4 ms·

It sounds like something about how you come off in interviews throws off red flags to the person interviewing you. Maybe you're too arrogant, not arrogant enoug

It sounds like something about how you come off in interviews throws off red flags to the person interviewing you. Maybe you're too arrogant, not arrogant enough, not driven enough, etc. Most top tier companies will give you a list of personality qualities they are looking for that they expect you to show in the initial interview. I'd recommend doing a mock interview with someone you trust who has hired people to see what they can discern.

dehrmann 7y ago
> Maybe you're too arrogant, not arrogant enough For all the criticism hacker news gives whiteboard algorithm interviews, those at least are testing performance under pressure for a skill related to the job. Arrogance is a bigger problem in interviews. What comes off as confidence in an interview might come off as asshole at work.
- mister_hn 7y ago
  But you know? Do you ask a plumber to show you how to connect tubes, before hiring him? Whiteboard interviews aren't even real life situations.
  - srl 7y ago
    > Do you ask a plumber to show you how to connect tubes, before hiring him? If the previous two plumbers I'd hired had turned out not to know how to connect tubes... yeah, I might.
  - alextheparrot 7y ago
    This seems a bit unfair, as I don’t ask the plumber likely because of trade skills being centrally licensed and regulated. Presumably if they are licensed to do the job someone else has already done the vetting - which makes sense especially for consumer-focused skills where the consumer might not be able to perform an adequate vetting. I understand the core idea of your comment, regarding the utility of whiteboard interviews to assess skill. Irrespective, vetting is a part of many skilled jobs. The difference in the analogy and software being whether a centralised institution (Licensing body) or each company does that vetting.
    - goatinaboat 7y ago
      Presumably if they are licensed to do the job someone else has already done the vetting That’s true but it’s also true that a candidate may have had previous jobs at a string of reputable companies, and yet that “vetting” is completely ignored and it’s back to square one. Not to mention that a degree from a reputable university also doesn’t count. Maybe it gets them past the HR screen but no interviewers seem to believe that a degree let’s you skip the whiteboard.
      - steev 7y ago
        A degree from a reputable university doesn't count in _any_ profession (ok, that's hyperbolic - it certainly counts for something in run-of-the-mill office jobs). Even doctors, lawyers, actuaries, accountants, etc. have to prove they are capable to a central authority before they can work.
      - alextheparrot 7y ago
        Your first paragraph is all too true from personal experience. Last week I was phone interviewing a candidate who, by resume and our first 5 minutes of conversation, I knew would pass the standard coding problem we had prepared. Felt like a waste to “vet” then, as the signal that they were a good candidate was already there. On the other hand, getting a CS degree showed the need for additional vetting, in my experience. I saw many students who hadn’t really learned to code, and only a handful of students learned to write industry-level code.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    I wasn't trying to have another instance of the whiteboard interview debate. My point was about arrogance and how we should give it more attention as a bad signal than we do.
    - mister_hn 7y ago
      definitively. Arrogance is a major red flag
- LargeWu 7y ago
  "testing performance under pressure" What kind of companies are these that their engineers need to write perfect code under severe (i.e. on the order of minutes) time constraints? Are they constantly opening sockets for Jack Bauer? The only whiteboard questions I find useful as an interviewer are the super-easy ones that weed out the bozos who have somehow slipped through the initial filter. Things like "can you write a SQL join". What I find most predictive are conversations with candidates about how they evaluate tradeoffs, approach system design, what do you do when you get stuck? Typically if they can pass the bozo filters and talk cluefully about these things, they will likely be a productive coder on straightforward applications. Which is most applications; many companies vastly overestimate the inherent complexity of their products.
  - marcinzm 7y ago
    >What kind of companies are these that their engineers need to write perfect code under severe (i.e. on the order of minutes) time constraints? I, oddly, had to do that once in my career although I had an hour or so. Retail advertising, Cyber Monday, data pipeline is backing up severely, advertising budgets aren't updating, only other data person I can reach is drunk. Bottlenecking code is written in perl. I don't know perl. And no real testing environment. Very stressful hour of my life. edit: Of course, such things happening often enough to note are generally a symptom of bad process and management, probably a lot of technical debt as well. So generally a workplace to avoid.

