9 ms·

Don’t Get Attached, It’s Just Luck. My Interviewing Advice and Tips

155 points by maxehnert 10y ago

meta_AU 10y ago
While it seems obvious now, the note that job listings with direct emails get first priority is something I'll keep in mind for the future.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  I applied a similar principle to getting my first place in the Bay Area. I made a point to contact listings on CL that included phone numbers before other listings. I got lucky, and it worked out. :)
dilaver 10y ago
"When I go into ‘interviewing mode’ I stop working on side projects, I stop visiting bs sites like reddit, news sites, and even HN. If it isn’t going to help you get that job just cut it from your life. Focus intensely on learning and writing job applications until you get there. This process isn’t fun, why drag it out any longer than you need to."
- gizmo686 10y ago
  That ... doesn't sound healthy, or productive. It is well established that there are diminishing returns to working longer hours on a task, even to the point of negative marginal utility. This is not true just for knowledge workers but, surprisingly, also held for factory workers during the industrial revolution. Not to mention the health impacts of spending so much time on a singular (soul crushing IMO) task.
  - viraptor 10y ago
    I don't think it applies here. If you work on one task with one goal for longer, you do get exhausted. But I don't think it applies to repetitive tasks with different targets each time. You cannot "apply harder to the same company", but if you spend more time and apply to 30 rather than 20, you get a big improvement in the chance for positive response.
  - zubairq 10y ago
    actually trying an unproductive technique is what is wrong. You need to be full time and using a productive technique, so I do agree that just sending out CVs 24 hours a day is wrong
- zubairq 10y ago
  actually this is the right advice. To find a job IS a full time job. No one wants to hear it but after running NemCV and getting data on around 15,000 job hunters, I saw that the people who treat looking for a job AS A JOB get a job over 10x faster than those who don't... Here is a link to the meetup we have run for 5 years too: http://www.meetup.com/get-your-dream-job/ http://www.meetup.com/get-your-dream-job/
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    It's too bad I'm thousands of miles away from you. I would go to that meetup. :)
    - zubairq 10y ago
      Maybe we could do a video session one day if you want to set up a video with a local meetup there and you don't mind broadcasting it publicly.
noescape 10y ago
Why do rejection emails say "good luck" at the end?
- nine_k 10y ago
  Because you, the recipient, must now continue the job hunt, so luck in finding a better employer would come in handy.
  - noescape 10y ago
    But why is this pleasantry about "luck" and not something else? You don't hear employers say "keep studying" or "we wish you a good effort" or "we hope you build cool stuff". Isn't the employer referring to luck an admission from the employer that interviewing has a lot to do with luck?
    - pmiller2 10y ago
      Because "keep studying" would just sound condescending.
      - vonmoltke 10y ago
        I personally find "good luck" and "we reject many good candidates" it be even more condescending.
    - Cpoll 10y ago
      Because "keep studying" can be construed negatively: You're not good enough. Unsolicited advice isn't usually a good idea politically. Saying "luck" implies several things: - You just weren't the right fit. - I don't wish to imply your skills are lacking. - I hope you succeed, even though I wasn't able to help.
      - vonmoltke 10y ago
        > Because "keep studying" can be construed negatively: You're not good enough. Unsolicited advice isn't usually a good idea politically. They're rejecting you because you weren't good enough (or because they suck at actually identifying talent). > Saying "luck" implies several things: None of which are good things about the process, because a process should be designed to drive the percent influence of luck to as close to zero as practical. > - You just weren't the right fit. Bullshit non-reason. > - I don't wish to imply your skills are lacking. We also don't want to admit that we may not have any idea what we are looking for or how to evaluate it. > - I hope you succeed, even though I wasn't able to help. If I don't need improvement but I succeed elsewhere in a similar job, that just means you screwed up.
pmorici 10y ago
This has got to be one of the most honest descriptions of how job hunting actually works ever written and posted on HN. It's a sharp contrast to a lot of the stuff that is posted here that depicts job hunting like some kind of spiritual search for your life's passion.
- viraptor 10y ago
  I think both are real, just in a different context. Almost everybody is passively looking for an ideal position all the time. If you get recommended, see some job ad, or just see what's out there - you're looking for life's passion. I know I interviewed for some positions even though I already had a good job, just to see if there's a better option. But it's different than when you're in / just out of uni (I still remember sending just under 150 applications...), or when you're just recently out of work with a family and a mortgage (and you need something now).
- mooreds 10y ago
  I think this is a great description of the job hunting process early in your career. Later in your career, if you have kept connections alive, the job hunt should look like this: "Hi <member of network>, I'm looking for a position doing X at Y, and I noticed you know Sara at Y. Do you mind doing intros? I'd really appreciate it." ... intros/coffee with Sara. ... resume to the hiring manager, perhaps through some automated system, but with a thumb on the scales ... interview ... hire/no hire decision based on mutual fit. Now, this isn't about nepotism, it's about the power of having worked together. While the internet is great and you can learn a ton about a candidate (sometimes) by their online work, sometimes you can't. And nothing is as high bandwidth as having worked with someone. (Well, maybe a family connection.) So if you can build your trust networks and get informal introductions to a company from someone who has worked with both parties, you're in a very strong position. That said, as I stated at the beginning (and the author did as well), this post was fantastic for folks without such a network.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    > Later in your career, if you have kept connections alive, the job hunt should look like this If you kept connections alive and actually have connections that move on to other companies. 95% of the connections I have made in 14 years are either retired or still at the companies they were at when I met them. How does this help me?
ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago
I'm starting to feel the same about the take home tests. Too time consuming.
- CoolGuySteve 10y ago
