[HN Gopher] Interview success can depend on how you schedule int...
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Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews
Author : tanayagrawal19
Score : 101 points
Date : 2021-12-07 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tanayagrawal.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tanayagrawal.substack.com)
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| The biggest one that I always forget: don't schedule somewhere
| you really care about first. I make this mistake when I look
| because it's the place i'm really interested in that convinces me
| to start looking in the first place. But then I'm super rusty and
| do worse than everywhere else.
| version_five wrote:
| Yes this is very important. If possible (and people have
| already said this is hard), having an interview you don't care
| about shortly before one you do care about is a great way to
| warm up. Especially if it's been a while. Some time ago, I
| switched careers and did a bunch of temporally close
| interviews. Once I got going, overall I was performing as good
| as I could, because I'd lost a lot of the anxiety and was
| practiced and comfortable. Now, if I do a one-of, I'm nervous,
| and I'm trying to explain myself out loud for the first time,
| it comes out much worse.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The #1 Rule of Thumb I've read and used is: try to be as close to
| last as possible. The point being, you want to be fresh in their
| minds. Going early is not the way to do that.
| chrisBob wrote:
| Some places are interviewing for a single open role, conduct
| all interviews and then make a decision from that candidate
| pool. Being towards the end might be an advantage in that case.
|
| Other places open up several new roles, and conduct rolling
| interviews until all are filled. In this case I would rather
| get in early and compete for one of N positions instead of
| competing for the final one. With several similar roles open
| they could also decide which fits you the best and make the
| offer based on that. When there is only one junior position
| still open, that might be the only option.
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| This!
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Well, yeah. It works for A role. It wouldn't make sense to
| wait too long if there was a bunch. That said, at some point
| there's a decision to be made. The older their memory of you
| at that point, the more forgettable you are.
| mushufasa wrote:
| Batching is especially helpful when raising money from investors,
| to put together a competitive deal.
| sombremesa wrote:
| Just an FYI, this is written by a PM, likely in reference to PM
| interviews.
| duxup wrote:
| The author and others must be much more in demand than I am.
|
| I don't find that I get to dictate interview scheduling a great
| deal. But then again I haven't interviewed in a while.
| daxfohl wrote:
| I disagree with not scheduling before holidays. If I like a
| candidate I'm not going to forget about that just because of a
| holiday.
|
| The first person that makes a good impression almost always has
| an advantage IMO. The hiring manager will remember that person,
| and human psychology makes your memory of that interview better
| than it actually was. So for someone to unseat you they have to
| do significantly better. (And obviously the reverse goes if you
| are among the last to interview). I think recency bias would only
| into play if the first couple successful candidates reject their
| offers or something.
|
| Most important is to get your resume in early though. After
| spending that first weekend with the mind-numbing task of sifting
| through hundreds of resumes, a hiring manager is only going to
| look at new ones if absolutely nothing works out from the first
| batch.
| lnanek2 wrote:
| As an American, I totally feel the same. But working with some
| of my European counterparts, they can just totally disappear
| for a month or two when they vacation, like into a black hole.
| They just take vacations more seriously. If one of them was a
| decider for a hiring decision, we definitely wouldn't hear back
| from them until after. Not anything good or bad about it, it's
| just a different culture.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| On a tangent, I'm an American and I disappear for a month
| when I take vacation. It probably has something to do with
| the fact that I was born in Europe or with getting tired of
| half-assing vacations and getting burned out. I'd like for
| 'black hole' vacations to be normalized in the American
| workplace. I'm doing my part!
