3 ms·

Practicing interviewing always seemed to me like studying the day before the exam: if you're lucky and the things you studied actually helped you to pass the ex

Practicing interviewing always seemed to me like studying the day before the exam: if you're lucky and the things you studied actually helped you to pass the exam, you would be lying to yourself because a couple of days/weeks later you won't remember anything of what you just studied. You didn't deserve to pass the exam, but, hey, nobody knows. Similarly, if you practice an interview and you're lucky enough to being questioned the topics you just practiced and they hire you, what kind of impression are you going to give to your future teammates when some weeks/months later they ask you something related to that topic but you don't remember/know? You just Google it? Well, you can google "how to render a template in Golang", that's fine, but you should not google "what's the difference between a compiled and an interpreted language" because there are some things that you should know before starting to work as a professional software developer. I know that "the tech interview process is broken", but we, as part of that process, should aim to improve it, not to trick the system for our own and personal benefit.

dintech 6y ago
You should of course study well in advance, but you should probably revise the day before the exam too.
karatestomp 6y ago
> I know that "the tech interview process is broken", but we, as part of that process, should aim to improve it, not to trick the system for our own and personal benefit. It's not broken for FAANG, because what they're looking for is willingness to spend time studying hard for their interviews over material that's (certainly not all) useful in one's day-to-day job (if it were then this wouldn't measure one's willingness to spend lots of time studying), to whatever degree is required by your raw natural intelligence/ability, to be able to pass their tests. They're looking for (what they consider to be) a sufficient amount of wanting-it + intelligence (IQ, more or less), in whatever proportion is necessary to get the candidate through the gauntlet. That's what the interviews filter for, and it's what they want them to filter for. (yes they're also favoring recent grads and people who have lots of time on their hands—notably those two categories overlap strongly—but I'm pretty sure those are secondary goals, if they're goals at all)
ebiester 6y ago
I get the way you think, but it's irrelevant. I have 60 minutes to convince you I can code. In my day to day work, I can look at another example in the codebase. I can look up the stupidest stuff in stack overflow, even if it's embarassing. I can walk around the block if it's just not clicking. An interview is not the same thing as work. It's a performance of code. I am practicing talking about how I think about a problem. I am practicing smiling while coding. I am practicing having a conversation in the middle of an initial rush of panic because of the pressure of an interview.
woodrowbarlow 6y ago
i think what you're saying is that we should aim to improve the tech interview process by not practicing for interviews, and focusing instead on developing the skills that we actually use on a day-to-day basis. that we should be able to rely on that experience to be successful in interviews, and that we shouldn't play along with an interview that expects us to jump through hoops to demonstrate skills that aren't necessarily relevant to the job. but, honestly, whenever i interview for jobs that i know that i want, i'm not willing to give up on them over a few weeks of hoop-jumping.

dintech 6y ago

You should of course study well in advance, but you should probably revise the day before the exam too.

karatestomp 6y ago

> I know that "the tech interview process is broken", but we, as part of that process, should aim to improve it, not to trick the system for our own and personal benefit. It's not broken for FAANG, because what they're looking for is willingness to spend time studying hard for their interviews over material that's (certainly not all) useful in one's day-to-day job (if it were then this wouldn't measure one's willingness to spend lots of time studying), to whatever degree is required by your raw natural intelligence/ability, to be able to pass their tests. They're looking for (what they consider to be) a sufficient amount of wanting-it + intelligence (IQ, more or less), in whatever proportion is necessary to get the candidate through the gauntlet. That's what the interviews filter for, and it's what they want them to filter for. (yes they're also favoring recent grads and people who have lots of time on their hands—notably those two categories overlap strongly—but I'm pretty sure those are secondary goals, if they're goals at all)

ebiester 6y ago

I get the way you think, but it's irrelevant. I have 60 minutes to convince you I can code. In my day to day work, I can look at another example in the codebase. I can look up the stupidest stuff in stack overflow, even if it's embarassing. I can walk around the block if it's just not clicking. An interview is not the same thing as work. It's a performance of code. I am practicing talking about how I think about a problem. I am practicing smiling while coding. I am practicing having a conversation in the middle of an initial rush of panic because of the pressure of an interview.

woodrowbarlow 6y ago

i think what you're saying is that we should aim to improve the tech interview process by not practicing for interviews, and focusing instead on developing the skills that we actually use on a day-to-day basis. that we should be able to rely on that experience to be successful in interviews, and that we shouldn't play along with an interview that expects us to jump through hoops to demonstrate skills that aren't necessarily relevant to the job. but, honestly, whenever i interview for jobs that i know that i want, i'm not willing to give up on them over a few weeks of hoop-jumping.