[HN Gopher] How to pass a first-round interview
___________________________________________________________________
How to pass a first-round interview
Author : jger15
Score : 150 points
Date : 2023-07-04 13:04 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lennysnewsletter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lennysnewsletter.com)
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| I like the writing on this article a lot more than I thought I
| would, some of the advice is sound - but the big caveat is most
| of this has nothing to do with a first round interview. What the
| author describes here are pieces that will come up in a typical
| interview process somewhere, but probably not a first round.
|
| First round to me is typically a "bozo filter" - screen out
| individuals who are clearly unqualified or who are an obvious bad
| fit.
|
| Any decent dev should get past round 1 without significant prep.
| teucris wrote:
| The article calls this out, stating that they define the first
| round interview as the one after a phone screen/video screen.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| So it is like two screens before the "real" interview? Weird.
| Sounds like a very lengthy process!
| teucris wrote:
| Yep. Hiring is expensive.
| FabHK wrote:
| I think some companies send junior techies to do first round
| filtering (with easy coding questions), while others keep the
| HR folks busy doing first round filtering (with, well,
| behavioural etc. questions as outlined in the article).
| andrewingram wrote:
| I just want to figure out how to come up with a good answer for
| "Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a colleague."
| (used as an example in the post, but not in any detail). It seems
| to be the question that anecdotally is the biggest reason I'm not
| getting offers right now, so I'd welcome pointers.
|
| Where I'm at:
|
| * I don't really know what other people mean by "conflict", so I
| probably go for examples that are more charged than is necessary.
|
| * When _I_ hear "conflict", my head goes towards relationships
| with people who were widely problematic within the business (i.e
| I wasn't the only one who had difficulty with them), and more
| often than not, they eventually got fired or manage out -- so the
| conflict often resolved itself based on external factors.
|
| * Minor disagreements, ie differing opinions on how to approach a
| problem, aren't conflicts in my mind. Because they had no long-
| term emotional impact on me, I don't tend to remember these well
| enough to spin a story or discuss particular conflict-navigation
| techniques or outcomes.
|
| * I have one example where a CEO got an employee to do something
| unethical (and possibly illegal, not sure), and I challenged them
| on it. But this was kind of a no-win situation for me, I said my
| piece, he heard me, the particular instance was stopped, but I'm
| told he's still doing similar things today (I'm no longer at the
| company).
| 20after4 wrote:
| I'm with you on this.
|
| I've even been told that my lack of a good answer to this
| question was the only negative mark on one of the interviews
| for a job that I eventually was hired for.
|
| My honest answer is that I don't generally have conflicts at
| work. I get along with people and generally handle
| disagreements easily. I haven't worked in an environment that
| was rife with conflicts, maybe I'm just lucky or maybe my
| definition of conflict is different than others.
| blindriver wrote:
| "I'm really good at predicting potential areas of conflict
| with my coworkers so I make sure to address them head-on
| before they turn into something much bigger. This is why I've
| managed to avoid any major sources of conflict so far (knock
| on wood). An example of this was..."
| teucris wrote:
| If the question feels unclear to you, that's an excellent
| opportunity to ask clarifying questions, e.g. "Sure, but what
| do you mean by 'conflict'? Do you mean a disagreement on how to
| solve a problem, or an interpersonal conflict?"
|
| When I ask a question like this I mean a disagreement, and I'd
| imagine that's what most interviewers mean too. So I recommend
| you continue to search for a situation you can recall in
| detail.
|
| If the answer is that they're looking for interpersonal
| conflict, you should use a situation where you took effort to
| work past it with the person for the good of the
| mission/company. Your last story could work if framed that way
| but it lacks a moment where you found a way to move forward
| with this person.
| kaimac wrote:
| > So I recommend you continue to search for a situation you
| can recall in detail.
|
| Or just make one up. Ask silly questions, get silly answers.
| arandr0x wrote:
| I'm a manager whose definition of conflict mostly matches
| yours, so here's how I handle it (as an interviewee) and how to
| translate the "default behavioral interview question" to
| something you can answer:
|
| - the scope of the question is usually "how do you reconcile
| your worldview, desires, and best interest with someone
| else's". When answering, I tend to first clarify to the
| interview that "conflict" is a word that has intense
| connotations for me, and then ask "Are you asking about a time
| I had to negotiate with a person that was coming from a
| different point of view or background, or about how I handled
| an emotionally charged situation?" (As a manager, it is more
| common that I do get asked about emotionally charged
| situations, which also take skills to defuse, just different
| ones.)
|
| - At least for me, I often think of non-emotionally-charged
| disagreements as negotiations; there are absolutely negotiation
| skills to be used to resolve disagreements efficiently and
| effectively, and if you can't think of any, it may be something
| for you to practice. Do you often get what you want? When you
| do, is it mutually beneficial? How does that course of action
| happen?
|
| - Sometimes you can sidestep the question and showcase better
| conflict resolution skills by thinking of a time you arbitraged
| a conflict between two other parties. Describe how you dealt
| with each party. Did you feel you were unbiased? If you were
| initially more on the side of one party, how did you set that
| aside to listen to the other person?
|
| - Don't mention abuses of power (by you or the other party) in
| a conflict resolution question. Also don't mention conflicts
| that are primarily personal - the origin of the disagreement
| should be about work, not tone, physical threats, intimate
| history, etc.
|
| - If you do have a story about building a working relationship
| with a known problematic person, so that your work with that
| person yielded good results and you didn't fall into the trap
| of a bad personal relationship with them, you can mention what
| you did to get there. E.g. "X was widely known for his temper
| and would often yell during code reviews. Although this caused
| problems with all his teams, and he doesn't work there anymore
| today, I always got civil, useful code reviews from X by
| sending him my points in writing in advance, and expressing
| that I valued his feedback which was why I wanted a trace of
| it."
| srhtftw wrote:
| If someone asks me this I tell them about the time when I was
| working late and another engineer who happened to work a few
| desks away from mine broke our unit tests and tried to pressure
| me into committing a quick patch to fix them without testing it
| first so they wouldn't be late to a movie.
|
| I explained I was new to the group, had no special
| understanding of the code they changed or the tests that failed
| and wasn't about to deviate from SDLC principles when there
| wasn't a compelling need. In my view committing an untested
| change was what caused the trouble in the first place and I had
| no confidence that the fix they wanted me to commit would make
| things better. I suggested that they simply revert their change
| and come back to it later when they had time.
|
| This only made the other person more irritated. They raised
| their voice and continued to demand I do what they suggested
| and I continued to politely explain that while I was willing to
| help them work through the problem, review their code, examine
| the data or follow any appropriately documented procedure, I
| wasn't willing to violate proper engineering principles this
| way. Their shouting started attracting some unwanted attention
| and they decided to just pack up and leave. Later that evening
| another engineer reverted their change and everything was fine
| again.
|
| My manager asked me how I felt about the incident the next day.
| I said that although their behavior was irritating, I didn't
| hold it against them. Even the best of people make mistakes
| when desperate or rushed. Their mind just wasn't in the right
| place at that time. They really just needed to get away for a
| bit. What matters is that we move on, try our best to treat
| each other with respect and remember that we're all part of the
| same team.
| jghn wrote:
| Assuming they're not just reading it from a checklist & tuning
| out when you start talking - they're looking for a story where
| you had a problematic relationship with a coworker or
| coworkers, but managed to make it work. Ideally over a longer
| period of time, and not "Bob stole my lunch out of the fridge
| one day". For reasons similar to what you said I've found a lot
| of people don't have very good stories along these lines, and
| because of that this question is less useful than people like
| to think. And on top of that, most candidates are terrified of
| saying anything that makes them look like the ahole in those
| situations. So if their answer sounds pretty milquetoast who is
| to say if they're being careful or just don't have good
| stories.
|
| I have a story I use now. It involved a coworker with whom I
| had an oil vs water relationship for a couple of years. In
| retrospect I could have gone about it all a lot better than I
| did in the moment, although that was true for both of us. I
| don't have the perfect "And then I solved everything" punchline
| to my story, they were eventually let go. But, my journey
| during it all was critical to my own development. And that
| started me down a leadership path, changing the course of my
| career. So I talk about my lessons learned, things I wish I'd
| have done differently in retrospect, etc. I'm not painting a
| perfect picture of myself, but I do display introspection,
| personal development, willingness to take different approaches
| to resolve an issue, etc.
