Exercism just helped me ace a job interview

So the other day I blogged about how practice helps improve your code game. Well, I already have a success story to share! I’m currently in the process of interviewing with TopTal, a company that prides itself on hiring only the top 3% of freelancers. I had my second round inteview this week, and surprise, surprise! it was a live coding test.

So I was on Skype with a very friendly fellow from Brazil, and after a few minutes of smalltalk, he asked me to share my screen, and then he gave me my first task. Once he confirmed that I had understood what he was asking, he set a timer for 20 minutes. Alright, go time!

A few years ago I would have been super nervous. Even a few weeks ago, I might have just started tripping all over myself trying to figure out what to do first – write the code? Write some tests? Wait, what’s the syntax again?

When I code Rails I normally use RSpec (old habits die hard), but that’s way too heavy for a little test, and it tends to break down when you least expect it. I got 20 minutes, there’s no time to babysit my test framework!

Thankfully, I had taken my own advice and worked on a few Exercisms this week. So, instead of going into panic mode, I just calmly explained to my interviewer that I’d just copy and paste the setup code for the test, and then write a test according to his requirements. There were a few test cases given in the problem setting, so I simply wrote a test method for each of them, which let me think about the interface to my code before I even wrote it.

Then I showed him that the tests were failing, and explained that now I was going to make them work now. Then I opened up the other file and started writing the actual code. From here on out, it was just like solving another exercism. Since I had practiced this all week, all of this happened pretty much on autopilot.

And that’s exactly what you want in a situation like this. Knowing all the motions you need to go through my heart makes you feel calm and collected, and look cool as a cucumber. While my hands were busy banging out the test cases, my subconscious mind was already working on a solution. And by the time I was ready to write the first line of code, I already had my attack planned out.

Long story short, I finished the first problem in under 10 minutes, and the second in 3. Not being nervous had a LOT to do with it. The interviewer congratulated me and told me I’m moving on to the next round.

So, what are YOU waiting for? Go practice!