Let me explain the background first: I was born in C/C++. I started to develop Java after going to Ctrip.com in 2017. At the end of 2018, I started a business partnership with my friends to build a financial transaction system. The transaction system uses C++ for market data services. It is a Java service.
I need to explain here. I am not switching from C++ to Java development. In fact, I am familiar with both C++ and Java. Which language to choose is based on business and development needs, that is to say, the business chooses the language, not because The language chooses the business.
Readers who have read "The Legend of the Dragon Slayer" should know the Nine Suns' Magical Art. C++ is to my technical practice just like the Nine Suns's Magical Art is to Zhang Wuji.
Our small team product was officially launched in July 2019, and a major refactoring was made from July to early December. In December, the company was relatively idle, so I updated my resume and looked at the opportunities outside. This is the background.
As we all know, Ali mainly focuses on Java, so the position I submitted is Java Senior/Senior Development. I saw the position on the Boss Direct Employment App at the time. The picture below is the job recruitment information at that time.
1 How to choose a recruitment platform
Here is a brief talk about my views on several common job search platforms for IT job seekers. Common platforms for IT job seekers include Lagou.com, Liepin.com, Boss Direct Employment, 100offer, etc. I generally only work on Lagou.com, Liepin.com and Boss directly hired these three platforms to find potential positions and submit resumes. In the early years, there were Dajie.com and Neipui.com, but these two platforms have declined due to their own reasons. All, I used to prioritize job hunting on Lagou.com, and I am also very satisfied with the experience of Lagou.com, but I am generally satisfied with Liepin.com and Boss direct employment.
There are many headhunters on Liepin.com who will actively contact you after you update your resume to help you recommend positions. However, this model has both good and bad points. The good part is that because it is internally pushed by headhunters, the progress and efficiency of recruitment and interviews are generally higher than those of direct delivery to a certain company, and some companies have some internal problems. For open positions, you can also get interviews and entry opportunities through internal referrals by headhunters. However, there are some disadvantages in the headhunting recommendation. If you are successful in the job, the headhunter can get a huge referral fee from the company. Therefore, in order to facilitate the successful entry of job seekers, some headhunters will fabricate some lies, conceal some truth from the job seeker or the company, and find some pitfalls only when the interviewer is interviewed or after joining the job. In addition, there are some very low-quality headhunters, which greatly reduces the interview experience of job seekers.
Let's talk about the Boss direct recruitment platform. The feature of Boss’s initial publicity for direct hiring is that the boss personally recruits people, but I personally feel that this approach is basically not feasible. Small companies are better. It is basically impossible for large companies to have many bosses or XX recruits personally. To the personnel department, so the initial impression that Boss hired me directly was that there were either small companies, especially startups, or unreliable companies on this platform. I didn’t want to hack this platform. When I applied for a job through this platform in 2016, I interviewed several companies and found that they were all "unreliable" recruitment teams that were not fixed in the office.
Relatively speaking, Lagou.com has a better impression of me, because I found my first few jobs through Lagou.com. However, this time to pull the hook to make my experience is not very good, because most of the posts submitted did not have any response, most of the posts are always in the state that the other company has already accepted, and there is no more information. Of course, This is not a problem with Lagou. It may be a problem with the recruiting company itself. But there is one thing I don't understand. Why is there a response from the other company soon, whether it is successful or not after posting on the Boss direct employment? This also saves a lot of anticipation and waiting time for job hunting.
Therefore, in the early years, I felt that Lagou.com was more reliable, and Boss’s direct employment was not reliable. Now my impression is the reverse. Here is a bit of my own feelings about the use of these three recruitment platforms. One family may not be correct. It is only a reference for readers and friends when submitting resumes.
Back to the main line of interviewing Ali for this position. I interviewed the Ant Financial team of Alibaba. I was in Shanghai. Alibaba’s Alipay international payment business. I work in the Alipay building near Century Avenue or Shangcheng Road in Shanghai (near Shanghai Pudong Yaohan business district). In fact, I have always been near the Shangcheng Road subway station. This interview found that Ali’s Alipay building was also here.--!