| conductr wrote:
| I'm an American and do this too. Also, I don't take work
| home. I leave my laptop at work. It's a signal I do on
| purpose and I regularly talk about my life balance
| priorities. I don't mind working long hours during projects
| or busy times but I like to keep it in the office. So long
| as it's infrequent, couple times a year, something may
| totally blow up and I'll just go into the office on the
| weekend. If I'm out of town or not physically able to make
| it, well that means I can't physically pull out my laptop
| and dive into my work regardless of my location. I consider
| that a "not my problem" situation. I've found, if you give
| in to the instant responsiveness and availability, it
| becomes expectation. I'm mid-career and have done that, but
| at this point I go into jobs setting my terms and don't
| mind telling a C level or BOD member they can wait until I
| get back in the office. I don't even do that usually
| because I just don't respond outside of regular hours. It's
| not for everyone, and I may someday alter this, but I find
| it suites me at the moment. I have a young child and I'm
| not jumping on calls/emails/texting during our already
| limited time together. It works just fine but if I were to
| do this at a junior level it would have been career
| suicide. My experience is what has given me the leverage to
| demand my work style.
| daxfohl wrote:
| I'd imagine if a hiring manager is doing that though, they'd
| not schedule interviews straddling the gap.
|
| The whole article is kind of weird though. The interviewee
| doesn't really have that much flexibility in scheduling
| interviews. Unless it's for a company with centralized
| recruiting that's always hiring, in which case when you
| schedule makes no difference at all.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| Great ideas, they don't work.
|
| 1. Mornings only is impossible because a lot of interviewer
| availability is in the afternoon since for a lot of them, it's an
| unproductive task
|
| 2. Batching sounds good, but doesn't work because different
| companies move at different paces and you almost always can't
| batch them. You'd be lucky if you could batch 2 onsites back to
| back.
|
| 3. You may not be able to batch subsequent rounds together
| because you sometimes may not hear back on time
|
| 4. Most important of all, none of this takes into account that
| you already may be working a demanding job that you cant take
| time off from that easily
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| It's much more important to learn how to sell yourself with
| honesty and integrity than to follow these tips. Nobody else
| can do it for you.
| [deleted]
| ysavir wrote:
| What about these tips lack honesty or integrity?
| lief79 wrote:
| Nothing, he's just suggesting that as a different, higher
| priority.
| hooloovoo_zoo wrote:
| I wouldn't take 1 too seriously anyway. There's some evidence
| for instance that judges are harsher before lunch
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect.
| coffee wrote:
| Great thinking on this one!
|
| The problem is...that we _need_ this level of creative thinking
| in the first place.
|
| We need hacks like this so that we can make it through a
| completely broken industries interviewing process.
| wppick wrote:
| An interview is decided in the first several seconds. First
| impressions are a real thing. Most interviewers will decide based
| on how you look, act, and talk whether you are going to pass the
| interview, and they will confirmation bias you into their
| predetermined decision. Of course with an amazing interview
| performance you can switch a predetermined no into a yes, and
| with a very poor interview you can turn a predetermined yes into
| a no. Why do you think the first question most interviewers ask
| is something vague and useless like "tell me about yourself"?
| That question is the real interview.
|
| There is also the reality that when companies need to fill a
| role, and when first start interviewing they will set the bar way
| too high and reject some perfectly qualified candidates. After
| the interview process has dragged on for some time they will
| eventually decide that enough is enough and will hire the next
| candidate that shows basic competence (or just hire someone's
| friend).
|
| BTW, one solution to this I recall being suggested by Eric
| Schmidt is to use a hiring committee among other things
| bawolff wrote:
| > Why do you think the first question most interviewers ask is
| something vague and useless like "tell me about yourself"?
|
| Because people are anxious in interviews, and a lot (but not
| all) people calm down a bit if you give them a few minutes to
| talk about themselves.
|
| [To be clear: Not disagreeing with your main point]
| nemo44x wrote:
| > An interview is decided in the first several seconds.
|
| I've hired hundreds of people and this is just not true. A
| first impression matters a bit, sure - but it has hardly any
| effect on the decision.
|
| > There is also the reality that when companies need to fill a
| role, and when first start interviewing they will set the bar
| way too high and reject some perfectly qualified candidates
|
| This is a very poor hiring practice. You should what you're
| looking for and what you are willing to pay for it. And then
| you should recruit a candidate pool that meets this criteria
| and go from there.