  I agree completely. It really pisses me off when you complete the take home test and then get called in for another 8 hours of whiteboard technical interviews. WTF is the point of giving these work sample tests if they're not sufficient proof that you can do the work? And how can anyone think actually programming things into a computer is superseded by asinine whiteboard sessions that have less in common with the day-to-day of programming? IMO, after the take home test, the in-person should be a couple hours or half day for personality fit and maybe some loose questions to determine if you actually did the test yourself. Mainly, the in-person interview should determine if you can tolerate sitting next to each other all day. So I've started giving negative Glassdoor reviews to companies that abuse these tests, either by handing out broken or excessive ones or by wasting a full day of my time with algorithm questions AFTER accepting the test. I suggest everyone do the same.
- viraptor 10y ago
  I think it can work both ways. Tasks like that can be time-consuming, but would you rather take a day off for an on-site interview, or spend ~1h doing it at home? There's some line that shouldn't be crossed of course - I think companies shouldn't give the test to everyone - just those who are actually considered after some screening. But I've been on both sides: taking and preparing the test, and I think it's a good idea as a 2nd stage filter. My test was completely open-ended. Trivial task (script to copy data from .csv to a sqlite, optionally notify on the queue at the end), but make it as production-ready as you can/want. I don't think I could learn as much about people's abilities during an interview, as I could from that task. I mean, the 1 person who made a proper package, a short .rst install & use documentation, and included crazy unicode test cases was immediately on the top of the list.
  - dpark 10y ago
    So you prioritized for people willing to sink many hours into your assignment. The need to sink many hours into a homework assignment is the criticism.
tdeck 10y ago
Side question - how do these people interviewing at "a dozen or so places" manage it? Assuming most companies' interviews will force you to take a full day off work, and they will have different schedules and offer deadlines. Is there a trick to managing this that is eluding me? Even with taking a couple of weeks off it seems like it would be very difficult.
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  Without a job, one usually has lots of free time.
  - tdeck 10y ago
    That still doesn't help much with lining up the offers, but I guess that's less of a concern when you're unemployed (I.E. you'll take the first decent offer you get). However, I feel like I have often read accounts of people with a job interviewing at 6-10 companies and I always wondered how.
    - bpchaps 10y ago
      Well, look for companies that are willing to do interviews during your lunch. Those are the companies you'd want to work for anyway, since they have enough empathy to understand that 2+ hour interviews are risky if you're already employed.
    - jedmeyers 10y ago
      > That still doesn't help much with lining up the offers Larger companies are aware that you might be pursuing other opportunities, and are usually willing to postpone extending a final offer until the time you are ready to accept it or at least have other offers to compare it to.
- maxehnert 10y ago
  I mentioned I track everything and try to apply in a small timeline to bunch interviews together. Most places want 2-3 phone interviews before anything else which at most meant leaving work a half hour early (I just go in early or stay late another day). When it comes to on sites, well I guess I had a lot of vacation time from not taking any previously. I hadn't really thought about that before, but yes the time issues could be very challenging to juggle if you aren't in an ideal situation.
cmancini 10y ago
Lots of great stuff here. It is a numbers game in many ways since I've been in interview processes where we turned down lots of people who go on to succeed in amazing ways at other companies. I would be wary about recommending most people write cover letter templates. I can tell a templated letter most of the time. I'd recommend just writing a few sentences from the heart. Why you're great for them. Copy+Paste doesn't work, since each company is different and your background will connect in different ways. Keep it short and just ask to learn more.
- maxehnert 10y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. For cover letters, I think I'm using template more loosely and probably should have provided examples. The template part is for describing myself, however I still write out a paragraph or two specific to that company. I think I noted on researching the place before hand so you can include your favorite things about the place in the letter.
swang 10y ago
this is all good info. especially the take homes. when i interviewed this time around for a new job, the most frustrating part were the take homes. lots of companies expect you to do a sample project that only grants you an audience to a technical phone screen. like, what? didn't i just pass your technical test? if i still have to show my technical prowess doesn't that mean you don't trust my resume, or trust that i honestly completed your assignment? i also agree these take homes are not 4 hour affairs. they give you no direction so you can't sacrifice ui/ux for functionality because you have no clue how they judge it. i failed a large company's take home even though it was feature complete, but i sacrificed really slick/nice ui for a workable ui that i felt was passable given no direction. i got a thanks but no thanks reply back. as with regards to luck; another company i interviewed at, i aced their take home. then i interviewed with ~6 people who all said they liked me (or at least that was the feedback i got). but when i interviewed with the vpe, i failed a question about semaphores, (i knew what they are, but just didn't have the answer to a specific question the vpe asked) and failed the job app. the job position was to be a front-end developer.
- strictnein 10y ago
  > "i also agree these take homes are not 4 hour affairs. they give you no direction so you can't sacrifice ui/ux for functionality because you have no clue how they judge it." I had a take home for a UI position that I spent ~10-12 hours on. It was some pretty standard UI stuff and they had 5 points of functionality they wanted you to code. Make it responsive, have these sections in a different order on mobile, make X do Y when you click Z, etc etc. At the interview, two technical peers walked through what I had submitted. Their questions made it really clear they had no idea what problems I was supposed to solve. - Why didn't you write a complete RESTful backend to serve this data? (the instructions literally said not to) - Why didn't you use a CSS pre-processor? (the code required ~30 lines of CSS) - Why doesn't this button work? (it wasn't supposed to) - Why doesn't this code work on a mobile device? (it worked just fine on mobile devices) Really just a strange, strange experience.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    Given their cluelessness, would you even want to work with them? I'm guessing you "failed" that interview, and it was probably a good thing, too.