2 Pay attention to strategies during the interview
There are three rounds of technical interviews and one round of HR interviews for Ali’s Java technology position where I am looking for a job. In fact, HR interviews twice, which will be discussed in detail below.
Because I interviewed a lot of big companies during this period, some got offers, and some didn’t get offered for some reasons, so I personally feel that for big companies like BATM or unicorn companies like Bytedance and Pinduoduo In the end, whether you can get an offer depends partly on your personal technical level and work experience, another part depends on your luck, and another part depends on your strategy and skills during the interview. I will give a specific strategy and skills below. example. Needless to say about personal technical level and work experience, why is there a certain element of luck?
Give two examples.
In the first example, I interviewed Tencent this time. The first three rounds of technical interviews have passed. The third is a supervisor interview, but the recruiter has to schedule the fourth round of executive interviews a few weeks later. For most For people, there is no such time cost to wait, especially if you already have several offers, they may be urging you to join the job. Therefore, for Tencent’s interview, you cannot accept to wait for such a long time, or even if you can accept it, there is no guarantee that you will eventually get the offer, so you have to choose to give up. In fact, I heard from a friend who has already joined Tencent before that the interview cycle of Dachang’s social recruitment may be a bit long, and it may need to go back and forth repeatedly. Therefore, the job applicant is required to weigh the cost.
The second example is when I interviewed Ali. In fact, more than a week before my job search for Ali, I submitted another position of Ali, and then a telephone interview was conducted at about 7 o'clock in the evening not long after. Ali's first round of interviews is usually a telephone interview. This telephone interview can only be described as "the dumb eating yellow lotus has suffering." That night, according to the agreed time, we started a telephone interview. After talking for more than an hour, and it’s almost over, I asked the interviewer, since it’s a Java job interview, why don’t you ask some basic knowledge about Java? The interviewer said that these things can be prepared and even memorized in advance on the Internet, so his usual practice in interviews is to never ask the basic knowledge related to Java, and only talk to the interviewer about the projects he has done before. Well, I was speechless. Finally, the interviewer asked me, what else do you want to ask me? I just said directly, did I pass this interview or not? The interviewer said directly: What you are talking to me is not what I want, and I don't see any experience that meets our requirements from the project you mentioned, so of course I have never had an interview. In fact, I was very dissatisfied at the time. Why? Because the interviewer did not understand the business corresponding to my project work, I explained it to the interviewer, especially when it came to some structure diagrams and flowcharts. Since it was a telephone interview, it was not clear on the phone. In other words, the first interviewer does not understand your business, but he thinks he understands through your description, and the second specific content is not clearly described in the phone call, plus the interviewer does not ask related Java technology. So in the end, the impression left to the interviewer is that you are "useless" and have no merit, so you have failed. But most job applicants should have the same mentality as I started. The lack of confidence in interviewing companies leads to lack of confidence and will not refute or respond to some unreasonable demands of interviewers.
What I want to give this example is the element of luck in interviews with big companies. In many cases, it is not that you are not good, but during the interview process, the interviewer’s personal characteristics and preferences or the asymmetry of information in the communication eventually made you fail the interview. Opportunity. Therefore, for this situation, we need to do two things. The first is to be more confident and adjust our mentality. Although we may want to enter the big factory in front of us, we don’t have to enter this big factory. We must deal with unreasonable treatment. Strike back directly and strive for reasons; second, pay attention to communication strategies. Therefore, during the interview in other departments of Ali, before the start of the interview, I euphemistically told the interviewer some of my suggestions: Since it is a telephone interview, then when the interviewer asks questions, do not mention that some calls are not convenient or inconvenient. Questions that are easy to describe, such as describing the project structure or process; if the interviewer has not done the job of the applicant’s project before, don’t ask about these business details because it may not be clear in a few words; if the interviewer really wants to know, we can It is easy to clarify a lot of things when you make a live chat and communicate in person.
