]

What do you have a Ph. D in?

 

[CanOWorms]

Originally posted by: homercles337

Originally posted by: jaedaliu
It'll be like your orals, but with a written test too.

They'll ask more practical stuff, you should probably review some of the general stuff you haven't touched in years.

Phone based, so there cant be a written portion, but thanks for the suggestion. It has been SOME time since i touched a lot of that stuff.

Sometimes they'll ask you to draw something out, assign some values, and ask you to interpret it.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: Koenigsegg
What do you have a Ph. D in?

Visual neuroscience, with a "minor" (read as sub-emphasis) in computer vision/digital imaging.

 

[NuclearNed]

Most technical interviews I have ever had were virtually all the same: some guy who barely speaks English asks me some obscure "how would you do this" question that he dug up out of the back of a college textbook.

A recent example: Write a function that would check a linked list for a loop.

Another example: Write a function that will parse a text file of words, producing a count of the number of times each distinct word is used.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: NuclearNed
Most technical interviews I have ever had were virtually all the same: some guy who barely speaks English asks me some obscure "how would you do this" question that he dug up out of the back of a college textbook.

A recent example: Write a function that would check a linked list for a loop.

Another example: Write a function that will parse a text file of words, producing a count of the number of times each distinct word is used.

Are these for programmer posts? This post im talking about is more of an R&D position. I mean im talking about min requirements phd, plus i have a few years of postdoc experience. Do you think there will still be questions like that? If so, i need to start the review process. 🙁

 

[spidey07]

A technical interview is basically going to feel out if you have the basic skills for the job. ie, did you lie on your resume and do you have the basic knowledge necessary.

best of luck.

Plus we really love to grill a candidate on the technical interview.

 

[compnovice]

Phone Interview... Then in all probability he would ask technical stuff on your post-doc work + a little titbits on how your work can be applied to the position... Just remember nobody knows your post-doc work better than you 😛