| andrewingram wrote:
| The oil vs water thing resonates. Given that tenures are
| relatively short these days (1-2 years), it's pretty easy to
| just wait it out -- especially if the other person has issues
| with other people too.
|
| I do feel like too many of my examples (for this whole class
| of questions) are times I could've handled better (though I
| didn't handle them catastrophically by any means), that
| ultimately shaped how I think about such things going
| forwards (after a fair amount of introspection)). But I often
| seem to lack the examples of a subsequent situation where I
| put that into practice (pandemic meant I basically took a
| holding-pattern role for a couple of years).
|
| One would think that introspection, recognition of ones own
| mistakes and being receptive to feedback would be a massive
| pro; but lately that hasn't been my experience when
| interviewing.
| why-el wrote:
| I've been asked this numerous times, and similar questions.
| Most of these questions boil down to "are you, the interviewee
| we are about to give a job to, a crazy person". Most likely you
| are not, so find some plausible scenarios, like a missed
| deadline, scope creep, or any of the normal shit that happens
| to us, humanize the other in the story, state the resolution
| (or what you changed in process), the end.
| blindriver wrote:
| Conflict means disagreement. They want to be able to see that
| you can disagree with someone or handle conflict with someone
| but not make it personal and move on professionally.
|
| So you disagreed over something technical, like architecture.
| You show they you can handle conflict by not taking it
| personally, but involving other people on the team, and
| regardless of whether or not the outcome is in your favor, you
| thrash it out once and then stick to it.
| bradlys wrote:
| First "round" interviews are so often done by recruiters that
| it's basically a joke to pass them. I always call them screeners
| and "are you a serial killer" calls. Unless you say something
| that goes against the typical grain of what these calls should
| have (e.g. speaking poorly about a company, saying you were
| fired, clear anti-social behavior even if minor, you have niche
| demands that _no one_ will fill, etc...) then you'll pass them
| easily.
|
| The first call is always about seeing if you even know that
| there's a good amount of acting going on from both sides. You
| play your part and you'll get to the technical interviews. People
| have a lower threshold for acting as you progress in the
| interviews and you can say more things that clearly aren't good
| to say. (I.e. anything that demonstrates you don't tolerate
| bullshit)
|
| No one is complaining about this round of interviewing because
| it's not a real issue or obstacle for anyone.
| nicoburns wrote:
| That was my experience every other time I've applied to a job
| in the last 10 years, but not during my recent job search. I
| got a number of rejections from 5 minute first round interviews
| for no obvious reason. Whereas once I got to a "proper"
| interview it was plain sailing. I think companies are getting a
| lot more applications than they were and are having to put a
| stronger filter in the first rounds than was the previous norm.
| swader999 wrote:
| We had reception (basically someone random) do the first phone
| screen interviews at my last company.
| EForEndeavour wrote:
| This reminds me: what's the interview approach when someone
| _was_ fired from their previous job? Just lie because
| disclosing that information will very likely disqualify you?
| bradlys wrote:
| Yep. Lie. It's what I do every time.
|
| I've continued to get new jobs and ones that were better than
| previous.
| vba616 wrote:
| Don't lie. Don't act/feel guilty. Embrace (in your head, in
| preparation) the reasons you had to leave as though they were
| your own. Only talk about the aspects of leaving your job
| that you have in common with a voluntary resignation on your
| own initiative.
|
| If you were hiring someone, think about what you would want,
| and what you want to know. _Anything_ negative in someone 's
| past, you do not really _care_ about it, you just care they
| are past it and it won 't have negative future consequences.
|
| Avoiding the negative aspects of your past is not a matter of
| deception, but of proving that you are emotionally ready to
| move on.
|
| On a written job application, which in my experience comes at
| the end after they think they want you, be honest, but read
| it like a lawyer and make sure you don't disclose anything
| that you don't have to.
| blakblakarak wrote:
| I've been fired from a job - it's glaring obvious from my CV
| - I'm just honest, tell then how I learnt from my error and
| how I believe it makes me a better dev having reeeealy messed
| up that one time. If a company doesn't want to hire me after
| for that reason it's not a company I'd want to work for
| anyway.
| vba616 wrote:
| People could be on different wavelengths.
|
| When I read "fired", I don't immediately think of "forgot a
| WHERE clause when deleting from a production database
| table". That happens, but I don't think I've actually seen
| anyone fired for it.
|
| I think of it more like "you just gradually found you
| couldn't do the job, didn't meet performance standards,
| etc". In that case, the usually bland stuff about how the
| position wasn't a good fit but this one is seems to me like
| the way to go.
|
| And "CV" suggests to me a non-American or an American
| academic - whereas some people in this thread may be in the
| SF bay area (although I'm not).
| blakblakarak wrote:
| I'm English and it was a balls up that cost the company
| six or maybe seven figures. I actually left on good terms
| (at least with the team) but they needed a sacrificial
| lamb for the board.
| lisasays wrote:
| So if, heaven forbid, someone ever does get fired - which of
| the two remaining options do you propose is best: (1) commit
| suicide, or (2) lie in response to the "have you ever been
| fired" question?
|
| Since answering honestly is aparently a deal-breaker in your
| book.
| bradlys wrote:
| Yeah, lie. No shit. You think companies aren't lying?
|
| Lying is part of the theater that is our current employer-
| employee relationship. Everyone knows this
| lisasays wrote:
| Everyone "knows" this but it generally applies to more
| nuanced categories. For example, about liking your boss's
| jokes, believing in "Agile", etc.
|
| But in regard to, you know, important stuff, such as
| matters of one's employment record -- you know they have
| ways of checking up on what you say, and that any company
| worth working for does exactly that -- right?
| 20after4 wrote:
| So definitely don't give the boss that fired you as a
| reference that they might call to check up?
| lisasays wrote:
| Many employers make a point of checking the past 2-3
| places on your resume, regardless of whether they were
| listed as references or not.
|
| Also, not listing your most recent clients/managers as
| references (because why wouldn't they be glowingly
| positive?) can be seen as a red flag.
| bradlys wrote:
| Again, I've never had this issue and never has anyone I
| know. They don't call companies to ask if you were fired.
| They ask and tell you if you worked there and for what
| dates.
|
| Reason for leaving is never told.
| lisasays wrote:
| OK, so you're dodging the question, then.
|
| "What to do if they ask question X?"
|
| "Just lie, like everyone else does."
|
| "Except you know that won't work if in fact they do ask
| you question X, right?"
|
| "Doesn't matter, because they they won't ask you anyway."
|
| Weird.
|
| In any case it absolutely is standard practice for a
| significant portion of companies to go this route
| (especially in more traditional sectors). Even if it
| hasn't happened to you personally, or to people in your
| bubble world.
| bradlys wrote:
| This is HN - the bubble of Silicon Valley and venture
| capital. I can tell you with great certainty it is
| incredibly uncommon to encounter people in HR who will
| tell you the reason why X person left the company. In a
| region that is happy to do lawsuits - they don't bother.
| After all - it's no longer their issue. They'll just
| verify dates of employment and that's it.
| vba616 wrote:
| I made a comment here on what I think is the right approach:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36588394
| arandr0x wrote:
| There are also "legitimate" reasons to fail first round
| interviews, such as the recruiter picking your resume for a
| role that you are not actually qualified for (which the hiring
| manager notices after the interview), your salary expectations
| being too high for that specific company size/geography/role
| (usually a communications mismatch where they advertise a more
| senior role than they actually have), or it coming out that you
| are not legally allowed to work for them (they cannot sponsor
| visas; they don't hire in your country; they require
| citizenship; etc).
|
| All these cases are technically the company's fault, not the
| candidate's, but they do often come out right after the
| screening call.
| hedora wrote:
| The article claims that most first round interviews are
| behavioral questions / culture fit.
|
| That doesn't match any interview processes I've been involved
| with. If you are running an interview process for ICs (which this
| article clearly targets), you should put the highest signal
| questions first.
|
| That usually means a somewhat easy coding question. If people
| fail that, then you can immediately eliminate them from the
| pipeline. If they fail a hard coding question, you usually need
| more signal, which means more wasted time.
