5 ms·

I find the whole concept of "preparing for an interview" kinda strange. I understand why people do it, and I certainly wouldn't fault anyone for giving themsel

I find the whole concept of "preparing for an interview" kinda strange. I understand why people do it, and I certainly wouldn't fault anyone for giving themselves the best possible chance. But at a certain level, it really feels like trying to cheat the system. In an ideal world, a normal conversation about the technology - your opinions, preferences and experiences regarding it - should be able to reveal what the interviewer needs to know.

coppolaemilio 9y ago
Yeah, I prefer working with the person 10 times more than selecting only based on a test.
ht_th 9y ago
True. I've never been asked these kinds of "knowledge" questions in any interview. Nor have I asked them of any candidate. To me, interviewing is more about finding a fit to the company's and team's culture, than to ascertain if a candidate knows what she is supposed to know. Even if a candidate succeeds in bluffing her way through an interview, she will fall short in the one-month trial period. I like the one-month trial period. I've walked away twice during the trial period from a company because they were a lot less organized than they did appear during the interviews. Similarly, we have let go of a couple of employees during their one-month trial because they were unable to learn fast enough or were too arrogant.
- nojvek 9y ago
  How does one even hire senior folks on a trial period? So you work at this big co. How about you leave your job and come work for us and we may fire you after a month? The best people are never on the market. You have to get them before they even leave their existing company otherwise someone else will
  - ht_th 9y ago
    What's the difference? The intention of employing them is to offer them a permanent contract, but if things do not work out, firing people is hard. So, we almost always have three stages when we employ someone: - one-month trial period - one-year contract - permanent contract For senior people, the trial period is more of a formality as they are often quick to become productive in the organization. Of course, when after a couple of months it is discovered that the new senior and management do have a fundamental difference of opinion with regard to the future of the organization, professionally, or even personally, the end of the one-year contract is the moment to part ways. This can be initiated by employer, employee, or even both, but that depends on the situation.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      What do you offer that makes a contract position attractive versus other companies that will bring you on permanently immediately?
      - ht_th 9y ago
        Nothing. It is quite common to do it like this here in the Netherlands. Of course, once we have a new employee and after a couple of months we think she is a great addition to the team, we will start negotiate for the permanent contract immediately. Our team consists of experienced and above-average educated developers. We are not looking to attract that one 10x developer, nor do we desperately need a senior developer now. We sort of have too many senior level developers; our retention is high. Anyway, we are looking for similarly educated and experienced people that fit our team, and we offer a culture where such a person can thrive. We prefer to take a while longer to find and grow a great match rather than to gamble on potential talent that might leave again soon. On the other hand, we do need new developers, particularly specialists, and we have gotten to the point that we are willing to take more risk. But the organization as a whole is still figuring out how to grow beyond a 10 person post-startup development team towards a 100+ person company (we merged with our biggest partner).
  - loopbit 9y ago
    At close to 20 years of experience, I consider myself pretty senior and every job I've has had a 6 months probation period. During that time both the employee and/or the company can terminate the contract giving a small notice - one week in every country I've worked, but it might be different in other places. In most companies you don't even have access to some (or all) benefits - pension, healthcare, shares... - until you pass that period. I don't know about your experience, but from where I come from it's almost a fact of life and one of the things you have to weight when looking to move to a new position.
watwut 9y ago
> In an ideal world, a normal conversation about the technology - your opinions, preferences and experiences regarding it - should be able to reveal what the interviewer needs to know. Studying which opinions are fashionable this time is part of preparation for interview process :). But more importantly, that kind of interview is strongly biased toward people who are charizmatic, great talker and biased against doers. Especially biased against those more on nerds side.
trungdq88 9y ago
I really want this to be true, however in our "not so ideal" world, many interviewers are just bad at interviewing or they are asking candidates more than what they really need, mean while not willing to pay higher price. In short, recruiters are trying to cheat the system too. So, fair world.
themarkn 9y ago
I tend to be really solid on the ins and outs of what I'm working on right now, or in the last year. And on stuff older than that I have a good idea of the landscape and the location of certain gotchas, but I find I have to Google certain things like syntax or accessible ways to do something as I go. In real life, that googling or checking the docs fits right into the flow of solving the problem. But for an interview it's better to be fresh on as much as you can, even if you haven't been "in it" recently. And it can help a lot with nerves. One or two follow-up questions should help the interviewer figure out whether the person has experience with something or just knows what it is, and as long as the candidate's not pretending to have used things they haven't used, it's hard for me to call preparation cheating.
- organsnyder 9y ago
  When I've been involved in interviews from the interviewer side, I always try to focus on questions that don't have concrete, Googleable answers. Sure, it's good to include a question or two to filter out the actual impostors—such as asking a candidate claiming extensive Java experience how to check string equality (it's astonishing how many people this filters out)—but after that sanity check, I'm more interested in your approach to problem-solving and communication. One fun thing to do as an interviewer is to play the role of a business analyst, asking for how they would implement a particular feature; then, make the requirements purposefully vague (while encouraging the interviewee to ask follow-up questions if they'd like). This is a lot closer to most real-world programming challenges than a detailed discussion of reactive programming.
svdree 9y ago
Yeah, I can understand preparing for the job itself, e.g. brushing up on your financial knowledge when applying for an HFT job or something. But interviews and actual jobs seem to have diverged to the point that there is now somewhat of an industry around 'preparing for the tech interview'. It's almost like a new branch of science.
tomgp 9y ago
I prepare for interviews but rather than rehearsing technicalities I make sure I know all I can about the company, I think about what problems I might encounter in the role and what solutions might look like, and I think how my skills and experience might benefit the company.