joatmon-snoo 10y ago
My perspective is skewed because I'm a uni student, but although there's really good stuff here, a lot also sticks out to me as the kind of advice I'd be giving to someone who just wants something to pay the bills, not someone who wants to do something they really want to do. The high volume apps and crapshoot stuff - 100% yes. Stuff like template cover letters? Nuh-uh. I have a structure that I stick to - hey, saw you guys are doing X and I think X is cool and wanna help y'all build it up, blablabla - but it's not a fill-in-the-blanks template. > Additionally have a good set of STAR questions ready and memorized. [...] Tell me a time when you disagreed with a manager… those types of questions that we all hate, but you MUST know them and be familiar with them. I can spot a memorized behavioral from a mile away, and it is without fail a terrible move. I mean, yeah, go through the questions, jot down a note about that time Alice did that thing or you had to help Bob out with that other thing in case you blank out when you get the question, but don't come up with an answer and memorize it. The point of these questions is to demonstrate that you're cognizant of team dynamics and the need to manage and navigate them.
- jacalata 10y ago
  No, you can't spot a memorized story. You can possibly spot a poorly memorized story. It's the difference between learning a speech off by heart and knowing the material backwards.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    Without probing questions, no. On technical matters and some interpersonal matters, though, you can use a variation of 5 Whys to quickly drill down on certain decisions or details. The only way to pass that is to actually know what you are talking about.
    - jacalata 10y ago
      Exactly. Memorize the incident, what you want to convey about it, and how to emphasise your angle on it. Don't rote-learn a single telling, and don't blow it off and think "ok I'd talk about that time I saved the orphans, next!"so that in the interview you're all "I was on my way back from preventing a bank robbery...wait no, it was a mugging...and i went past the orphanage on 5th Ave, or 6th, you know the one?"
dajohnson89 10y ago
The methodical approach is applaudable, and I'm really glad it works for people like the author. Maybe it is indeed the best strategy. But after a few rounds of doing this, it gets old. Not old as in, "I'd rather be watching westworld than drafting this cover letter". But old as in, "I'd rather be shoveling diarrhetic pig shit than doing this code exercise". I really love being a software engineer. The job application process is the biggest threat to me keeping that passion.
- maxehnert 10y ago
  I completely agree. It's incredibly frustrating to stop working on any side projects and stop learning any framework/library stuff to focus exclusively on algorithmic questions for weeks or months. That's why I tried to make it clear you have to just push through and give it everything you can so you can get back to doing fun stuff again. No one likes doing this but lowly developers that just need a job can't do much about it unfortunately.
neverminder 10y ago
I have noticed that too often the interviewers look for people like themselves, which I find really naive - chances of you finding your own copy are slim to none. A recent anecdote from my own experience. I've interviewed with this company. Everything seemed to go well, I had a talk with hiring manager, then with one of the guys from technical team where we discussed real world problems, etc. Everything goes well. As soon as I start thinking this could be the one, they say something along the lines of "let's see if this other guy from our team has some questions". So they bring the other guy who seems a little annoyed being dragged away from what he was doing (we're in an open office with glass walls, so I could see him at his desk). This guy turns out to be the "bad cop". He immediately goes down to more CS/academic level with his questions and eventually asks some question along the lines of "what does compiler do in a situation X when there is Y". Well, I am forced to answer that I have no idea (it's not exactly the kind of problem you normally encounter in real life), so the "bad cop" just nods his head in a forgiving manner and I know immediately it's a bust and that he's gonna veto me out. Sounds familiar?
- jondubois 10y ago
  Yes, that could happen if the person interviewing you has really deep knowledge of a very narrow area and somehow they've grown to think that this niche embodies all of software engineering. I find that older, more experienced engineers tend to know not to ask these kinds of deep domain-specific questions (unless the are directly relevant to the position being applied for). The unfair part about this type of interview process is that the interviewer assumes that what the candidate knows is only a subset of what they know - But they completely ignore the knowledge that lies outside of the intersection (which could also be useful).
exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago
It's quite fitting that the dating scene in S.F. is often similar to tech interviewing. Play the number games, don't get attached, and move on. Nothing personal, it's just metrics. Is this what cutthroat economic competition does to people?
- mysterypie 10y ago
  The dating scene is messed up for men in the Bay Area because eligible men vastly outnumber eligible women. It's as simple as that. All the unnatural relationship dynamics flows from this fact. More men study computer science, math, physics, and engineering than women do. Silicon Valley is a magnet for people in those fields. Silicon Valley ends up with way more single men in the 20-40 age bracket than single women. If you a straight single male, you have an important decision. If you value the immense professional opportunies of the Bay Area more than finding a partner, then do move there. If you think that finding a partner is also very important, then consider finding your job someplace with better ratios. If the Bay Area 20-40 dating pool is something like 3 male to 1 female, that means 2/3 of single men will be without partners.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    It's actually not quite that bad, but there are some areas where men outnumber women by over 40% [0]. The ratio is a little better in Silicon Valley, at about 1.14:1 [1]. The SF/Oakland/Hayward metro area fares a little better at 0.93:1 overall [2], but that doesn't take into account how difficult is is to access SF from the East Bay and vice versa. It doesn't take much of a skew to really mess up the ratios. [0]: http://visualizing.nyc/bay-area-zip-codes-singles-map/ http://visualizing.nyc/bay-area-zip-codes-singles-map/ [1]: http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/10/02/study-says-silicon-valley-swimming-with-eligible-men/ http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/10/02/study-says-silicon-va... [2]: Ibid.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      When it comes to dating, simple gender ratios might not paint the complete picture because it's not just any man:any woman. Frequently, the prospective partner has to have a similar socioeconomic background: I'm not in the Valley so I don't know if that ratio is in the ball park of 1.14:1 for the "goes to Silicon Valley" male archetype