|
| If your culture fit / behavioral question is good at weeding out
| candidates, then there's probably something seriously wrong with
| your hiring practices. Sociology studies show that those
| questions are more correlated to drinking the same brand of
| alcohol or playing the same sports than they are to job
| performance.
|
| Other studies show that diversity significantly increases team
| performance, so filtering people on whether you'd like to hang
| out with them during the weekend is fraught with technical peril.
| zulban wrote:
| I'm really interested to see what studies you're talking about
| specifically, but I didn't put much value in your comment
| without it.
|
| I've had a ton of trouble finding good research on this.
|
| Studies have shown.
| FabHK wrote:
| > you should put the highest signal questions first. That
| usually means a somewhat easy coding question.
|
| While I agree with you, what do you make of the claim in the
| article (that I've seen elsewhere) that behavioural questions
| are x% more predictive of job performance than technical
| questions?
| grogenaut wrote:
| Depends on the job and the question.
|
| I had a candidate that didn't believe they were allowed to
| make decisions, just carry out edicts of "the leaders" even
| if terrible idea. They didn't believe they should ask
| questions to clarify or help structure the request. This
| person has worked at a higherarchial bank then a rule by fiat
| game studio.
|
| There's no way I could have used this person at our company.
| Didn't matter their tech chops. They would have been a
| disaster. In this case behavioral would have caught them.
|
| Instead I asked a tech question which they failed hard and
| started blaming the recruiter on for not knowing this was a
| tech position. I tried pivoting to behavioral and it went
| downhill from there.
|
| I had to try and save the interview by talking about games
| war stories for 45 minutes taking us over by 30 minutes. It
| was not great.
|
| But if I had caught it with behavioral I would still had to
| ask the tech question for fairness. So I'm not sure what
| would have helped.
| jahewson wrote:
| [flagged]
| abenga wrote:
| I would not care to work for a team where members flippantly
| disregard exclusion of significant subsections of the
| population from their ranks, for whatever excuse they design
| to choose. Either way. There are competent people of all
| colours, creeds, and classes, and if your company is not able
| to get any, there's something wrong with you.
| jahewson wrote:
| Indeed, at scale, a company that is significantly
| unrepresentative of the population from which it draws its
| employees surely has something wrong with it. That's
| basically what these studies show (flaws notwithstanding).
|
| But that's got nothing to do with individual teams (unless
| they're huge) which are far too small to exhibit
| population-level statistical behaviour. I see this claim
| repeated often but the sources always end up being these
| flimsy studies of company-wide public company reporting
| correlated with market performance.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Agree. Using market performance as the primary indicator
| of the success of failure of workplace attributes seems
| very suspect IMO.
|
| I can't believe how much stock I've seen out in studies
| that just boiled down to "1 year trial showed 4 day
| workweek didn't impact performance as measured by stock
| price." wat.
| oofta-boofta wrote:
| [dead]
| gdsdfe wrote:
| most of the first round I've done are just leet code ... also
| saying the market is terrible is an understatement, it's the
| worst I've seen in over a decade.
| speak_plainly wrote:
| It's sad this is the reality of hiring now. It's byzantine and
| wasteful and I'm surprised that companies are willing to burn
| money this way. There are great candidates who may not perform
| well in an interview and there are a lot of serious clowns that
| can waltz through this process. The questions being asked are not
| likely going to yield useful information and the whole thing
| seems designed by pick-up artists to neg candidates into
| accepting bad offers. Why stop at 6 interviews?
| m3affan wrote:
| But that's the reality. Doing good on an interview does not
| guarantee the ability to do the job
| zizee wrote:
| What is a better alternative?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Certifications should mean something, not be a sales channel
| for AWS
| hedora wrote:
| That sound terrible. Most jobs are for specialty positions,
| so you'd need 10,000's of different certifications tracks.
|
| A written engineering competency test (basically, an
| industry-standard set of whiteboard questions) sounds good,
| but, having hired credentialed-but-incompetent engineers
| from other fields, I can definitely say it helps a lot less
| than you'd think.
| speak_plainly wrote:
| Reading and assessing resumes and having a single interview
| with HR and the hiring manager or a panel. And this process
| should fit within the larger operational framework and
| processes of a company.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| Have you been involved in hiring software engineers much?
| FabHK wrote:
| How can 2 measurements (CV + 1 i/v) be better than 8
| measurements (CV + 7 i/vs, with different kind of
| questions, to boot)?
| speak_plainly wrote:
| This is a misplaced concreteness fallacy.
| tourist2d wrote:
| This is you deflecting a valid question.
| hedora wrote:
| I understand your sentiment, but, having been on the other side
| of the fence, there are a lot of people that apply for jobs
| they're completely unqualified for, and they end up being most
| of your candidate pool. (Come to think of it, this would make a
| decent whiteboard question about reservoir sampling without
| replacement...)
|
| Another way to think about it is that these interview processes
| often have a ~ 1% acceptance rate, and the softball questions
| typically filter 80-90% of candidates.
|
| So, yeah, it sucks for a qualified candidate if they fail half
| their interviews, but they'll end up getting a job somewhere.
| That's much better for them than working at a company where 99%
| of the engineers can't perform basic coding tasks or explain
| how products in their industry segment are designed.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| Uh, no. The answer is to:
|
| - Have marketable skills and experience
|
| - Market and communicate these effectively
|
| - Take many interviews because too many are arbitrary and some
| are terrible places you don't want to work
|
| - Aim to be fit, in good health and spirits, and presentable
|
| - Be honest
|
| In general, everything works out because the synchronicity of
| individuals and organizations is a self-selecting phenomenon.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > Aim to be fit, in good health
|
| Unless you're interviewing to be a personal trainer, this
| doesn't really have any relevancy.
|
| Like yes, be presentable, don't be a slob. But you don't have
| to be "fit" or "in good health" to land a job.
| ok123456 wrote:
| Physical fitness is a reflection of your discipline and a
| signal that you think clearly.
| vba616 wrote:
| You do not live in the same society as some of us.
|
| Below is a story about how insisting that a _fitness
| instructor_ look physically fit is unreasonable and
| sometimes illegal.
|
| The icing on the cake is that her day job is said to have
| been in tech, in SF.
|
| `` Jennifer Portnick, a 240-pound San Francisco aerobics
| instructor rejected by Jazzercise because of her size, has
| reached an agreement under which the firm will drop its
| requirement that instructors look fit.
|
| After weeks of mediation with the San Francisco Human
| Rights Commission, Jazzercise Inc., the world's biggest
| dance-fitness organization, agreed to change company
| policy.
|
| The case, which drew international attention, was the first
| to be settled under San Francisco's "fat and short" law, an
| ordinance barring discrimination on the basis of weight and
| height.
|
| "I'm absolutely thrilled with this outcome," said Portnick,
| 38, a computer systems training manager who works out six
| days a week and has sufficient stamina to lead back-to-back
| aerobics classes.
|
| "I'm lucky to live in San Francisco, where there's a law to
| protect people like me." ''
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/EXERCISING-HER-RIGHT-
| TO-...
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I know plenty of unfit people who think clearly. I know
| plenty of fit people that have no discipline.
|
| Do you have a scientific study that proves any of this
| without a doubt or are you just pushing your own biases and
| societal norms onto candidates?
| ok123456 wrote:
| Colcombe, S., & Kramer, A. F. (2003). Fitness effects on
| the cognitive function of older adults: A meta-analytic
| study. Psychological Science, 14(2), 125-130.
|
| Hillman, C. H., Erickson, K. I., & Kramer, A. F. (2008).
| Be smart, exercise your heart: Exercise effects on brain
| and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(1), 58-65.
|
| Erickson, K. I., et al. (2011). Exercise training
| increases size of hippocampus and improves memory.
| Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7),
| 3017-3022.
|
| Voss, M. W., et al. (2013). Plasticity of brain networks
| in a randomized intervention trial of exercise training
| in older adults. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 5, 32.
|
| Loprinzi, P. D. (2019). The effects of exercise on memory
| function among young to middle-aged adults: Systematic
| review and recommendations for future research. American
| Journal of Health Promotion, 33(6), 879-889.
|
| Northey, J. M., et al. (2018). Exercise interventions for
| cognitive function in adults older than 50: A systematic
| review with meta-analysis. British Journal of Sports
| Medicine, 52(3), 154-160.
|
| Roig, M., et al. (2013). The effects of cardiovascular
| exercise on human memory: A review with meta-analysis.
| Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(8), 1645-1666.
|
| Smith, P. J., et al. (2010). Aerobic exercise and
| neurocognitive performance: A meta-analytic review of
| randomized controlled trials. Psychosomatic Medicine,
| 72(3), 239-252.
|
| Schmolesky, M. T., et al. (2013). Aerobic exercise
| improves cognition and cerebrovascular regulation in
| older adults. Neurology, 81(11), 1074-1080.
| gdsdfe wrote:
| so to you someone with a disability shouldn't get a job ??