|
| Hiring is literally the most important job a manager has in any
| fast growing company. It should be taken very seriously and
| systematically.
| wppick wrote:
| > I've hired hundreds of people and this is just not true. A
| first impression matters a bit, sure - but it has hardly any
| effect on the decision.
|
| The thing about confirmation biases are that they are at the
| subconscious level and you likely wouldn't be able to detect
| them. It's possible that you have an impartial and immune to
| confirmation bias interview process, but it's also possible
| that you are indeed deciding (skewing) most of your
| interviews in the first several seconds.
|
| > Hiring is literally the most important job a manager has in
| any fast growing company. It should be taken very seriously
| and systematically
|
| I agree. Which is why, if it is found that hiring committees
| are more effective, and your company isn't using them, then
| are you taking them seriously? The same with bonuses and
| promotions. These should not be decided by a single person
| (manager).
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Certainly both phenomena you describe are real, but we do try
| to keep them in check, especially because 'first impression' is
| heavily influenced by class, sex, race, physical appearance,
| nationality, etc.
| foobarian wrote:
| I don't know what line of work you are in, but this is
| decidedly not true in mine. It's skewed toward candidates
| making an excellent first impression but then failing, instead
| of the other way around.
| wppick wrote:
| I can't find the original article that discussed the
| confirmation bias effect, but this one is close:
| https://www.plum.io/blog/the-issue-with-the-interview-
| confir...
| foobarian wrote:
| Gotcha. I think I was mostly objecting to the first several
| words of your comment saying an interview is decided in the
| first several seconds :-)
|
| I'm familiar with that feeling though. I've had several
| interviews where I really (subjectively) liked the
| candidate, and really wanted them to succeed - but having a
| prepared interview plan ended up doing its job and helped
| determine that the candidate was not a good match for the
| role.
| roland35 wrote:
| I am pretty heavily involved with interviewing and here is my
| take for what it's worth:
|
| - Yes try to schedule ASAP, although it gets so complicated
| lining up availability I don't think it is possible to aim for
| mornings vs afternoons.
|
| - Try to read between the lines in the job listing. How does it
| align with the company's goals/growth? What aspects seem
| important? Try to focus on that. Example: I noticed company ABC
| is hiring a few hardware engineers for the first time. I would
| highlight how I can work independantly and my skills in building
| a new hardware team
|
| - Be enthusiastic about things besides the tech stack. I am
| surprised how many people I interview who don't seem to care much
| about the job beyond if we use Java vs Python.
|
| - Just be yourself...
| elevanation wrote:
| While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and
| applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a
| better ROI in my opinion.
|
| If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember
| you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their
| colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire
| them."
|
| Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to
| worry about such micro-optimisations.
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| Absolutely agree!
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Can you recommend how to go about this? It's the first i've
| heard of this strategy, and interviews are a big fear of mine.
| I would have assumed most of these "pay for feedback" things to
| be scams in one way or another. Thoughts?
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Don't pay for feedback. Do some mock interviews with friend
| and family and ask them for feedback
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I have a side-business providing mock tech interviews with
| unlimited time for feedback. Contact me if you are interested
| (including "why is this random guy on HN qualified to provide
| this kind of service")
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > If you're amazing at interviews... Accomplish that special
| human ability
|
| "It's easy, you just..."
|
| Most of us are not amazing at interviews so telling people to
| be amazing at interviews isn't too helpful. Interview feedback
| tends to be pretty sparse. Often you don't hear anything back
| unless you got the job. Even if you do get a "no" response it
| will be light on details (and it's usually this way due to
| legal concerns). It's difficult to improve a skill when there's
| little or no feedback and what feedback you do get is vague.
| wpietri wrote:
| For sure.
|
| And I also am not sure I want to work at a place where being
| really good at interview skills is what gets people jobs. The
| correlation between "interviews well" and "collaborative,
| productive coworker" isn't very strong.
| Kranar wrote:
| Definitely has not been my experience. People who interview
| well are generally excellent communicators and
| communication is of utmost importance when working with a
| team.
| Zancarius wrote:
| This was my thought as well.
|
| Also, generally being likeable makes a positive impact on
| people. Teams would much rather someone they feel they
| can work well with than someone who is going to be a
| total stick in the mud and drag everyone down.
