I can't pass a whiteboard interview to save my life. I did pretty well on a fizzbuzz whiteboard a few years ago but in reality in is fairly straightforward. I am interviewing right now and the more I practice and study I realize my teacher in college was right 25 years ago. I should never have become a programmer. I am a likable and fairly competent coder but I am completely overwhelmed and stressed.

What kind of positions are you applying for?

C#, asp.net Mvc, mainly Microsoft stack. I am looking for remote work so that is really limiting me right now.

I'm trying to find out why you're getting stressed, are you going for backend roles, embedded systems, Windows forms? I find people mostly get flustered when the question is about a concept they haven't seen before. Keep in mind how you react to a situation like that is just as important as your answer. Ignore your teacher from 25 years ago, we're in a very good time where demand far outweighs supply. Hopefully you'll find something soon. Good luck.

Whiteboarding always sucks.

@ymas I do fine on the question/answer format but melt at coding on a whiteboard.

@georgelynch is it the coding that's hard or just the pressure of coding on the spot? Like if I gave you the same problem but let you do it in private would it be easier?

@georgelynch also what questions are they just curious because I haven't interviewed yet!

Typically they google interview questions related to the particular tech for the job, in my case, sql joins,c#, some javascript. I do ok on these questions because I study them. The whiteboard tests are always random. There are many good YouTube videos on the topic. I have also gotten word problems like how do two blind people sort pairs of multi colored socks.

@georgelynch so they test you on SQL, C#, JS ect and then make you do a whiteboard test on top of that? What's the point? If you're proficient with the tech that for the job why do a whiteboard? Can't they see your problem solving skills when testing c# sql js?

Shooting in the dark here but have you tried applying for positions that put more emphasis on a portfolio?

I'm scared shitless by the prospect of whiteboards hence plan to look for places that don't rely on them as much.

@dalastTomCruise The job I am interviewing for has been open 4 months. Small companies wanting to act like they are Silicon Valley.

@freakko I have all kinds of code samples and screen shots but no one is interested.

@freakko I try to avoid those companies but once you are 2 or 3 interviews into the interview process they spring it on you unexpected. I hate to burn the recruiter at that point so I have just endured it. I completely failed a white board interview where I was supposed to write code to find out how many words can be made out of the word "peanut butter".

@georgelynch how many words or how many unique combinations you can make? If it's words that seems crazy... the other is just an exercise of recursion which is tough enough doing without pressure