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| Yes. Absolutely. Many jobs at that, not necessarily
| related to the immediate discussion at hand, but many
| occupations require physical ability.
| ok123456 wrote:
| People with disabilities can be physically fit and
| active. You can work around your limitations.
| [deleted]
| gherkinnn wrote:
| I think you underestimate how much looks affect your success.
|
| And being fit (not to be confused with a hulking mountain of
| muscle) and in good health is a large part of looks.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I think you _massively_ overestimate how much it affects
| your success in this field. Maybe if we were in the
| modeling business or another where looks are critical. But
| we're not; your looks are not an indicator of your skills,
| the actual thing people are judging.
|
| As long as you look presentable, your skills outweigh looks
| by magnitudes.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| OK so I may be biased but please don't do this. After a couple of
| interviews everybody is tired. 1-2 short questions are perfectly
| fine, but some people treat it as "the floor is yours". You won't
| make a better impression by asking questions, but you can make it
| worse. For most people though, it doesn't matter at all. Use the
| time you had before, when being asked, to show your best side.
| oneayy4 wrote:
| what is a terrible talent market? is it when major corporations
| reach all time high profits while laying off most of their
| employees?
| hedora wrote:
| It's that, plus the candidates flip them the bird, and go to
| smaller companies.
|
| Most of the places that just laid off are also mandating work
| from office, and are having a very hard time with attrition and
| hiring.
|
| This is a perfect time to go to a company without those
| problems, since they'll be hiring much better than average
| these days, and, with any luck, their major corporation
| competitors are going to see their roadmaps implode.
| brookst wrote:
| Article suggests more research and prep for a 30 minute first
| round than I've ever done for a half-day loop. Good lord. If you
| have to work that hard to seem like a good candidate, the real
| job is going to be a nightmare.
| temp12192021 wrote:
| More than I spent studying in college.
|
| Interviewing has gotten out of hand...
| HPsquared wrote:
| The entirety of the years spent studying in college is within
| the "interview prep" budget for most people. It's all
| interview prep. Really your whole CV content is interview
| prep.
| Scarblac wrote:
| Your whole life leading up to the interview was prep! I'm
| not old, I just did some thorough preparation for your
| interview.
|
| No wait, that's not what they're talking about. They mean
| extra prep specifically done for that specific interview.
| Aachen wrote:
| I don't know what a half day loop is, but a few hours preparing
| for interviews doesn't seem weird to me. Do you have more than
| 1-3 serious interviews anytime you want to switch jobs?
|
| For me, the problem is that 95% doesn't reply to their
| application form or email box, so that's where I'd optimise for
| time spent.
|
| Sometimes I get recruiter calls and interviews stemming from
| that I'd not classify as serious, like I might do 20-30 minutes
| beforehand to figure out what this company does and whether/how
| it fits into my life, but if I'm not actually looking then I'm
| not going to spend hours preparing my presentation. Seems to
| still work to get an offer, though; they seem biased towards
| those they initiated contact with
| angarg12 wrote:
| > Formulate high-signal questions (to get interviewers thinking).
| Interviews are often won or lost by the questions you ask the
| interviewer at the end. Half of the battle is preparing well and
| showing up to answer the interviewer's questions; the other half
| is asking them questions that get them thinking (and make you
| stand out).
|
| I've performed hundreds of FAANG interviews, and I categorize
| this firmly in the "interview astrology" side. In my company we
| don't use questions asked by the candidate to determine the
| outcome (at least not for software engineers), and often we don't
| even record them. It sounds good to "impress your interviewer
| with your questions" but we are mindful about biases that might
| favour some candidates e.g. those with particularly good
| storytelling skills.
|
| My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the questions
| that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to focus on
| impressing your interviewer.
| Zach_the_Lizard wrote:
| I think the questions that matter are clarifying questions in
| e.g. architecture rounds.
|
| E.g. design a document storage system
|
| Asking about requirements can help provide evidence you're
| aware of tradeoffs, various concepts, etc. and separate
| yourself from other candidates. Not surface level "what QPS do
| we need to support?" type questions, but beyond that.
|
| Otherwise, yes, I agree, questions are not recorded and don't
| matter (unless there's a serious red flag like someone asking
| if they can avoid working with $GROUP_THEY_DONT_LIKE which
| raises HR type concerns)
| whafro wrote:
| On the other hand, at small companies, this can be a big deal.
| FAANG companies pretty much know how interested you are in
| working there, based on the fact that you're the type of person
| who thinks they want to work at a FAANG company. And since the
| scope of these companies is so large, there are all sorts of
| ways to fit your interests into work at such a company over the
| mid-to-long-term.
|
| But early-stage companies are looking for folks who have an
| interest and understanding in the task at hand. For many hiring
| managers at these companies, expertise - or at least interest -
| in the problem space is noteworthy. On the hard-skill side, it
| can suggest that you may be able to help see around corners
| with your product team, identifying and solving issues during
| planning or on the fly. On the soft-skill side, it can suggest
| that you're bringing positive energy and motivation to the
| still-nascent team.
|
| In the end, it's still a matter of knowing your audience and
| reading the room. It may be a waste of time in some places, and
| may be the difference-maker in others.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Yep.
|
| Folks at 200+ and especially FAANG companies are mostly
| interchangeable. The interviewer is mostly derisking chance
| of a dud and comparing a 86%er vs 87%er. A few exceptions
| like at the rarer million dollar comp level. For everyone
| else, especially non-insiders... Cookie cutter comparisons it
| is, and whatever edge.
|
| Startups are very much making a more existential bet. For our
| openings, I'm equally looking for ownership, interest in our
| customers/mission/long-term, and other bits that have little
| to with a whiteboard. On a HN Hiring thread from yesterday,
| you'd be surprised how many emails I got that were 'here is
| my stale CV from 5-10 years ago' and little about why they're
| excited to do hard things with us. Likewise, if someone is on
| a second round with us and hasn't bothered to use our free
| tier, that also tells us a lot about their (dis)interest in
| doing for what is, for everyone else on our team, career-
| defining creations.
| neilv wrote:
| > _if someone is on a second round with us and hasn 't
| bothered to use our free tier, that also tells us_
|
| Now that you've said it on HN... soon, most of the
| applicants you get using your free tier by second round
| will be doing so because that'll be added as a standard
| part of the generic tech jobs interviewing ritual for
| people who just go through the motions (along with
| memorizing Leetcode, and practicing good-sounding lies to
| behavioral questions).