jondubois 10y ago
I've been coding since I was 14 (I'm 27 now) and went to uni; I usually never have a problem with technical interviews, but I applied for Facebook just to try out their interview process (because one of my academic-minded software engineering friends told me that he didn't pass the third interview - So I was intrigued). I thought that their questions were mostly good but the interviewer makes you code live in realtime - I found this really stressful and I froze several times. I remember one of the challenges they posed in one of the interviews was to flatten a JSON multidimensional array that had an arbitrary level of nesting. I implemented the recursive solution without any problem (which is the difficult part right?) but then the interviewer asked me to come up with a non-recursive solution - This is actually easier, but because I was under stress and was still thinking about the problem in recursive terms, I just froze. I even asked "Do I need to use a fringe list?" (referring to a structure used in several search algorithms) but I don't think the interviewer understood my question and they weren't able to give me any guidance for what they were specifically looking for so I just asked to skip that question because of time pressure. Then later they asked some really easy questions about HTML and CSS (which I've done thousands of time) but because of the IDE they made me use, I couldn't actually run the code to test (and under stress, I forgot the exact syntax for a few things). I guess this is an interview process you need to really prepare for. I suppose the process makes sense for FB; the feeling of 'being watched' which I felt in the interview is probably common while working there day-to-day (considering the open workspace environment) - They need engineers who can perform in such an environment. I'm definitely not one of them.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  I freeze under pressure, too, but I work in an open office and have no issue with that. It's not reasonable to literally watch over someone's shoulder while they're working. That's just interview hazing. They do it because the people who hired them did it, on down to the first engineering employee hired by FB who probably had it done to him/her because the people interviewing had no idea how to interview any better. BTW, what's a "fringe list"? Googling that term shows me results pertaining to the TV show Fringe (which is great, but I'm sure not what you're getting at).
  - 10y ago
citeguised 10y ago
"Things like knowing the box model, closures, map/filter/reduce, object vs array, prototypes, bind/call/apply, event delegation. These made up almost ever single first phone screen interview I’ve ever had." Seems pretty hefty for a junior-frontend-position.
- maxehnert 10y ago
  You're right, I should have been more clear. I wasn't applying for junior positions anymore but most of the technique is what I did the last time I applied for jobs when I was looking for more junior positions.
- leshow 10y ago
  really? this to me just seems like knowing the language you're going to be working with every day. If you don't understand these concepts, how could you be an effective developer?
YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago
>> When I go into ‘interviewing mode’ I stop working on side projects, I stop visiting bs sites like reddit, news sites, and even HN. If it isn’t going to help you get that job just cut it from your life. While I agree that interviewing is a bit of a crap shoot, the above paragraph from the OP is actually a pretty good argument for not doing anything to prepare for it. If going into interviewing mode means you stop working on your own stuff, or having free time, or generally doing stuff that a) you enjoy and b) make you better at your work (rather than interviews) then you're paying a cost alright, and it's at least comparable to the cost of take-home coding exercises. If you're just applying anywhere you can it probably means you don't care where you go anyway. If you apply in sufficiently many places eventually you'll find the one place where they like you, you like them, you got what they want and they're willing to hire you. In fact if you take the time you'd waste in getting good at interviewing and invest it in learning a new language, or framework, or following a MOOC etc, you'll probably end up with much better qualtiy work, because your actual work skills will get better. It might take a bit longer to get there but you'll (probably) stick around for longer and you'll get more out of it.
Tempest1981 10y ago
If a company makes you an offer early in the process, how long are they typically willing to wait (while you interview with the other dozen companies)? Esp if you save the ideal companies for later in the process.
cashweaver 10y ago
(Is it okay to post things like this?) I've written a self-hosted search utility for HN threads posted by whoishiring which I'll be using in my upcoming job hunt in a month or so. It performs regex-based full-text searches of top-level comments in threads posted by whoishiring. I hope it can help someone in their hunt! https://github.com/cashweaver/hn-who-is-hiring-search https://github.com/cashweaver/hn-who-is-hiring-search
scarface74 10y ago
I can't imagine going through that much trouble trying to find a job as a developer. My m.o.: 1. Contact my list of (currently) 14 local recruiters from different companies with my resume, and tell them what type of job I'm looking for, salary, and location within the metro area. 2. They send me a list of jobs with the descriptions abd salary range - something you can't usually get without a recruiter - and I tell them which one I want to be submitted to. 3. Keep a list of the jobs, status (submitted, phone interview scheduled, in person interview scheduled, waiting for response), recruiter information, etc. so I don't get double submitted. Historically, since 1999 and three years out of college, it has taken me about a two-four weeks to find a job, usually paying significantly more. The last round I just went through. I had 13 prospects, 7 phone interviews, 3 in person interviews, trying to schedule the other 4, and will probably have four offers by the end of the week. This is with me being picky on location, salary, and environment. I'm not trying to say that I'm a special snowflake. I know a lot of people that I work with that could do the same.