3 The first round of technical interviews
With this consensus, the interviewer and I started the first round of telephone interviews. The first round of interview time was nine o’clock in the morning one day. The interviewer had a brief understanding of the business I did before. In the subsequent communication, I learned that the interviewer was also doing financial transactions before going to Ali. Systematic, so he knew the difficulties of the project I did. Then I asked me some basic knowledge of Java. After the interview, I made a summary and record, and posted it for everyone to see:
- What are the commonly used methods of Java's Object class?
- In what scenarios, subclasses need to override the equals method and hashCode method?
- Describe the main execution logic and flow of the HashMap get method;
- Java exceptions, what are checked Exception and unchecked Exception, give a few specific examples; have you studied exceptions in Spring Boot;
- The characteristics and implementation principles of ConcurrentHashMap;
- What is sub-library and sub-table, and the specific method and usage scenarios of sub-library and sub-table;
- ACID of database transaction;
- What is a distributed lock and its implementation principles and usage scenarios;
- The problem of idempotence.
Need to say here, the above interview questions are actually very basic, especially if you are involved in Java itself. If you are engaged in Java development, but you are only limited to dealing with the company's business code, you have never taken the initiative to study some common classes of jdk Libraries are not good for interviews, the improvement of your Java technology stack and your technical career. I hope readers who are engaged in Java development will be aware of this.
There are many posts and courses on the Internet that are similar to the summary of high-frequency knowledge points of Java interviews. I personally think that you can use these courses as an outline, but you must not only reach the depth required by these outlines. As a Java developer, the source code of jdk , Especially the source code of commonly used java classes is recommended to read carefully.
After the first round of technical interviews, I asked the interviewer if it passed. The interviewer told me that I passed, and then I asked him when the next round of interviews would be scheduled. I told him at the time that I hope they will make arrangements as soon as possible. There are already other companies urging me to join. The interviewer said to communicate.
So about one or two in the afternoon that day, the interviewer asked me if I had time in the evening and arranged for me a second round of technical interviews, so I made an appointment at 7 o'clock that evening.
4 The second round of technical interview
The second round of technical interviews is the supervisor interview. It turned out to have an appointment at 7 o'clock in the evening. After I arrived, the interviewer met me and told me that their supervisor was a little urgent temporarily. Can I change the time to 9 o'clock or make another appointment? I came when I wanted to, so I won't make an appointment alone. So before that, I chatted with the interviewer on the other side. The interviewer on the other side was very nice, and we talked a lot about it. I learned through chat that the original interviewer had done a trading system in a certain transaction before, and then we talked about the "clearing" system. He told me that the position I interviewed would also participate in the development of the clearing business, but the clearing and exchange here The clearing inside is different, and the clearing system of the exchange is more complicated. Then he talked to me about some precautions for the subsequent interview and told me that the second interviewer is also familiar with the trading system, knowing the business characteristics and technical difficulties, but the latter three have no experience in this area (the three are The leader of the entire large department), so I must highlight the important and difficult points of the trading system I have done before, otherwise it is likely to be passed. Finally, I talked to me about Ali’s salary structure and options, and that HR interviews are not the same as those of other companies. I have to take certification seriously.
At about nine o'clock in the evening, the second interviewer finally arrived. Let me introduce to me what they do. They do cross-border payment and settlement. In layman's terms, users buy something in country A. This thing is sold by an e-commerce company in country B. The whole process goes down. How to transfer money from the user account of country A to the e-commerce account of country B according to the currency exchange rates of different countries. The difficulty here is that when users in country A purchase a product, the exchange rate is t1, but the settlement may change the exchange rate to t2. If it is guaranteed that the actual confirmation payment amount when user A purchases is consistent with the sales amount confirmed by the e-commerce user in country B. This is roughly such a scenario. The interviewer asked me to describe such a process, how to design such a system, there are several subsystems, exchange rates will change, how to ensure the interests of users and businesses, etc., and how to control the frequency of settlement. In the discussion with the interviewer, I gave my own design plan. Of course, the answer at the beginning was not perfect. Later, the interviewer will continue to ask you new questions to examine your design ability. After the normal interview, the interviewer talked about his views on my previous project. According to him, he did more than ten years of financial system development at Morgan Stanley before coming to Ali. Later, he came to Ali to take charge of the Ant Forest and stocks in Alipay, and later was transferred to the Ali International Payments business team.
