 What's up guys, Mike Dakota here today. I'm going to talk to you about this question that I got in my inbox the other day It's about should you do competitive programming to get better at interviews and I highly disagree I don't think that competitive programming is a good use of your time to get better at interviews and here's the reason why Okay, generally the first two problems of competitive programming. Let's look at a recent contest 709 this problem This problem prison break is about prison break is basically about pattern recognition Right, you're given a rectangle and you need to divide into cells a and b This one if you realize the pattern you could just multiply both of your numbers together and you would get your answer And that's how I solved it under like a minute. I think that's all going on in a minute. I don't remember. Let me look at it Think I did though Hold up. Yeah, but that's it. This is this problem tests your pattern recognition, right? So like if you're yeah here, I solved it solved it under a minute, but if you're basically if you're basically This problem will never be asked in an interview like no matter what happens They're not gonna ask you this in an interview because Why would they do this? Like this is like a it's like a test that kind of just determines you whether you could recognize The pattern right if you're interviewing for a company that asks you this question I don't know why they would value this this skill level on to be honest but anyway Like if if you have an interview coming up Being able to figure out this problem is not going to help you in your interview at all Like you should actually be doing problems tailored towards the company that you're going to apply to right? Like if you have it if you have an interview coming up for like I don't know Microsoft then you should be doing problems that are pre previously asked about Microsoft on leak code because then you were more likely to Be able to solve the question when they asked you that question Right if you've seen it before you're able to explain your solution and solve that question But these type of problems are not going to ask you like This is the type of problem is not going to get asked though And here another thing is that the first two problems generally are not data structures and algorithms problems So if you're they're generally basically math or ad hoc problems So being able to do well in math and ad hoc That's generally determines whether you're good at this skill or not level or not Like if if you're being able to do well in math and ad hoc Determines how well you achieve to get to like green or specialist for competitive programming So this doesn't actually help you in an interview problem because interview Preparations are generally data structures and algorithms and that's not getting that wouldn't get asked in The first two problems of competitive programming to get really good at competitive programming right this this third and fourth problem is generally a data structure problem, so like This part basic C diplomacy right this is probably a data structure problem and The fourth one playlist. I think this is a data structure problem, right? So the the yeah, but it's this is a data structure algorithm problem But it requires math also so like the problems are way too harder than an interview Preparation an interview question right there the problems in competitive program is way too more difficult to do it So people who are good at competitive programming generally do well on their interviews But if you don't have enough time to excel in competitive programming And you're just starting it before your interview. You will not do well Okay on your interview So if you have an interview coming up You should actually do problems relate to your interview because you're you're gonna ace those problems like if you want to get well If you want to do well in competitive programming so that you could ace any interview question then good be my guess Right, it will work for long the long term right for like all the period of like if you do competitive program for I don't know one year or two years or three years three years Let's say they say three two years down line You're like grinding a question every single day like every single day you're getting better and better, right? when you hit expert or Specialist or candidate master you could solve any interview question at that point because The questions are too difficult like these questions are too difficult, right? that once you reach the level of Hey, I am able to solve like four of these problems very easily under an hour, right? No matter what an interview An interview during Google Microsoft their questions are going to be a breeze You could solve that literally in a minute or two minutes or maybe like I don't maybe maybe I'm letting minutes to too much Maybe like 10 minutes 15 minutes Like you could solve any interview question at that point But yeah, that's pretty much the gist of why I don't think Competitive programming is a good use of your time for if you have an interview coming up It might work for the long term, but it's not gonna be good for like short-term gains. So yeah Hope you guys enjoy this video Rick come subscribe and I'm gonna continue the spodge Spodge series. I haven't actually been able to upload for a while because of like school and midterms and stuff like that But I'm gonna be able to do that soon I'm gonna come back to uploading a lot of spodge questions, but yeah, Rick come subscribe. I'll check you guys later. Peace