155 points by maxehnert 10y ago

While it seems obvious now, the note that job listings with direct emails get first priority is something I'll keep in mind for the future.

pmiller2 10y ago
I applied a similar principle to getting my first place in the Bay Area. I made a point to contact listings on CL that included phone numbers before other listings. I got lucky, and it worked out. :)

dilaver 10y ago

"When I go into ‘interviewing mode’ I stop working on side projects, I stop visiting bs sites like reddit, news sites, and even HN. If it isn’t going to help you get that job just cut it from your life. Focus intensely on learning and writing job applications until you get there. This process isn’t fun, why drag it out any longer than you need to."

gizmo686 10y ago
That ... doesn't sound healthy, or productive. It is well established that there are diminishing returns to working longer hours on a task, even to the point of negative marginal utility. This is not true just for knowledge workers but, surprisingly, also held for factory workers during the industrial revolution. Not to mention the health impacts of spending so much time on a singular (soul crushing IMO) task.
- viraptor 10y ago
  I don't think it applies here. If you work on one task with one goal for longer, you do get exhausted. But I don't think it applies to repetitive tasks with different targets each time. You cannot "apply harder to the same company", but if you spend more time and apply to 30 rather than 20, you get a big improvement in the chance for positive response.
- zubairq 10y ago
  actually trying an unproductive technique is what is wrong. You need to be full time and using a productive technique, so I do agree that just sending out CVs 24 hours a day is wrong
zubairq 10y ago
actually this is the right advice. To find a job IS a full time job. No one wants to hear it but after running NemCV and getting data on around 15,000 job hunters, I saw that the people who treat looking for a job AS A JOB get a job over 10x faster than those who don't... Here is a link to the meetup we have run for 5 years too: http://www.meetup.com/get-your-dream-job/ http://www.meetup.com/get-your-dream-job/
- pmiller2 10y ago
  It's too bad I'm thousands of miles away from you. I would go to that meetup. :)
  - zubairq 10y ago
    Maybe we could do a video session one day if you want to set up a video with a local meetup there and you don't mind broadcasting it publicly.

noescape 10y ago

Why do rejection emails say "good luck" at the end?

nine_k 10y ago
Because you, the recipient, must now continue the job hunt, so luck in finding a better employer would come in handy.
- noescape 10y ago
  But why is this pleasantry about "luck" and not something else? You don't hear employers say "keep studying" or "we wish you a good effort" or "we hope you build cool stuff". Isn't the employer referring to luck an admission from the employer that interviewing has a lot to do with luck?
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    Because "keep studying" would just sound condescending.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      I personally find "good luck" and "we reject many good candidates" it be even more condescending.
  - Cpoll 10y ago
    Because "keep studying" can be construed negatively: You're not good enough. Unsolicited advice isn't usually a good idea politically. Saying "luck" implies several things: - You just weren't the right fit. - I don't wish to imply your skills are lacking. - I hope you succeed, even though I wasn't able to help.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      > Because "keep studying" can be construed negatively: You're not good enough. Unsolicited advice isn't usually a good idea politically. They're rejecting you because you weren't good enough (or because they suck at actually identifying talent). > Saying "luck" implies several things: None of which are good things about the process, because a process should be designed to drive the percent influence of luck to as close to zero as practical. > - You just weren't the right fit. Bullshit non-reason. > - I don't wish to imply your skills are lacking. We also don't want to admit that we may not have any idea what we are looking for or how to evaluate it. > - I hope you succeed, even though I wasn't able to help. If I don't need improvement but I succeed elsewhere in a similar job, that just means you screwed up.

pmorici 10y ago

This has got to be one of the most honest descriptions of how job hunting actually works ever written and posted on HN. It's a sharp contrast to a lot of the stuff that is posted here that depicts job hunting like some kind of spiritual search for your life's passion.

viraptor 10y ago
I think both are real, just in a different context. Almost everybody is passively looking for an ideal position all the time. If you get recommended, see some job ad, or just see what's out there - you're looking for life's passion. I know I interviewed for some positions even though I already had a good job, just to see if there's a better option. But it's different than when you're in / just out of uni (I still remember sending just under 150 applications...), or when you're just recently out of work with a family and a mortgage (and you need something now).
mooreds 10y ago
I think this is a great description of the job hunting process early in your career. Later in your career, if you have kept connections alive, the job hunt should look like this: "Hi <member of network>, I'm looking for a position doing X at Y, and I noticed you know Sara at Y. Do you mind doing intros? I'd really appreciate it." ... intros/coffee with Sara. ... resume to the hiring manager, perhaps through some automated system, but with a thumb on the scales ... interview ... hire/no hire decision based on mutual fit. Now, this isn't about nepotism, it's about the power of having worked together. While the internet is great and you can learn a ton about a candidate (sometimes) by their online work, sometimes you can't. And nothing is as high bandwidth as having worked with someone. (Well, maybe a family connection.) So if you can build your trust networks and get informal introductions to a company from someone who has worked with both parties, you're in a very strong position. That said, as I stated at the beginning (and the author did as well), this post was fantastic for folks without such a network.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  > Later in your career, if you have kept connections alive, the job hunt should look like this If you kept connections alive and actually have connections that move on to other companies. 95% of the connections I have made in 14 years are either retired or still at the companies they were at when I met them. How does this help me?

ajeet_dhaliwal 10y ago

I'm starting to feel the same about the take home tests. Too time consuming.