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| Are you implying there is a negative correlation or no
| correlation?
|
| Unfortunately "being good at interviews" is generally what
| gets people jobs everywhere, so I'm not sure what point
| you're making to begin with.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| How are you determining your lack of correlation ? Is there
| data on this somewhere?
|
| Because I would assume that people who study and prepare
| for the interview are more likely to be studious and
| prepared in other aspects of life, including their
| workplace.
| wpietri wrote:
| I have worked with a number of people who are really good
| at interviewing and then continue to focus on impressing
| important people and climbing ladders, but without being
| particularly skilled and/or particularly collaborative.
|
| I have also worked with a number of people who are quite
| bad at interviewing but were excellent colleagues: highly
| collaborative and technically excellent.
|
| When I create hiring processes, it's the latter people I
| try to select for. So assorted coworkers aside, the data
| I have come from those hiring processes. The glibbest and
| most charming people often do poorly in the pair
| programming portion; the most awkward often settle down
| into doing excellent work once you get them in a familiar
| context.
|
| Some people are great at both, of course, and some people
| are bad at both. Which should be unsurprising given the
| number of people recommending a focus on developing
| interview skills. The whole idea requires that job skill
| and interview skill are not well correlated.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| If you wanted to learn to play the piano, how would you do
| it? You'd get lessons, or watch videos, or read a book. You'd
| definitely practice. Treat interviewing the same way.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| Millions of people do exactly that and are not 'amazing' at
| playing the piano.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| So put a lot of effort into something that you hopefully
| won't have to do very often. I think that's the objection
| that a lot of us have and why there's a feeling that
| there's too much emphasis on the interview. I can practice
| interviewing or I can spend that time learning more about
| algorithms, math, programming languages, machine learning,
| etc. It seems like the latter is ultimately time better
| spent.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I agree, practice is key. Interviewing is a skill, sure
| some people are good at it, and that's great for them.
|
| I am not good at interviewing. I have very little
| confidence when interviewing, and I get super nervous. I
| get better when I warm up, towards the end of the
| interview. The only way I do better is when I practice a
| lot, keep a schedule, exercise before the interview, and
| usually I need a job-support group to help. It's an effort.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| You might have missed him starting off his comment with
| actionable advice.
|
| > getting and applying professional feedback for one's
| interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Their actionable advice is in the sentence before that.
| You're quoting a supporting motivation and treating it like
| the thesis.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| They're actionable advice was:
|
| "getting and applying professional feedback for one's
| interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion."
|
| And I specifically addressed that: it's difficult to get
| any actionable interview feedback because companies tend
| not to supply much (if any) useful interview feedback
| probably due to legal concerns.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| I don't think he was suggesting getting professional
| feedback from the place that just rejected you.
|
| I think he was suggesting getting feedback from doing
| mock interviews with friends or interview specialists.
| strikelaserclaw wrote:
| The whole point of micro optimizations is to show interviewers
| your "best", if i did leetcode type problems after i eat lunch,
| i'm slow and my brain is foggy.
| mojuba wrote:
| Came to say the same thing. As a candidate you really don't
| control internal processes and I don't believe you can
| influence the scheduling much. If they like you (and you like
| them), everything will happen fast.
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| I so wish this to be true! But it is not always the case. You
| as a candidate can power through the interviews(scheduling),
| get ahead of the line, and indeed influence decision making.
| bgibbons wrote:
| I think this is true to a certain point as it provides
| signal for high enthusiasm for a given role - huge plus if
| you meet all the other weightier requirements.