coppolaemilio 9y ago

Yeah, I prefer working with the person 10 times more than selecting only based on a test.

ht_th 9y ago

True. I've never been asked these kinds of "knowledge" questions in any interview. Nor have I asked them of any candidate. To me, interviewing is more about finding a fit to the company's and team's culture, than to ascertain if a candidate knows what she is supposed to know. Even if a candidate succeeds in bluffing her way through an interview, she will fall short in the one-month trial period. I like the one-month trial period. I've walked away twice during the trial period from a company because they were a lot less organized than they did appear during the interviews. Similarly, we have let go of a couple of employees during their one-month trial because they were unable to learn fast enough or were too arrogant.

nojvek 9y ago
How does one even hire senior folks on a trial period? So you work at this big co. How about you leave your job and come work for us and we may fire you after a month? The best people are never on the market. You have to get them before they even leave their existing company otherwise someone else will
- ht_th 9y ago
  What's the difference? The intention of employing them is to offer them a permanent contract, but if things do not work out, firing people is hard. So, we almost always have three stages when we employ someone: - one-month trial period - one-year contract - permanent contract For senior people, the trial period is more of a formality as they are often quick to become productive in the organization. Of course, when after a couple of months it is discovered that the new senior and management do have a fundamental difference of opinion with regard to the future of the organization, professionally, or even personally, the end of the one-year contract is the moment to part ways. This can be initiated by employer, employee, or even both, but that depends on the situation.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    What do you offer that makes a contract position attractive versus other companies that will bring you on permanently immediately?
    - ht_th 9y ago
      Nothing. It is quite common to do it like this here in the Netherlands. Of course, once we have a new employee and after a couple of months we think she is a great addition to the team, we will start negotiate for the permanent contract immediately. Our team consists of experienced and above-average educated developers. We are not looking to attract that one 10x developer, nor do we desperately need a senior developer now. We sort of have too many senior level developers; our retention is high. Anyway, we are looking for similarly educated and experienced people that fit our team, and we offer a culture where such a person can thrive. We prefer to take a while longer to find and grow a great match rather than to gamble on potential talent that might leave again soon. On the other hand, we do need new developers, particularly specialists, and we have gotten to the point that we are willing to take more risk. But the organization as a whole is still figuring out how to grow beyond a 10 person post-startup development team towards a 100+ person company (we merged with our biggest partner).
- loopbit 9y ago
  At close to 20 years of experience, I consider myself pretty senior and every job I've has had a 6 months probation period. During that time both the employee and/or the company can terminate the contract giving a small notice - one week in every country I've worked, but it might be different in other places. In most companies you don't even have access to some (or all) benefits - pension, healthcare, shares... - until you pass that period. I don't know about your experience, but from where I come from it's almost a fact of life and one of the things you have to weight when looking to move to a new position.

watwut 9y ago

> In an ideal world, a normal conversation about the technology - your opinions, preferences and experiences regarding it - should be able to reveal what the interviewer needs to know. Studying which opinions are fashionable this time is part of preparation for interview process :). But more importantly, that kind of interview is strongly biased toward people who are charizmatic, great talker and biased against doers. Especially biased against those more on nerds side.

trungdq88 9y ago

I really want this to be true, however in our "not so ideal" world, many interviewers are just bad at interviewing or they are asking candidates more than what they really need, mean while not willing to pay higher price. In short, recruiters are trying to cheat the system too. So, fair world.

themarkn 9y ago

I tend to be really solid on the ins and outs of what I'm working on right now, or in the last year. And on stuff older than that I have a good idea of the landscape and the location of certain gotchas, but I find I have to Google certain things like syntax or accessible ways to do something as I go. In real life, that googling or checking the docs fits right into the flow of solving the problem. But for an interview it's better to be fresh on as much as you can, even if you haven't been "in it" recently. And it can help a lot with nerves. One or two follow-up questions should help the interviewer figure out whether the person has experience with something or just knows what it is, and as long as the candidate's not pretending to have used things they haven't used, it's hard for me to call preparation cheating.

organsnyder 9y ago
When I've been involved in interviews from the interviewer side, I always try to focus on questions that don't have concrete, Googleable answers. Sure, it's good to include a question or two to filter out the actual impostors—such as asking a candidate claiming extensive Java experience how to check string equality (it's astonishing how many people this filters out)—but after that sanity check, I'm more interested in your approach to problem-solving and communication. One fun thing to do as an interviewer is to play the role of a business analyst, asking for how they would implement a particular feature; then, make the requirements purposefully vague (while encouraging the interviewee to ask follow-up questions if they'd like). This is a lot closer to most real-world programming challenges than a detailed discussion of reactive programming.

svdree 9y ago

Yeah, I can understand preparing for the job itself, e.g. brushing up on your financial knowledge when applying for an HFT job or something. But interviews and actual jobs seem to have diverged to the point that there is now somewhat of an industry around 'preparing for the tech interview'. It's almost like a new branch of science.

tomgp 9y ago

I prepare for interviews but rather than rehearsing technicalities I make sure I know all I can about the company, I think about what problems I might encounter in the role and what solutions might look like, and I think how my skills and experience might benefit the company.