CoolGuySteve 10y ago
I agree completely. It really pisses me off when you complete the take home test and then get called in for another 8 hours of whiteboard technical interviews. WTF is the point of giving these work sample tests if they're not sufficient proof that you can do the work? And how can anyone think actually programming things into a computer is superseded by asinine whiteboard sessions that have less in common with the day-to-day of programming? IMO, after the take home test, the in-person should be a couple hours or half day for personality fit and maybe some loose questions to determine if you actually did the test yourself. Mainly, the in-person interview should determine if you can tolerate sitting next to each other all day. So I've started giving negative Glassdoor reviews to companies that abuse these tests, either by handing out broken or excessive ones or by wasting a full day of my time with algorithm questions AFTER accepting the test. I suggest everyone do the same.
viraptor 10y ago
I think it can work both ways. Tasks like that can be time-consuming, but would you rather take a day off for an on-site interview, or spend ~1h doing it at home? There's some line that shouldn't be crossed of course - I think companies shouldn't give the test to everyone - just those who are actually considered after some screening. But I've been on both sides: taking and preparing the test, and I think it's a good idea as a 2nd stage filter. My test was completely open-ended. Trivial task (script to copy data from .csv to a sqlite, optionally notify on the queue at the end), but make it as production-ready as you can/want. I don't think I could learn as much about people's abilities during an interview, as I could from that task. I mean, the 1 person who made a proper package, a short .rst install & use documentation, and included crazy unicode test cases was immediately on the top of the list.
- dpark 10y ago
  So you prioritized for people willing to sink many hours into your assignment. The need to sink many hours into a homework assignment is the criticism.

tdeck 10y ago

Side question - how do these people interviewing at "a dozen or so places" manage it? Assuming most companies' interviews will force you to take a full day off work, and they will have different schedules and offer deadlines. Is there a trick to managing this that is eluding me? Even with taking a couple of weeks off it seems like it would be very difficult.

pmoriarty 10y ago
Without a job, one usually has lots of free time.
- tdeck 10y ago
  That still doesn't help much with lining up the offers, but I guess that's less of a concern when you're unemployed (I.E. you'll take the first decent offer you get). However, I feel like I have often read accounts of people with a job interviewing at 6-10 companies and I always wondered how.
  - bpchaps 10y ago
    Well, look for companies that are willing to do interviews during your lunch. Those are the companies you'd want to work for anyway, since they have enough empathy to understand that 2+ hour interviews are risky if you're already employed.
  - jedmeyers 10y ago
    > That still doesn't help much with lining up the offers Larger companies are aware that you might be pursuing other opportunities, and are usually willing to postpone extending a final offer until the time you are ready to accept it or at least have other offers to compare it to.
maxehnert 10y ago
I mentioned I track everything and try to apply in a small timeline to bunch interviews together. Most places want 2-3 phone interviews before anything else which at most meant leaving work a half hour early (I just go in early or stay late another day). When it comes to on sites, well I guess I had a lot of vacation time from not taking any previously. I hadn't really thought about that before, but yes the time issues could be very challenging to juggle if you aren't in an ideal situation.

cmancini 10y ago

Lots of great stuff here. It is a numbers game in many ways since I've been in interview processes where we turned down lots of people who go on to succeed in amazing ways at other companies. I would be wary about recommending most people write cover letter templates. I can tell a templated letter most of the time. I'd recommend just writing a few sentences from the heart. Why you're great for them. Copy+Paste doesn't work, since each company is different and your background will connect in different ways. Keep it short and just ask to learn more.

maxehnert 10y ago
Thanks for the kind words. For cover letters, I think I'm using template more loosely and probably should have provided examples. The template part is for describing myself, however I still write out a paragraph or two specific to that company. I think I noted on researching the place before hand so you can include your favorite things about the place in the letter.

swang 10y ago

this is all good info. especially the take homes. when i interviewed this time around for a new job, the most frustrating part were the take homes. lots of companies expect you to do a sample project that only grants you an audience to a technical phone screen. like, what? didn't i just pass your technical test? if i still have to show my technical prowess doesn't that mean you don't trust my resume, or trust that i honestly completed your assignment? i also agree these take homes are not 4 hour affairs. they give you no direction so you can't sacrifice ui/ux for functionality because you have no clue how they judge it. i failed a large company's take home even though it was feature complete, but i sacrificed really slick/nice ui for a workable ui that i felt was passable given no direction. i got a thanks but no thanks reply back. as with regards to luck; another company i interviewed at, i aced their take home. then i interviewed with ~6 people who all said they liked me (or at least that was the feedback i got). but when i interviewed with the vpe, i failed a question about semaphores, (i knew what they are, but just didn't have the answer to a specific question the vpe asked) and failed the job app. the job position was to be a front-end developer.

strictnein 10y ago
> "i also agree these take homes are not 4 hour affairs. they give you no direction so you can't sacrifice ui/ux for functionality because you have no clue how they judge it." I had a take home for a UI position that I spent ~10-12 hours on. It was some pretty standard UI stuff and they had 5 points of functionality they wanted you to code. Make it responsive, have these sections in a different order on mobile, make X do Y when you click Z, etc etc. At the interview, two technical peers walked through what I had submitted. Their questions made it really clear they had no idea what problems I was supposed to solve. - Why didn't you write a complete RESTful backend to serve this data? (the instructions literally said not to) - Why didn't you use a CSS pre-processor? (the code required ~30 lines of CSS) - Why doesn't this button work? (it wasn't supposed to) - Why doesn't this code work on a mobile device? (it worked just fine on mobile devices) Really just a strange, strange experience.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  Given their cluelessness, would you even want to work with them? I'm guessing you "failed" that interview, and it was probably a good thing, too.

