Right before this past summer, there were a couple of weeks where I was interviewing with several companies. Every week, I would have at least one technical phone interview or in-person interview. I remember how nerve-racking and stressful it was and hoping that my thoughts and ideas didn’t sound garbled to the interviewer.
The first speaker that I have the pleasure to announce is Gayle L. McDowell, whose work helps students with technical interviews.
I wish I had taken the time to read through a book like Cracking the Coding Interview. In the first few pages, nothing technical is covered, however she describes the interviewing process for various companies and mentions some “war stories” of interviews gone awry, teaching you what not to do during an interview. The rest of the book features programming questions where the idea is not to memorize the problems but rather to learn how to solve them.
On Gayle’s blog, TechnologyWoman.com, she regularly post about resume writing and interviewing. Her site, CareerCup.com, contains plenty of help for technical interviews. And her books, Cracking the Coding Interview and The Google Resume, are leading guides on how to land a job at a tech company.
Gayle has worked as a Software Engineer for Google, Microsoft, and Apple and has extensive interviewing experience on both sides of the table. She was a member of Google’s Engineering Hiring Committee and has interviewed over 150 candidates at Google. Gayle holds a BSE and MSE from the University of Pennsylvania in Computer Science, and an MBA from the Wharton School.