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Great!
|
| I can't fathom having a serious discussion about a 2-5
| year career bet, and hopefully even more impacting, and
| not having a serious look at the actual work or at least
| the highly related technologies. Some of our best hires
| have been from our userbase and the OSS communities we
| helped start, and some of our misses have been from those
| who couldn't get on board with those.
|
| (We don't do leetcode etc, though for junior roles we do
| ask for a Jupyter notebook, and for senior, might do a
| contracting period if mutually agreeable.)
| twic wrote:
| A friend told me that Bumble require you sign up to apply
| for a job. And now my pet theory about why guys get so
| few swipes back is that they're all swiping away on
| leagues of job applicants.
| grogenaut wrote:
| Frankly most startups aren't very interesting. The ones who
| want you to be super interested are often the most boring
| ideas "were passionate about sox compliance", and if they
| are interesting they won't tell you shit about the company
| due to secret sauce or just moving so fast nothing is
| documented. It's hard as a candidate to get excited about
| every idea. And many people purposefully don't as they
| don't want to get shot down later by a job they were
| excited about. Finally if I'm actively looking I have 10
| leads I'm following and I'm practicing for interviews.
| Signing up for every beta tryout eats into that time. I'll
| take a look when ivw got an offer.
|
| I took a career pivot from web forms /rails to AAA
| playstation games. I played the game after they flew me to
| Seattle and gave me an offer. It involved buying a
| PlayStation 3 and their previous game. And that's an
| obviously cool job. Bought it right after I landed home and
| played it the next morning. Accepted the offer a few hours
| later.
| noirbot wrote:
| Yea, I've had a similar issue happen to me. Was
| interviewing at a small-mid company that I was
| increasingly interested in and passionate about, and had
| really delved into with various interviewers to learn
| about their business and what made them a good product
| and good place to work.
|
| Ultimately, they went with someone else. I'm not upset
| about it, but it stung more than getting another form
| letter from some large company. It feels almost cruel as
| an interviewer/hiring manager to expect every viable
| candidate to get really invested in you and your company
| when you know you're going to reject some high percentage
| of them just because you can't hire more than a few
| people.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Yes, generally I assume each candidate is having serious
| conversations with 2-5 others, and non-serious with more.
| We do the same. There are exceptions, like folks not
| actively interviewing, but that's the typical case.
|
| It is big stakes for all involved, so someone not
| treating it seriously is a big warning flag. That is fine
| for later stage companies where individuals mostly need
| to not screw up and add reliable incremental value, and
| the resume screens and interview processes people are
| complaining about here reflect that need. Different job,
| different interview..
| noirbot wrote:
| I certainly understand the stakes for you in making the
| right hire, but you're fundamentally much less invested
| in the candidate than you seem to be asking them to be in
| you. At the end of the day, you can reject them and pick
| someone else, or wait for someone better, while it seems
| like you have some expectation that they should be upset
| and disappointed if they don't make the cut with you.
|
| Ultimately, if I'm really passionate, but don't have all
| the skills you want, or want more money than you can
| provide, than you'll pass on me and move on to the next
| candidate. That's fine, but if we've spent the time
| making sure I feel like I could really create something
| good with you and your team, and that I'd be a good part
| of it, that's just setting up 3-5 of your candidates to
| have a really strong letdown, even beyond what's already
| a difficult thing to hear.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Agreed all around.
|
| For us, folks using our tech and then realizing what it's
| for is the beginning of much more interesting technical &
| mission conversations than programming language,
| monetization model, or RSU vs ISO. I rather talk about
| where data analysis is going for tough problem XYZ, and
| what we - and their area of ownership - needs to do to
| help get our users and the tech community there.
|
| Both sides needs to be ready for that conversation
| though, and those are the candidates that stick out. And
| yeah, if the company is say streamlining parking, or the
| candidate just wants a 9-5 -- both of which are fine --
| it'll be a different kind of interview.
| eschneider wrote:
| > Likewise, if someone is on a second round with us and
| hasn't bothered to use > our free tier, that also tells us
| a lot about their (dis)interest in doing for > what is, for
| everyone else on our team, career-defining creations.
|
| This makes sense. After a first round, if I'm still
| interested in a company, I want to dig in and find out
| everything I can to see if they're a likely fit and signing
| up for a free tier (if there is one) is absolutely a no
| brainer. And it's usually is a great way to form some
| meaningful questions to ask in the next round of interviews
| if I AM interested.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > On a HN Hiring thread from yesterday, you'd be surprised
| how many emails I got that were 'here is my stale CV from
| 5-10 years ago' and little about why they're excited to do
| hard things with us.
|
| I was about to write a moderately snarky comment and went
| to your profile to check which Java banking middleware or
| Rails-based Uber-for-dogs your startup is building for
| applicants to be excited about... but looking at the
| description your company seems quite interesting! Sorry to
| hear that you've got flooded with generic low-effort
| application from disinterested people. I guess in current
| job market some people just desperately knocking on all
| doors hoping to get any job at all.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of people here would argue it's just a numbers
| game. I've been lucky over the past 25 years to hit 2 or
| 3 targeted possibilities with a single email to someone I
| knew. But I realize that's probably not typical.
| mikebenfield wrote:
| > if someone is on a second round with us and hasn't
| bothered to use our free tier, that also tells us a lot
| about their (dis)interest in doing for what is, for
| everyone else on our team, career-defining creations.
|
| This is on a completely different planet from my experience
| as a candidate and as an interviewer.
|
| It looks like you're doing interesting work, and it might
| be great to work for you. But that's true of a lot of other
| companies. You're asking for a level of interest and
| dedication to your company that is completely unwarranted
| at this stage. For all I know you're about to ghost me. I
| suspect a major effect of your approach is that you select
| people who are better BS artists and have fewer employment
| options.
| lmeyerov wrote:
| Yes, we are looking for folks to work with us, not for
| us. Different mindset & process. We try not to hire ex-
| FAANG (but occasionally do) in part because of this kind
| of difference.
|
| It's fascinating to see so much resistance to this kind
| of thinking for a forum that is nominally about startups.
| In a sense that's good - some people are well-suited for
| the needs of scaleups and post-scale, vs startups (0-1,
| 1-10), and recognizing that is healthy. What you do &
| learn in a big company or a already-figured-it-out late-
| stage & highly funded VC co is different from the wild
| west stage of startups.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| I will work for you, not with you, as the loyalty of your
| company is non existent. I worked for many start ups, and
| enjoyed working on that type of challenges, but I am
| always aware loyalty is non existent. It is a red flag if
| company talks about "we are a family" or "work with us".
| chrisdbanks wrote:
| Maybe this is why you've been ghosted so much.
| mikebenfield wrote:
| I haven't been ghosted "so much." I've worked at a cool
| startup and two FAANGs. But there's no guarantee the
| interview process will go your way no matter how good you
| are; there's a lot of luck and interpretation involved.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Exactly, same thing in my company, at least for technical
| interviews. I always tell interviewees that questions are off
| the record, and if they don't have any questions, it's totally
| fine.
| KnobbleMcKnees wrote:
| > My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the
| questions that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to
| focus on impressing your interviewer.
|
| I agree with this, except in one sense that I think lends to
| the point of the blog post.
|
| The questions you ask can drive perception of how you might act
| as an employee. On more than one occasion I have asked a
| question about X at an interview and then had a subsequent
| conversation with a recruiter where they ask "is [something
| related to X] a concern for you?"
|
| I've not ever had one discontinue me due to it but it shows
| what's coming up in conversation at the interview debriefs.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| OTOH, I have known interviewers that would not pass an
| interviewee that asked no questions. Wasn't first-round
| interviews though.
| noirbot wrote:
| I do think I'd mark it against someone if I reserved 10-15
| minutes at the end of an interview and they didn't have
| anything at all they wanted to know about the job or the
| company. I'm not expecting them to have a laundry list, but
| still. Or if you're not going to ask something, then have
| something to say at least. I'd rather you just go "No
| questions, since I assume this job pays me in money I can use
| to buy things?".
|
| Getting a new job is a big deal - either you're about to quit
| somewhere and presumably you're looking because you care
| about finding a new employer that's better on some axis than
| your current job, or you're out of work and desperate to take
| anything, which is fine as well, but if you don't want to
| just admit that, you should probably have some idea of what
| to say otherwise.
| Terr_ wrote:
| > and they didn't have anything at all they wanted to know
| about the job or the company.
|
| I assume that does not include scenarios where the large
| company interview claims they can't answer questions about
| a specific job until much later after a "team matching"
| step.
| noirbot wrote:
| Sure. Obviously there's exceptions, and I mostly haven't
| worked anywhere where that's been an issue, but you also
| know what you're in for if you're interviewing somewhere
| that size. It's a very different process.
|
| That said, I've regularly done interviews from both sides
| where I wasn't talking with someone who would be anywhere
| close to my role/team, and there's still plenty to ask
| there. At worst, you'll learn some about a different part
| of the organization, and maybe get some interesting
| contrast to other people you talk to later.
|
| Even finding out what things are and aren't the same
| across the whole company can be interesting. Does
| vacation policy vary by team? Their use of various tools?
| Their work/ticket management process?
| dist-epoch wrote:
| How many companies would actually answer the real questions
| people have? You might actually get red flagged. So they go
| to GlassDoor for those.