dehrmann 7y ago

> Maybe you're too arrogant, not arrogant enough For all the criticism hacker news gives whiteboard algorithm interviews, those at least are testing performance under pressure for a skill related to the job. Arrogance is a bigger problem in interviews. What comes off as confidence in an interview might come off as asshole at work.

mister_hn 7y ago
But you know? Do you ask a plumber to show you how to connect tubes, before hiring him? Whiteboard interviews aren't even real life situations.
- srl 7y ago
  > Do you ask a plumber to show you how to connect tubes, before hiring him? If the previous two plumbers I'd hired had turned out not to know how to connect tubes... yeah, I might.
- alextheparrot 7y ago
  This seems a bit unfair, as I don’t ask the plumber likely because of trade skills being centrally licensed and regulated. Presumably if they are licensed to do the job someone else has already done the vetting - which makes sense especially for consumer-focused skills where the consumer might not be able to perform an adequate vetting. I understand the core idea of your comment, regarding the utility of whiteboard interviews to assess skill. Irrespective, vetting is a part of many skilled jobs. The difference in the analogy and software being whether a centralised institution (Licensing body) or each company does that vetting.
  - goatinaboat 7y ago
    Presumably if they are licensed to do the job someone else has already done the vetting That’s true but it’s also true that a candidate may have had previous jobs at a string of reputable companies, and yet that “vetting” is completely ignored and it’s back to square one. Not to mention that a degree from a reputable university also doesn’t count. Maybe it gets them past the HR screen but no interviewers seem to believe that a degree let’s you skip the whiteboard.
    - steev 7y ago
      A degree from a reputable university doesn't count in _any_ profession (ok, that's hyperbolic - it certainly counts for something in run-of-the-mill office jobs). Even doctors, lawyers, actuaries, accountants, etc. have to prove they are capable to a central authority before they can work.
    - alextheparrot 7y ago
      Your first paragraph is all too true from personal experience. Last week I was phone interviewing a candidate who, by resume and our first 5 minutes of conversation, I knew would pass the standard coding problem we had prepared. Felt like a waste to “vet” then, as the signal that they were a good candidate was already there. On the other hand, getting a CS degree showed the need for additional vetting, in my experience. I saw many students who hadn’t really learned to code, and only a handful of students learned to write industry-level code.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  I wasn't trying to have another instance of the whiteboard interview debate. My point was about arrogance and how we should give it more attention as a bad signal than we do.
  - mister_hn 7y ago
    definitively. Arrogance is a major red flag
LargeWu 7y ago
"testing performance under pressure" What kind of companies are these that their engineers need to write perfect code under severe (i.e. on the order of minutes) time constraints? Are they constantly opening sockets for Jack Bauer? The only whiteboard questions I find useful as an interviewer are the super-easy ones that weed out the bozos who have somehow slipped through the initial filter. Things like "can you write a SQL join". What I find most predictive are conversations with candidates about how they evaluate tradeoffs, approach system design, what do you do when you get stuck? Typically if they can pass the bozo filters and talk cluefully about these things, they will likely be a productive coder on straightforward applications. Which is most applications; many companies vastly overestimate the inherent complexity of their products.
- marcinzm 7y ago
  >What kind of companies are these that their engineers need to write perfect code under severe (i.e. on the order of minutes) time constraints? I, oddly, had to do that once in my career although I had an hour or so. Retail advertising, Cyber Monday, data pipeline is backing up severely, advertising budgets aren't updating, only other data person I can reach is drunk. Bottlenecking code is written in perl. I don't know perl. And no real testing environment. Very stressful hour of my life. edit: Of course, such things happening often enough to note are generally a symptom of bad process and management, probably a lot of technical debt as well. So generally a workplace to avoid.