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| Agreed
| zebnyc wrote:
| I have a few as well:
|
| - You will face rejection (likely a lot). Don't take this
| personally and don't let it affect your confidence.
|
| - Unless you are an outstanding interviewee, this is like a
| skill/muscle which you need to develop and practice. Hence ensure
| that you don't schedule your "dream job/company" early in the
| process. Keep practicing.
|
| - Always have a beginner / practice mindset. Otherwise, you will
| accept the first (suboptimal) offer that you get as you will hate
| the interview rigmarole. Interviewing is annoying / painful.
| Accept it and work through it.
|
| - Keep applying and talking to companies even after you have
| started negotiations. There have been companies which have told
| me that another candidate accepted before me( and hence the
| position is no longer available) even when they have "granted me
| time" to make my decision. Similarly companies rescind offers.
|
| - Blowing hot(too many interviews in a short while) and cold (no
| interviews / interviews for a while) can be debilitating to your
| confidence. Hence ensure that you have a pipeline of interviews
| so you are talking to at least 1 company a week.
|
| - Take notes and reflect on your performance in each interview
| and how you can do better.
| jbluepolarbear wrote:
| I've interviewed many candidates and I've interviewed many
| times myself. Having good conversation skills is the single
| biggest influence on whether a candidate proceeds or not.
|
| Talking is a skill and that really stands out against other
| candidates.
|
| When I'm interviewing, I'll usually choose a stronger
| communicator over a stronger engineer.
| colmvp wrote:
| Isn't that kind of odd? I've worked with software engineers
| who are good talkers but their code and problem solving
| skills leave something to be desired. Meanwhile, I've worked
| with guys who took a while to get comfortable with in terms
| of having conversations and yet they were some of the most
| productive members of the team both in code output and skill.
|
| Ultimately, most of the time I 'talk' with my team members,
| we're actually writing which is very different from talking
| due to the async nature of the former.
| misterbwong wrote:
| You're right to point out the difference between
| conversational and writing skills. However, generally
| engineers tend to overvalue technical skills and undervalue
| soft skills.
|
| IMO engineering orgs tend to set the bar really high for
| tech skills and really low for communication skills. Tech
| skills are easier to test and they feel more "objective" so
| they get more focus.
| google234123 wrote:
| It might be reflecting the fact that it's easier to talk
| about something if you know it well.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > You will face rejection (likely a lot).
|
| It's very important to realize this. Maybe you feel you nailed
| it and everyone really liked you but you still didn't get the
| job. Well, there's other candidates in the pool too and there's
| a chance one of them was amazing too and you lost the
| proverbial "coin toss".
|
| There's also a chance you were always the backup option - it
| happens.
|
| Lastly, don't give up on the role. I've seen numerous instances
| where an offer went out and was accepted and then a week later
| the person backed out because their existing employer gave them
| a huge package to stay on. It happens. You might get the call
| then after being rejected.
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| This is super valuable! Thank you for sharing :)
| xivzgrev wrote:
| "Keep applying and talking to companies even after you have
| started negotiations"
|
| YES. Do not stop until your first day (half kidding). One time
| I stopped interviewing after accepting an offer...only to find
| out there were rounds of reference checks (and one of them
| didn't go well). It was 2-3 weeks of anxious bullshit, but only
| because I already turned down everything else that was in
| motion.
|
| Who knows maybe a second company will come through with a
| better offer.
| neosat wrote:
| While interview success "can" depend on these, along with 100s of
| other factors, these are most likely _not_ the principal
| contributing factors to interview success on average. So, sure,
| if you 've got the principal factors figured out, optimize to
| this level, but if not, your energy will be far better spent
| elsewhere (e.g. understanding the most likely asked questions for
| a company, and the framework they evaluate on, ensuring you're
| communicating well (verbal & non-verbal) )
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| 100%
| hdesh wrote:
| > Schedule subsequent interview rounds close to each other
|
| Pre-covid, if you were not from the bay area, this happened
| naturally. You just tell the companies that you are traveling in
| the bay area in a given time frame and would like to schedule
| your interviews in that period. Not sure if post-covid it has
| become simpler.