|
| And then you are left with "polite questions", fillers.
| noirbot wrote:
| It depends on the questions - I don't feel like I've
| often gotten bad answers when I've asked and I know I try
| my hardest to be as honest as possible when candidates
| ask me hard questions about my position.
|
| If I get red flagged for asking about their on-call
| policies or office-work plans or how they're handling the
| position/responsibilities that I would be taking on, then
| that seems like a bullet dodged? It's not like I'm
| expecting people to ask "So tell me about why you hate
| your manager" or "When was the last time you fired
| someone". You can ask probing but polite questions that
| give you information without having people tell you the
| sort of angry gossip you get on Glassdoor.
|
| Obviously, tailor this to how desperate you are. If you
| want absolutely zero chance anyone will reject you for
| any reason, then you _should_ be asking the most fluffy
| questions you can. I certainly don 't reject people for
| asking those questions. I just find it a weird signal
| when someone seemingly doesn't even want to pretend to
| care about content, structure, and culture of the job
| they're interviewing for.
| jghn wrote:
| The only universal truth when it comes to interviews is that
| there are no universal truths.
|
| As an interviewee there is nothing you can do that will
| universally be read as a positive across all interviewers.
| There are so many contradictory rules among interviewers that
| you might as well not bother gaming the system and do what
| you want to do. Let the chips fall as they may.
|
| As an interviewer, no filter you put in place will give you a
| perfect read on what it's intended to test. For instance I
| know I have my quirks in terms of things that'll turn me off
| of a candidate based on resume alone. But I also recognize
| that many candidates are coached to do it this way in the
| first place. So I need to be conscious of this and try to not
| interpret these things as "shitty candidate"
| [deleted]
| jghn wrote:
| As an interviewer, the only signal I ever take away from
| interviewee questions is if they manage to come across like a
| complete asshole. And this isn't common because most people
| aren't complete assholes, and those who are usually have
| displayed their colors earlier on in the interview.
|
| As an interviewee, I refuse to put any effort into gaming the
| system and hoping to come across as a better candidate. I treat
| these sessions as me interviewing them. And yes, this means
| that a lot of times my questions will come across as banal. But
| you can get some decent signal on red flags by asking several
| potential peers to describe their day, challenges that they're
| facing, and that sort of thing.
| pandaman wrote:
| >As an interviewee, I refuse to put any effort into gaming
| the system and hoping to come across as a better candidate.
|
| This is something missing from all the "interview coaching"
| advise and very few people seem to understand.
|
| Suppose there is an actual technique that allows you to get a
| job you otherwise would not get. Say, hypothetically, you
| used it to become an astronaut. Do you think you perform well
| as an astronaut even though the selection process would have
| culled you? I'd imagine you get kicked out anyways so all you
| gained is a line in a resume. The same advise also insists
| that having a whole bunch of 0.5-1 year "gigs" in your work
| history is normal, but is it really? Do people really believe
| hiring managers don't see the pattern? Does anyone really
| think that people go: "Oh, we should hire this person, he
| worked in all of FAANG, one year in each, must be very
| good!"?
| solarmist wrote:
| Do you really think interviews only cull people that would
| be a poor fit?
|
| People are terrible judges of character and interviewing is
| every bit the shit show dating is.
| pandaman wrote:
| It depends on the company, I guess. The first-round
| interviews, which are the subject of this topic, that I
| have seen, were all Fizz Buzz level to cull the obviously
| incompetent.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, yes, interview preparation is a bet on the incapacity
| of the interviewer to determine a candidate's capacity.
|
| Anyway, neither of those things is binary, if you ask me, I
| would really advise into getting some amount of
| preparation; but if it too useful, it's actually a red
| flag.
| pandaman wrote:
| Indeed, it's a bet that you, an outsider, know better
| than the interviewers that you will not be fired after
| the first performance review (note that it says nothing
| about your general competency, just the performance
| metrics of this particular company). If you had not been
| personally involved, which side of such a bet you would
| have taken?
| foobarian wrote:
| On few occasions the questions interviewees asked at the end
| did help me form a better picture of them as candidates;
| example, someone asked what Java version we run predominantly
| and, and this is the important bit, didn't balk when the
| answer was some ancient LTS version but instead a nervous
| laugh of commiseration followed by war story time. This told
| me a lot both about the candidate's maturity and experience.
| jrockway wrote:
| That's a good heuristic. Someone just starting doesn't know
| what "best practices" are. Someone early into their career
| demands strict adherence to the best practices. Someone
| later into their career knows what rules can be bent, and
| knows a good reason for doing it.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| It's weird that you dont judge potential hires on the quality
| of their questions, the most important parts of most creative
| jobs are being able to ask the right questions.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| The questions a candidate asks during that part of the
| interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would
| ask as part of a real job.
|
| And no, not really. My job is to assess their technical
| skills, not how well they ask me about my work life balance
| while in a relatively high stress environment.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| I'm not talking about inane questions like your work life
| balance. I am talking about questions about your product,
| your design decisions, etc.
|
| If I am interviewing at a company I certainly want to know
| that I am not going to be working at a dumpster fire. I
| want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating
| to code reviews for example, so I know that you uphold
| standards and dont just allow things to get progressively
| worse as time goes on due to systematic indifference. Now
| you could be lying to me but that's why I ask more than one
| question. Certainly to me it feels like if a candidate is
| asking these kinds of questions during an interview process
| then that candidate also cares about those things, which
| depending on whether you are running a java sweatshop or an
| organized and productive development company seems like it
| would have some importance.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Maybe the candidate don't feel they need to ask such
| questions because they have 5 friends who work for the
| company and know the answer already. From an interviewer
| perspective, you get more signal from the candidate by
| asking them such questions in a behavior interview in a
| more standardized way.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts
| relating to code reviews for example
|
| I call this process fit. It's important to some
| candidates, and some employers. It's clearly important to
| you, and you should ask those questions; interviewing is
| a two-way street.
|
| But if I'm an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm
| not giving you points for those questions, because I'm
| going to be sussing out your process fit earlier anyway.
| If I'm not an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm
| probably not giving you points for those questions,
| because it's not a big deal to me (this could be a red
| flag for you, depending on the answers you get from your
| probing questions)
| pavlov wrote:
| _> "The questions a candidate asks during that part of the
| interview have almost no overlap to the questions they
| would ask as part of a real job."_
|
| An apt symmetry, as typically the questions a candidate
| gets asked during an interview also have no overlap to the
| questions they would get asked as part of the real job.
| sigstoat wrote:
| do you ask all of your interviewers the same set of questions
| to ensure they're all suitably impressed by you?
|
| if not how do you decide to allocate them?
| leetcrew wrote:
| the quality of questions is important during the technical
| segment, almost as much as getting the correct (or at least
| reasonable) answer/solution. charging into a solution without
| picking up on the ambiguities is one of the classic ways a
| leetcode legend fails a technical interview.
|
| after all that, I feel the candidate deserves at least 5-10
| minutes at the end to ask their own honest questions without
| having to worry about what they're signaling.
| jghn wrote:
| When I'm asking an interviewer questions, I'm trying to get a
| read on what it's like to work there. Are there any red flags
| that'd turn me off? Is this a place I'll enjoy working? Do my
| potential coworkers seem like decent people? Does the
| work/life balance match what I want to see?
|
| When I'm actually working at a place, I don't need to ask
| those questions. I already know the answer.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| These questions are important but they are not the types of
| questions I am asking about. Part of determining if you
| want to work somewhere is figuring out how mature the team
| is when it comes to design decisions and the development
| process, to accurately ascertain this, you have to ask
| technical questions, the act of asking these questions is
| itself an indicator that you yourself are thinking about
| these important things and as such value them and should,
| to a well functioning development team with a working
| product, indicate that you would at least contribute to
| keeping things working optimally and contribute positively.
|
| I would be worried if someone nevet asked about the thing
| they were going to be working on, asked why certain design
| decisions were made, or asked how it gets developed.
| jghn wrote:
| Sure, I agree. That's part of me finding out if I want to
| work there.
|
| The unfortunate reality is usually you're given 5-10 mins
| at the end in a hasty "what would you like to ask me?" so
| I tend to stick to the more basic type questions.
| Repeating across interviewers to see what patterns pop
| up.
|
| That said I'm not shy about pushing back with questions
| during an interview session itself, and that's where
| things like you're talking about can get worked in. Of
| course if they insist on "solve this problem" type
| sessions, there's less of that. But it's also less likely
| I want to work there. So it works out for me.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| One issue with that is it's very subjective. One interviewer
| will be impressed by a question, and another will not.
| belter wrote:
| Out of those hundreds of interviews, can you discern some clear
| patterns, that are common to all candidates that impress
| positively?
