I had strong core java resume with multi threading and the position i was applying demanded the same. Phone interview was the typical set of questions - - Implementation of HashMap - concepts of Heaps and Stacks - SingleTon Pattern and decorator pattern - basic threading concepts The face to face round was a two round interview . The first round was a rapid fire round - both on technicals - - steps to publish messages to a JMS - steps to execute a sql statement - was made to implement a linkedList DS. Second round was by a different person, more on the slower lines. I was asked to implement ReadWriteLocks using pre java 5 knowledge. I never had seen the implementation earlier. The interviewer was patient and with a couple of hints , i managed to write code for it eventhough i have taken some 10 - 15 mins for that THe next was - Given a binary tree, i was asked to check if its ordered or not. By now, i was completely exhausted ( i travelled all the way from Jersey city to stamford and taken a telephonic interview of another company on the way) and entered into a deadlock state. Interviewer tried to hint me , but of no avail. Later i was sent back without any hint. 4 days later, i get a call from my staffing agency, that they want me onboard.