| tanayagrawal19 wrote:
| Ah, I see! I guess this is more relevant to covid/post-covid
| times then due to the virtual nature of interviews. I did all
| my interviewing in the second half of 2020, and I had majority
| of interviews taking 3-4 weeks, which was a lot! I was even
| rejected a couple of times as the company just hired someone
| else and I hadn't even finished my interviews :/
| slg wrote:
| Doesn't the first rule conflict with all the other rules?
|
| Rule 1: get through the process as quickly as possible.
|
| Rule 2-5: slow down the process by putting these specific
| restrictions on when to schedule your interviews.
| lordnacho wrote:
| It's pretty tough to follow these rules. Mornings only gives you
| half the time. All rounds at once and as soon as possible would
| also mean you got in touch with all the recruiters at once and
| they got back to you promptly.
|
| In practice you more likely to see a steady drip as you ramp up
| your search. Some recruiters get back fast, some slowly. There's
| no real way you can control this other than giving some feedback
| as you progress so that firms that you like will hurry up a bit
| and firms that are your backup can be held a bit.
| jacurtis wrote:
| Yes these ideas are all certainly valid concepts about
| interviewing. But it would be nearly impossible to optimize for
| all of them.
|
| Furthermore, some really are impossible. For example #2 is to
| schedule interviews in cohorts. I tried to follow this in my
| most recent job hunt and it is truly impossible. The problem is
| that some jobs I would go through a phone screen and hear back
| later that day or the next morning in order to schedule another
| interview. Some companies will wait a week to get back to you.
| Others are 3-4 days. As just one example, I interviewed with a
| large tech company and they were the first ones to actually
| offer me an initial interview. I went through 3 stages of
| interviews with them and had the 4th stage scheduled when I
| canceled because i had already received multiple job offers
| from other companies, which I had applied to several weeks
| after them.
|
| In tech a lot of these are easier because you have a lot more
| power over the interview process if your job skill is one of
| the in-demand ones. In my interview process I really could bend
| most of the companies to meet my needs and to move faster than
| they planned for. But that is a fortunate position to be in. I
| am watching my sister go through job interviews right now for
| HR related jobs and the process is completely different. I was
| going through a 3-4 stage interview process in 1.5-2 weeks. My
| sister was waiting 2-3 weeks between individual interview
| stages. In my interviews I could tell people that I want to
| accept an offer in 2 weeks, so they need to speed up and they
| would do it for me. If my sister said that in her HR
| interviews, they would simply disqualify her.
|
| So count your blessings if you are in tech. Sure, we get to
| complain about take-home interview projects and technical
| interviews. But we can get jobs within weeks (or even a week)
| that pay 2-4 times what other people are getting after months-
| long interview processes. So consider ourselves fortunate.
| MarketingJason wrote:
| > You should avoid scheduling interviews post-lunch
|
| Interesting opinion when weighed against studies like PNAS'
| famous parole decision study that found morning and right after
| lunch were the most favorable rulings:
| https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889
| hyperpape wrote:
| It seems unlikely that this study reflects the effects of
| hunger: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701328.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| No, hunger is an important cause of the result. The
| anticipated effects of hunger are the reason that open-and-
| shut cases are scheduled right before lunch.
|
| The problem is that the researchers were eager to conclude
| that hunger can influence case outcomes, and unable to
| consider the possibility that hunger can influence case
| scheduling.
| wppick wrote:
| Schedule it right before lunch and finish early. The
| interviewer will have a positive imprint of you in their lizard
| brain since you gave them earlier access to their food. Plus
| your interview will be followed up with the dopamine and please
| of their meal/break, which might boost their memory of you as
| well.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| this is exactly opposite of what you should do, if the study
| is to be believed:
|
| "They found that the likelihood of a favourable ruling peaked
| at the beginning of the day, steadily declining over time
| from a probability of about 65% to nearly zero, before
| spiking back up to about 65% after a break for a meal or
| snack."
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