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| This. I might call out a particularly good question in the
| debrief but only as an aside.
|
| I don't think I ever made a decision where the questions
| factored in at all; most of the time there's more than enough
| material in the actual interview to cover a decision being
| made.
| edelans wrote:
| > hundreds of FAANG interviews
|
| hundreds??
|
| So that's at least 200. Assuming you interview for the 5 FAANG
| in parallel, and you have, let's say 5 rounds per application
| (and you do reach the 5th). You would have done the whole
| process 8 times. Assuming they let you apply only once per
| year, that means you have interviewed at the very least every
| year for the last 8y. okay.
| angarg12 wrote:
| 517 interviews as an interviewer.
| Centigonal wrote:
| I assume they mean as the interviewer
| samstave wrote:
| I have failed several interviews by knowing too much about the
| employer, or in cases, even the interviewer --- where I felt I
| didnt have any pertinent questions to ask at the end of the
| interview...
|
| If I already know the answer I have to consciously remember to
| still ask questions at the end....
|
| No worse interview feeling of suddenly thinking of all the
| questions you _should_ have asked after youve left the
| meeting...
| a_e_k wrote:
| In the past, I've dealt with that by saying something like "I
| _would_ ask you X, but I saw from [place] that the answer is
| Y. Can you confirm that this is correct / confirm that this
| still true / tell me more?"
|
| I put my cards on the table to show that I've done my
| homework and establish what I know already, then elicit more
| information. If there's nothing more to be said, then fine,
| but at least an interviewer who cares what I ask will know
| what I'm curious about even if I already happen to have an
| answer. And if I'm wrong, then it gives them an opportunity
| to correct the record. Or it gives them an opening to provide
| additional nuance.
| raldi wrote:
| My eyes were rolling too much to finish this piece, but I'll
| share a pair of tips:
|
| In a technical interview, learn to recognize when the interviewer
| is trying to help you, and take notice immediately when they do.
| If they say, "Do you really need to use a float here?", nine
| times out of ten what they really mean is, "Stop trying to use a
| float here."
|
| As an interviewer, it's really unpleasant to be trying to throw a
| candidate a life preserver and have them keep shooing it away.
|
| (Sometimes "Do you really need" questions are a trap and the
| interviewer is testing your confidence, but in those cases it's
| usually said with a completely different tone.)
|
| My other tip is for the squishy personality test interview: come
| into it smiling, and keep that up for no reason. The interviewer
| will usually start doing it too, and that leads their brain to
| think, "I'm smiling, so I must like this person."
| mvdtnz wrote:
| My top interview tip, and it's painful that I have to say this
| but so, so many candidates get it wrong, is "answer the actual
| question".
|
| It is so frustrating when I word a question very specifically
| and the candidate doesn't answer it. Most commonly it's a
| question like "tell me about a time when you encountered a bug
| in production, how you discovered it and the steps to resolve
| it". And instead of answering the question, they tell me about
| what they _would_ do, if they _had_ found a bug. Or worse, they
| step me through some process that their company uses. I'm
| looking for personal experience, not what you read on a blog
| post once.
|
| I also am mindful at the start of all of my interviews to tell
| the candidate I am not trying to trick them, I'm just trying to
| learn where they're at. So if I ask you for an experience you
| haven't had, that's totally fine - no one has done everything,
| we're just looking for the boundaries.
| slyall wrote:
| The problem is that you misunderstand the question you are
| asking.
|
| When you say "tell me about a time when" you are really
| saying "Tell me a prepared story about when".
|
| In this case the person didn't have a prepared answer for
| that question so they went with a generic answer to show to
| you that they knew what they were doing.
|
| They could have found & fixed hundreds of bugs in production
| over their career, but trying to recall an example that will
| make a good story during an interview is hard and risky.
|
| The good news is they will prepare a story for the next
| interview at a different company.
| andrewingram wrote:
| With algorithmic questions, the life preservers often throw me
| off more than they help. I had one which was actually wrong,
| i.e the path I was going down was correct _and_ simpler. More
| commonly though, if I'm struggling, I'm normally juggling too
| many things in my head, and them adding another thing to think
| about makes me drop all the balls.
|
| I still value them in principle, but it seems to be a skill
| that many interviewers haven't developed to the point where
| they're a net positive.
| timy2shoes wrote:
| It can also be the case where the interviewer doesn't really
| understand the question and are going from prompts. So when
| you try to get further understanding of their hint from them,
| they just repeat the hint. I think this reflects poorly on
| the company culture, that they're throwing interviewers out
| there who aren't ready.
| noirbot wrote:
| It definitely can, but I've been asking one of my questions
| for almost a decade at this point, and I've seen nearly
| every attempt at a solution that anyone would come up with.
| Often the difficulty is that the candidate is working
| towards something that may be a possible solution, but has
| a myriad of edge cases that they're going to discover and
| end up needing to spend far too long trying to work out.
| Meanwhile, there's a much easier solution they could do
| instead.
|
| I'm not sure of a good way to re-target someone in that
| situation. I have let a candidate just go down that line
| before because they were making swift progress on it, and I
| gave them pretty good marks at the end for an incomplete
| solution that I was pretty sure they could have worked out
| eventually, but for other people it's much harder. I
| totally sympathize with the disruption of an interviewer
| essentially telling you "not like that" when you're
| frantically trying to come up with a quick and workable
| solution, but at the same time, you're probably not going
| to make yourself look good if you're putting together an
| increasingly obviously unviable solution by bolting on more
| and more logic as you find holes.
| slyall wrote:
| So what are you testing for in this interview?
|
| Is it:
|
| Demonstrate to me you meet our hiring skill level by
| working on the problem.
|
| or:
|
| Find the best solution to this problem, get $200k/year
| noirbot wrote:
| Every interview is "Demonstrate you meet the hiring
| criterion, get $XYX/year". It's not as if I reject
| everyone who doesn't arrive at the perfect solution, but
| I do need to get some signal that even if they don't get
| to it that they're thinking about the problem in a
| productive way. Trying to do a problem one way and then
| adjusting when you realize it may not be a good way to
| solve it is a common and important thing that happens to
| most engineers regularly. Soliciting or synthesizing
| advice from your peers is a bit part of it as well.
| Obviously an interview isn't a normal "we're working
| together on a team" environment, which is why I'm musing
| about how best to provide advice and guidance without
| making an already stressful situation worse.
|
| I don't just reject people who give a sub-optimal
| solution, but going down those unfruitful paths of
| solving the problem often leads to situations where they
| stymied and just staring at the problem trying to work
| out how to work around what have become larger and larger
| issues with that approach. At that point, I'd either want
| them to recognize the issue and try another approach, or
| ask me for advice, or accept my nudge to find another
| path.
|
| It's a problem I like to give _because_ it 's a problem
| that's easy to demonstrate your baseline skill at and get
| out a simple working solution, and then we can spend the
| rest of the time improving and optimizing.
| ThalesX wrote:
| I've had an experience where the interviewer tried to stop me
| from doing a DFS on a graph. Then they tried to tell me
| that's not how DFS is done. I am a pretty chill and curious
| guy, so I turned this into a discussion. At the end, I go
| like 'so my initial approach was correct', he goes like
| 'yeah, I guess it was' then I never heard from them again. I
| still think about that interview from time to time.
| [deleted]
| karaterobot wrote:
| Here's a controversial opinion: one of the top tips to passing an
| interview is just to lie.