joatmon-snoo 10y ago

My perspective is skewed because I'm a uni student, but although there's really good stuff here, a lot also sticks out to me as the kind of advice I'd be giving to someone who just wants something to pay the bills, not someone who wants to do something they really want to do. The high volume apps and crapshoot stuff - 100% yes. Stuff like template cover letters? Nuh-uh. I have a structure that I stick to - hey, saw you guys are doing X and I think X is cool and wanna help y'all build it up, blablabla - but it's not a fill-in-the-blanks template. > Additionally have a good set of STAR questions ready and memorized. [...] Tell me a time when you disagreed with a manager… those types of questions that we all hate, but you MUST know them and be familiar with them. I can spot a memorized behavioral from a mile away, and it is without fail a terrible move. I mean, yeah, go through the questions, jot down a note about that time Alice did that thing or you had to help Bob out with that other thing in case you blank out when you get the question, but don't come up with an answer and memorize it. The point of these questions is to demonstrate that you're cognizant of team dynamics and the need to manage and navigate them.

jacalata 10y ago
No, you can't spot a memorized story. You can possibly spot a poorly memorized story. It's the difference between learning a speech off by heart and knowing the material backwards.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  Without probing questions, no. On technical matters and some interpersonal matters, though, you can use a variation of 5 Whys to quickly drill down on certain decisions or details. The only way to pass that is to actually know what you are talking about.
  - jacalata 10y ago
    Exactly. Memorize the incident, what you want to convey about it, and how to emphasise your angle on it. Don't rote-learn a single telling, and don't blow it off and think "ok I'd talk about that time I saved the orphans, next!"so that in the interview you're all "I was on my way back from preventing a bank robbery...wait no, it was a mugging...and i went past the orphanage on 5th Ave, or 6th, you know the one?"

dajohnson89 10y ago

The methodical approach is applaudable, and I'm really glad it works for people like the author. Maybe it is indeed the best strategy. But after a few rounds of doing this, it gets old. Not old as in, "I'd rather be watching westworld than drafting this cover letter". But old as in, "I'd rather be shoveling diarrhetic pig shit than doing this code exercise". I really love being a software engineer. The job application process is the biggest threat to me keeping that passion.

maxehnert 10y ago
I completely agree. It's incredibly frustrating to stop working on any side projects and stop learning any framework/library stuff to focus exclusively on algorithmic questions for weeks or months. That's why I tried to make it clear you have to just push through and give it everything you can so you can get back to doing fun stuff again. No one likes doing this but lowly developers that just need a job can't do much about it unfortunately.

neverminder 10y ago

I have noticed that too often the interviewers look for people like themselves, which I find really naive - chances of you finding your own copy are slim to none. A recent anecdote from my own experience. I've interviewed with this company. Everything seemed to go well, I had a talk with hiring manager, then with one of the guys from technical team where we discussed real world problems, etc. Everything goes well. As soon as I start thinking this could be the one, they say something along the lines of "let's see if this other guy from our team has some questions". So they bring the other guy who seems a little annoyed being dragged away from what he was doing (we're in an open office with glass walls, so I could see him at his desk). This guy turns out to be the "bad cop". He immediately goes down to more CS/academic level with his questions and eventually asks some question along the lines of "what does compiler do in a situation X when there is Y". Well, I am forced to answer that I have no idea (it's not exactly the kind of problem you normally encounter in real life), so the "bad cop" just nods his head in a forgiving manner and I know immediately it's a bust and that he's gonna veto me out. Sounds familiar?

jondubois 10y ago
Yes, that could happen if the person interviewing you has really deep knowledge of a very narrow area and somehow they've grown to think that this niche embodies all of software engineering. I find that older, more experienced engineers tend to know not to ask these kinds of deep domain-specific questions (unless the are directly relevant to the position being applied for). The unfair part about this type of interview process is that the interviewer assumes that what the candidate knows is only a subset of what they know - But they completely ignore the knowledge that lies outside of the intersection (which could also be useful).

exBarrelSpoiler 10y ago

It's quite fitting that the dating scene in S.F. is often similar to tech interviewing. Play the number games, don't get attached, and move on. Nothing personal, it's just metrics. Is this what cutthroat economic competition does to people?

mysterypie 10y ago
The dating scene is messed up for men in the Bay Area because eligible men vastly outnumber eligible women. It's as simple as that. All the unnatural relationship dynamics flows from this fact. More men study computer science, math, physics, and engineering than women do. Silicon Valley is a magnet for people in those fields. Silicon Valley ends up with way more single men in the 20-40 age bracket than single women. If you a straight single male, you have an important decision. If you value the immense professional opportunies of the Bay Area more than finding a partner, then do move there. If you think that finding a partner is also very important, then consider finding your job someplace with better ratios. If the Bay Area 20-40 dating pool is something like 3 male to 1 female, that means 2/3 of single men will be without partners.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  It's actually not quite that bad, but there are some areas where men outnumber women by over 40% [0]. The ratio is a little better in Silicon Valley, at about 1.14:1 [1]. The SF/Oakland/Hayward metro area fares a little better at 0.93:1 overall [2], but that doesn't take into account how difficult is is to access SF from the East Bay and vice versa. It doesn't take much of a skew to really mess up the ratios. [0]: http://visualizing.nyc/bay-area-zip-codes-singles-map/ http://visualizing.nyc/bay-area-zip-codes-singles-map/ [1]: http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/10/02/study-says-silicon-valley-swimming-with-eligible-men/ http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/10/02/study-says-silicon-va... [2]: Ibid.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    When it comes to dating, simple gender ratios might not paint the complete picture because it's not just any man:any woman. Frequently, the prospective partner has to have a similar socioeconomic background: I'm not in the Valley so I don't know if that ratio is in the ball park of 1.14:1 for the "goes to Silicon Valley" male archetype