After talking for more than an hour, the interview was over. When I left, I found that there was another person waiting for the interview on the sofa outside. Khan, the pressure of competition was really great.
The next morning, I passed an interviewer to help me inquire about the results of the second interview. At about noon, the second interviewer added me to WeChat and said that the interview passed, but the third interviewer, the leader of most of their departments, was on a business trip in Shenzhen. , Asked me if it would be convenient for the video interview, and I said yes, so I arranged a video interview at 7 pm the next day.
5 The third round of technical interviews
The interviewer from three sides called me the day before and added me on WeChat. At 7 o'clock in the evening the next day, the interviewer opened the WeChat video on time. I opened it and found that it was a middle-aged uncle with an unshaven beard. The "uncle" was sitting in front of the laptop on the balcony, and then the interview officially began. Let me introduce myself first, and then talk to me about the previous project. During the introduction of the project, I sometimes asked some Java details, such as which objects were used for multi-thread synchronization, how to code, and sometimes asked about it. Framework or architecture, such as how to do hot backup, whether to use distributed services, how to keep data consistent among multiple services in distributed services, the maximum QPS supported by the system, cache issues, database pressure issues, etc. Three-sided technical interviews are not easy. Generally speaking, different companies adopt different technical solutions because of their business forms. However, many interviewers do not agree with the technical solutions adopted by the interviewer’s company, so the interviewer’s detailed, Give a reasonable explanation seriously. If you have never seriously thought and reflected on the technical solutions behind the system you are responsible for, it is easy to be caught off guard by the interviewer's repeated questioning, or fall into the technical trap set by the interviewer in.
My advice to readers for this type of interview is that whether you are the person in charge of a certain project in the company, or you are only involved in a certain project and only responsible for part of it, you must not only find a way to understand the structural design of the entire system, but also reflect on your current structure. In design, you must also be very familiar with the key details and core, and figure out some of the key details of the project you are working on. Don't just confine yourself to "one-acre three-part land".
6 The fourth round of HR interview
The next morning, an interviewer told me that the third round of technical interviews had passed, and the next was the HR interview, but Ali’s HR interview was not the same as the general personnel interview. HR in Ali is a bit like the "political commissar of the legion" "At the same time, tell me that Ali's salary package will not give too much cash, more options are options, and these options companies are clearly marked internally, and the company will repurchase them at the set price when they leave.
On the same day, a woman who claimed to be Ali’s HR director called me and asked me for the next round of personnel interviews. The specific date is unrememberable. It was 10 am in the next few days.
At 10 o'clock that day, the other party called as scheduled. In my past experience, I feel that since the previous technical interview has been conducted, when I get to the HR interview, I should simply understand the interviewer's situation and then start talking about salary. However, this is not the case. This HR asked me to introduce myself first, and then let me describe what I did in each work experience, the length of each work experience and the reason for leaving. It also asked me such things as the most frustrated in my work. What is the biggest challenge and what is the biggest challenge, as well as some of my ideas and values. Alas, it really feels like a "political trial." After talking for almost an hour, my heart has been strained and my forehead is sweating. That day, my daughter-in-law was also watching. I interviewed for more than an hour, and she was nervous for more than an hour.
