Shall I hastily try to learn a coding language before a test even though I said I don't know it?

Question

I had the first interview with a recruiter and before meeting the team there is a mandatory coding test at Hackerrank which consists of a database query language and a scripting language.

I mentioned specifically that I only encountered the scripting language 5 years ago during my studies and it is not my strong side. She said it's fine and she will let the team know.

I know I will fail the scripting part if I do it right away. Shall try and hastily "learn it" (I have about 1-2 evenings to do it) or send a remember when I've done the test?

This is my first time using Hackerrank also, during the interview we discussed that maybe I could use the language I have been using for several years, she said that would probably be fine. But I guess it's not possible in Hackerrank. Shall I maybe try and solve it locally and send in the results?

Answer 1

With Hackerrank, assessors can actually see you type in code in real-time (and replay after the test is finished). Even if you are not able to complete the task, they can still see the thought process behind what you're doing, even if you have to lookup function names. Or bumble your way through the solution.

I would personally spend a couple of nights becoming a little proficient. All you are trying to do is give them enough so that you can score an interview. Even if you fail the test, a little extra knowledge won't hurt you.

You should also certainly also chunk a comment in the code indicating that you don't really know the language. The assessor may be inclined to look more at how you approach the problem rather than technical deficiencies if you manage their expectations.

Answer 2

When I review candidate's tests, I consider it a very bad sign if a candidate doesn't even attempt a solution and blame it on not knowing the language. But that's because the company I work for needs people who are willing to -- with an open mind -- go into uncharted territory and see what happens. (We even considered having a part of the test be reviewing Fortran code or something else candidates are very unlikely to have real world experience with, just to see how they approach novelty.)

That's not what all people want, so it's all about finding a good fit between environment and mindset.

How do you want to be perceived by this company? What sort of company do you want to work for? Act accordingly.

I would personally spend a little time brushing up my skills in that language, but that's who I want to be perceived as. Might be different for you. If you ask me five years from now, I might want something different. You gotta ask your heart what it wants.

The only thing I can say for certain is that you should over-communicate that this is a language you've never actually had to use before. It's easy for such things to get lost in the train of hand-offs.

Answer 3

This happened to me in my current role, where I didn't know the language and I told the interviewer. Our solution was that I was allowed to do the interview with a language guide up on the side, so I could refer to syntax in the language if I needed to. He was also understanding of the fact that I may not know idiosyncracies of the language due to inexperience with the language. Eventually, based on the skills I did show and that I was able to learn "on the fly" (it really was on the fly, I had no experience with the syntax whatsoever prior to the interview), I ended up getting the job.

That said, this is not usually how it works. Usually, you are expected to know the skills required for the job before you do the interview. If you don't, that's pretty disqualifying; you're going to come into this job as a junior-level because you don't know how to use the tools. I've definitely been disqualified from roles for this reason as well.

My one concern though, is that your current language set is not available on HackerRank. HackerRank supports pretty much all major languages used these days. If you don't know any of the languages supported by HackerRank, then your language may be obscure, or at least sufficiently obscure that you will find a hard time changing jobs. Perhaps you may want to learn a more widely-used language solely for that reason, and you may want to try instituting some of that language into your current role as practice (just say "I think this language might be good for this application", don't tell your boss you're looking to learn a new language to interview with other companies). I've definitely learned other languages while working at companies that were not my "main" language; I haven't worked in my "main" language for about 20 months now, to the point that I don't even have a "main" language, per se, anymore. You may want to look into something similar, to widen your field.