jondubois 10y ago

I've been coding since I was 14 (I'm 27 now) and went to uni; I usually never have a problem with technical interviews, but I applied for Facebook just to try out their interview process (because one of my academic-minded software engineering friends told me that he didn't pass the third interview - So I was intrigued). I thought that their questions were mostly good but the interviewer makes you code live in realtime - I found this really stressful and I froze several times. I remember one of the challenges they posed in one of the interviews was to flatten a JSON multidimensional array that had an arbitrary level of nesting. I implemented the recursive solution without any problem (which is the difficult part right?) but then the interviewer asked me to come up with a non-recursive solution - This is actually easier, but because I was under stress and was still thinking about the problem in recursive terms, I just froze. I even asked "Do I need to use a fringe list?" (referring to a structure used in several search algorithms) but I don't think the interviewer understood my question and they weren't able to give me any guidance for what they were specifically looking for so I just asked to skip that question because of time pressure. Then later they asked some really easy questions about HTML and CSS (which I've done thousands of time) but because of the IDE they made me use, I couldn't actually run the code to test (and under stress, I forgot the exact syntax for a few things). I guess this is an interview process you need to really prepare for. I suppose the process makes sense for FB; the feeling of 'being watched' which I felt in the interview is probably common while working there day-to-day (considering the open workspace environment) - They need engineers who can perform in such an environment. I'm definitely not one of them.

pmiller2 10y ago
I freeze under pressure, too, but I work in an open office and have no issue with that. It's not reasonable to literally watch over someone's shoulder while they're working. That's just interview hazing. They do it because the people who hired them did it, on down to the first engineering employee hired by FB who probably had it done to him/her because the people interviewing had no idea how to interview any better. BTW, what's a "fringe list"? Googling that term shows me results pertaining to the TV show Fringe (which is great, but I'm sure not what you're getting at).
- 10y ago

citeguised 10y ago

"Things like knowing the box model, closures, map/filter/reduce, object vs array, prototypes, bind/call/apply, event delegation. These made up almost ever single first phone screen interview I’ve ever had." Seems pretty hefty for a junior-frontend-position.

maxehnert 10y ago
You're right, I should have been more clear. I wasn't applying for junior positions anymore but most of the technique is what I did the last time I applied for jobs when I was looking for more junior positions.
leshow 10y ago
really? this to me just seems like knowing the language you're going to be working with every day. If you don't understand these concepts, how could you be an effective developer?

YeGoblynQueenne 10y ago

>> When I go into ‘interviewing mode’ I stop working on side projects, I stop visiting bs sites like reddit, news sites, and even HN. If it isn’t going to help you get that job just cut it from your life. While I agree that interviewing is a bit of a crap shoot, the above paragraph from the OP is actually a pretty good argument for not doing anything to prepare for it. If going into interviewing mode means you stop working on your own stuff, or having free time, or generally doing stuff that a) you enjoy and b) make you better at your work (rather than interviews) then you're paying a cost alright, and it's at least comparable to the cost of take-home coding exercises. If you're just applying anywhere you can it probably means you don't care where you go anyway. If you apply in sufficiently many places eventually you'll find the one place where they like you, you like them, you got what they want and they're willing to hire you. In fact if you take the time you'd waste in getting good at interviewing and invest it in learning a new language, or framework, or following a MOOC etc, you'll probably end up with much better qualtiy work, because your actual work skills will get better. It might take a bit longer to get there but you'll (probably) stick around for longer and you'll get more out of it.

Tempest1981 10y ago

If a company makes you an offer early in the process, how long are they typically willing to wait (while you interview with the other dozen companies)? Esp if you save the ideal companies for later in the process.

cashweaver 10y ago

(Is it okay to post things like this?) I've written a self-hosted search utility for HN threads posted by whoishiring which I'll be using in my upcoming job hunt in a month or so. It performs regex-based full-text searches of top-level comments in threads posted by whoishiring. I hope it can help someone in their hunt! https://github.com/cashweaver/hn-who-is-hiring-search https://github.com/cashweaver/hn-who-is-hiring-search

scarface74 10y ago

I can't imagine going through that much trouble trying to find a job as a developer. My m.o.: 1. Contact my list of (currently) 14 local recruiters from different companies with my resume, and tell them what type of job I'm looking for, salary, and location within the metro area. 2. They send me a list of jobs with the descriptions abd salary range - something you can't usually get without a recruiter - and I tell them which one I want to be submitted to. 3. Keep a list of the jobs, status (submitted, phone interview scheduled, in person interview scheduled, waiting for response), recruiter information, etc. so I don't get double submitted. Historically, since 1999 and three years out of college, it has taken me about a two-four weeks to find a job, usually paying significantly more. The last round I just went through. I had 13 prospects, 7 phone interviews, 3 in person interviews, trying to schedule the other 4, and will probably have four offers by the end of the week. This is with me being picky on location, salary, and environment. I'm not trying to say that I'm a special snowflake. I know a lot of people that I work with that could do the same.