At the end of the interview, with the same convention, the HR asked me what I wanted to ask. My mind got hot at the time and asked a set sentence: What kind of role do you think HR should play in an IT company? Alas, it was this problem that almost made me "overwhelmed". This HR is obviously very sophisticated and did not directly answer my question. Instead, he asked me what I think about HR job responsibilities. I said at the time that the human resources department should do a good job of logistics for the functional departments. When the interviewer heard me say this, he immediately objected, and began to tell me how Ali's HR was and how it works, and then I buzzed my head and listened to her for a while. Finally we ended this interview.
During the interview, I always thought that I would talk about salary and treatment, and then I didn't talk about it from the beginning to the end, because I was not sure whether I had passed the interview, and I didn't ask.
7 The fifth round of HR interview
The next morning, I received a call from this HR again, telling me that all interviews passed, and then I will talk about salary. After their comprehensive investigation and evaluation, the rank given to me is P7 (technical expert), and they are given an option worth 80 W, which is divided into three years, 25% in the first year, 25% in the second year, and third The annual salary is 50%, but the cash part can only be given up to 32k (monthly salary), and the minimum salary is 14 salary. So I asked her if I wanted less options. Can I increase my monthly salary a little? She said that she couldn't do it. Then I asked her if the return price of the resigning company is clear for each share option. She was also unclear. So I told her again, I said that your salary level is similar to my salary at Shangjia. She didn't answer my question, saying that this was the company's regulations, and you didn't come to Ali for money. I was speechless. Later, I said that I took an offer from a unicorn company, and their annual salary was more than 700,000 yuan. You are much lower than others. She also said that the salary offered by this company was originally higher than that of the market. The average level is much higher.
Speaking of this, I actually don't have much patience to continue talking. I thought about it, and I was so afraid that Ali, who wanted to enter, was given such treatment. Ugh. Everyone came out to work, not for money, for what? Moreover, the entire interview process is quite grueling, and the final salary level given is not sincere. At this time, I really didn’t want to continue talking, so I told her, otherwise, I’ll think about it one day and call you at this time tomorrow to tell you the result. She said yes, and said she would call me the next day. .
8 Final result
On the same day, I asked my colleague who left Ctrip to go to Ali Ant Financial, but I found that he left Ctrip to go to Ali and left after three months. Of course, this may also have his own reasons. But what he and I described is that Ali’s culture is not very sexual.
After comprehensive consideration, I finally decided to give up Ali's offer. When the HR called the next day, I said straightforwardly that I chose to give up the offer. After listening to her, she said to respect my choice, and then hung up after a few simple greetings.
9 My perception
I am a person from a non-disciplinary background, and I know the importance of having a working experience in a large factory. So since graduating, I have been thinking about working in one of BAT one day. However, for good luck, always because of this and other reasons, I have not been able to get what I wanted. After spending a lot of time and effort in starting a business in 2019, I decided to bid farewell to small companies and go to a big factory to experience it. So after careful preparation, I interviewed Tencent, Ele.me, Ali Ant Financial, ByteDance and other big companies. Among them, I like Ali’s job opportunities. Of course, I was frustrated by interviewing big companies in the early years. Fear, but after this time there is no more fear. To put it bluntly, it is nothing more than that.
Of course, I am not saying that Ali is not good. Ali is a great company that has brought a lot of benefits to our lives. But some things, like the combination of two people, can barely come. There are always many problems in the development of a company. If you can tolerate these problems, you can choose her. If you can't tolerate them, you can choose not to choose her. Thanks to the Ali interviewer who helped me so much.
I wrote this experience to share with everyone, not to explain how strong I am, but to give some inspiration and help to the students who want to interview Ali. Joining a major factory requires not only technical strength, but also a little luck and strategy.
The article is purely a family statement, and it is inevitable that it is biased, and gentle comments are welcome.
Now that it’s here, let’s share some free learning materials with the audience. My noodles are just for me. I believe you can!
The interview documents of the thief Laxiang are useful to keep, and I blame myself for being too lazy. I hope I can find a satisfactory job in the next gold and silver!
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