|
| I don't mean lying about qualifications, or lying about jobs
| you've had in the past. But, I feel no compunction about
| answering a question like "tell me about a time when you had a
| conflict with a colleague" by making up a scenario that could
| plausibly have happened and hypothesizing about what you might do
| in it. The reality is that no two such scenarios are ever exactly
| the same, so a real anecdote would not be helpful, even if you
| happen to have a good one in mind (which I never do). Next time,
| the people involved (including you) are going to be different,
| with different personalities, a different set of problems and
| pressures and constraints . Forget it, there's very low
| predictive power in a question like that, even if the interviewer
| were qualified to analyze you. So, just tell them what they want
| to hear, and prove you speak the dumb language of corporate
| interviews.
|
| Is this unethical? Maybe, but only to the extent that such
| questions are meaningful filters (which I believe they aren't).
| And it is _surely_ no more unethical than answering a question
| like "why do you want to work for Company X?" by saying "I am
| inspired by the mission and the fascinating problems you're
| solving" rather than "the salary is higher than my current job,
| and I think it will make a good stepping stone to an even bigger
| salary at another company in a few years", which is what we would
| say if genuine honesty were what that particular discourse was
| trying to get at.
| dahart wrote:
| Seems risky and not worth it over a fluff question that is
| unlikely to factor into the decision to hire you or not. Lying
| is grounds for termination after getting the job if you're
| caught. You might underestimate the ease of lying in an
| interview, if you aren't prepared for followup questions or a
| conversation. Speaking personally, it does seem a lot more
| unethical than a rosy half-truth to me. I can be inspired by
| the mission and problems and also interested in the salary &
| resume filling aspects at the same time. Leaving some of them
| out is quite different from fabricating experiences. I somewhat
| doubt that lying will help you in the long term, giving a great
| answer for this conflict question won't hide any technical
| gaps.
| eschneider wrote:
| I would very much caution against doing that. I know when I'm
| doing interviews and get tasked to ask these sorts of
| questions, I usually ask follow up questions. I'm not trying to
| figure out if someone's just making things up, but once in a
| while, people draw a blank when you drill down on something and
| that just looks weird.
|
| It's far better to just prepare an answer based on something
| that's actually happened to you, so if you have to explain
| further, there's something actually there.
| sctb wrote:
| I think it's possible to underestimate the extent to which
| people can perceive this type of dishonesty, because it may be
| in the form of an uneasy and largely unconscious experience
| that leads them to vaguely report "not a good fit".
| mikebenfield wrote:
| Yes, while I do not advocate lying, it seems clear to me that
| this is the effect of these types of interview questions:
| filtering for better BS artists. I am continually amazed that
| anyone thinks these questions are doing anything else.
|
| And in particular a lot of people seem to think it's impossible
| to lie and not get caught out, which... all I can say to that
| is I don't see how anyone who has lived as a human among other
| humans could possibly think that.
| blindriver wrote:
| Yep. I am really good at coming up with stuff on the spot, so
| when I last interviewed, I straight up made up some stuff for
| my behavioral interviews.
|
| I resorted to this because on my LinkedIn interview, the
| behavioral interviewer kept pressing me when I told him that
| the situation never came up (I can't remember exactly what it
| was, I think if I was ever asked to work on something that I
| disagreed with) and it dinged me on my evaluation. So from them
| on, I would make up white lies to satisfy my interviewers. I
| also make sure to note what I say on my interview notes so I
| keep my stories straight.
|
| Interviews want a certain "type" of answer, so if you don't
| give it to them, more often than not they will ding you. The
| same goes for Leetcode questions, if you get the answer wrong,
| you will get passed over, but if you get the answer "too
| quick", then you will get passed over because you were "too
| prepared", so better to just pretend to struggle and come up
| with the answer.
| [deleted]
| Mizoguchi wrote:
| If you don't pass the screening interview is due to a few issues.
|
| 1) You are applying to a role you don't meet the minimum
| requirements for.
|
| 2) Didn't take the time to research about the company, salary and
| benefits, the product/service and the team you'll be working
| with.
|
| 3) Unrealistic expectations about compensation and benefits,
| which you should have researched above.
|
| The rest is just having a casual conversation with another human
| being, so if you have communication skills that's another issue
| you need to resolve.
| parpfish wrote:
| Re 2: one of my peeves in job listings is when the job
| description will specify the name of the team using internal
| labels/codenames that means nothing outside the company.
|
| Bad: "this is a developer for the lookinglass team"
|
| Good: "this is a developer for the team that builds monitoring
| tool"
| jghn wrote:
| Yes, this.
|
| A lot of people don't even realize they're doing this. In
| particular, people who have spent a significant portion of
| their career in one company (junior devs, long timers).
| They're used to thinking of these terms as everyday
| knowledge.
| parpfish wrote:
| it can also happen if recruiters start thinking that their
| job is to make things easy for hiring managers rather than
| making things easy for applicants
| jghn wrote:
| Oh hah, I didn't even notice you were talking about job
| listings instead of candidates. Candidates do this too
| was my point. But you're 100% correct. Companies are
| *really* bad about this when
| interviewing/screening/talking to candidates.
|
| I go out of my way to talk in general terms, but then
| I'll see a colleague talk in secret code. And it's like,
| what on earth do they think the candidate took away from
| that?
| Arch-TK wrote:
| How do you research the salary if all the company says is
| "competitive salary". In the part of the UK I live in this
| seems to mean anything from PS45k to PS150k for roles of
| similar seniority.
|
| Really if there's a mismatch in salary expectations then it's
| not that you failed, it's that the company failed to
| effectively communicate this information and wasted your time
| on an introductory call.
| jackblemming wrote:
| The fact that we have long articles like this on how to game
| interviews and then interviewers become keen and it becomes a
| stupid meta back and forth game of cat and mouse. Meanwhile us
| normal non-career ladder psychopaths want to talk and be treated
| like regular people.
|
| Every time I've been asked about a conflict I've had and how I
| resolved it, I die a little bit inside.
| neilv wrote:
| What's important is that you die a little bit inside _in STAR
| format_.
| FabHK wrote:
| - So, once I interviewed with a company and was asked about a
| conflict at work.
|
| - The task at hand was to recall (or, for that matter,
| invent) a situation involving a conflict at work, and
| convince the interviewer that I handled it with aplomb.
|
| - And so, I proceeded to recalling a situation involving a
| conflict, explained the _S_ ituation to the interviewer in
| detail, outlined the _T_ asks I was responsible for, conveyed
| the _A_ ctions I took, and related the _R_ esult of my
| actions.
|
| - Result: I died a little bit inside, but the interviewer was
| very impressed and offered me a job on the spot.
| rkachowski wrote:
| what's the real expectation for these conflict questions? is it
| to show that you've encountered it before? that you can manage
| it? that you're a reasonable person when faced with
| interpersonal difficulties? that sometimes hard choices have to
| be made wrt bad actors? that you are some kind of golden
| Spongebob/Candide that has never experienced being ground up in
| the gears of office politics?
|
| I never know which way these are meant to go
| minitoar wrote:
| It depends on the role. IMO the bar is pretty low for many
| engineering roles. Determining "that you're a reasonable
| person when faced with interpersonal difficulties" is usually
| good enough.
| andrewingram wrote:
| I'm really good at other people's interpersonal problems,
| I'm a natural mediator. Less good at my own.
| lopkeny12ko wrote:
| A massive wall of text and just one paragraph that says "oh by
| the way there will be a coding assessment in the interview, you
| need to prepare for that as well, good luck." No further details.
|
| Totally useless guide.
| H8crilA wrote:
| I think the assumption is that everyone understands that part
| if it applies to their role, i.e. to the engineer role.
| parpfish wrote:
| In my experience, the first round interview is fizzbuzz because
| it can be graded objectively. The questions the author brings up
| like "Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a
| colleague" are saved for a later round
| smnscu wrote:
| I concur with the other comments here that this is almost
| useless. It could be useful if you're interested in companies
| dumb enough to care about most of the stuff this article focuses
| on. I've conducted over 3,000 interviews, most of them via Karat
| (https://karat.com/), and I can say that, as a software engineer
| at least, you can safely ignore this kind of advice.
| randcraw wrote:
| Yep. This describes only how to game the famously byzantine
| hiring process at FAANGs, a tiny highly abnormal subset of the
| tech workspace out there -- only those companies that began as
| explosive startups who gained giant market share mostly due to
| great timing in catching the wave, not smart management
| practices.
| [deleted]
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