4 ms·

idk if it’s just luck. i’ve had loops in college where i failed them. but then later in my career i had times where i got every company i interviewed at. Excess

idk if it’s just luck. i’ve had loops in college where i failed them. but then later in my career i had times where i got every company i interviewed at. Excessive preparation was the key difference. I do think luck plays a big part but i don’t think it’s the only factor, or even the biggest. (maybe 2nd biggest)

bradlys 6y ago
Luck is likely not far off from preparation in terms of effect though. Luck could be divided up into separate parts like: chance you get an interviewer who asks easy problems, chance you get a hostile interviewer, chance your interviewer is racist/sexist/tabs-ist/hates-your-face, chance your interviewer loves you for no apparent reason, chance your interview is going through a divorce, etc.. I've seen some of the best interviewers I know still fail at various companies. Including ones they were given offers to before. Luck might not be the #1 component but it sure feels like it's not a distant second.
- decafninja 6y ago
  There are some components to the interview you can directly affect, and some you can't. By grinding leetcode, you raise the odds that you'll get a problem you've seen before, or at least similar enough that you recognize the way to solve it without having to waste time by starting from absolute scratch. I guess that's still luck, but this is one area you can increase the odds in your favor. You can't change whether you get a hostile interviewer, etc. of course.
- alkibiades 6y ago
  i agree but regarding your example about failing companies that you’ve previously had offers from: ive seen this as well. but it was a case of hubris where the person didn’t put in the work to prepare as hard the second time because of their previous results. the shitty thing about interviewing is you have to prepare hard every time you approach it
  - bradlys 6y ago
    While that might be the case for people you've known - I've seen it with people who prepared even more than the last time. I've also seen the opposite - right? People don't prepare anywhere near as much as the last time and still get offers. I've seen folks get offers at Google and spent maybe a few hours preparing. Luck is just a very wild component.
kmonsen 6y ago
Yeah, I'm 40+ but takes the time to prepare well for interviews and that has been the key for me. Gotten job offers from all the FAANG's without being very smart. Just go on leetcode and practice for a few months when needed. This does very unfairly skew towards people like me without kids that can take the time to do this.
- akhilcacharya 6y ago
  Being good at LC requires being smart. Most people won't be able to do "justify text" in 20 minutes without looking up an implementation (and potentially memorizing it).
  - alkibiades 6y ago
    for me atleast that also came with experience. ie that would have been impossible in my first job search. But repeating the process of searching for jobs a few times over a decade, each time i’m preparing for interviews i’m able to build somewhat on previous times to where problems like that are manageable.
  - kerng 6y ago
    Not really, most questions have answers and discussion threads - during an interview you can see people just writing up solutions flawlessly - they just memorised them. I have interviewed 100+ people. I don't think regular coding questions, LC tell you anything meaningful in an interview. I'm more experienced now, so refuse doing it and recruiters and interviewers get all funny about it. But please, please interview. I know I'm pretty privileged compared to others but I won't ever do a LC question anymore and tell that upfront to Google and the likes. I have canceled loops because of the inflexibilty of some companies in that regard. Sometimes they tried sneaking it in last minute - also tells you much.
    - kmonsen 6y ago
      Can I ask why you refuse? For me it is more of a formality at this point. I know it won't tell a lot about me, except I cared enough to put in the hours to get this job, but still you have to do what you have to do. I'm pretty senior as well but don't really see why I should not do this when everyone else has to. In general though the tech industry has a really hard time hiring senior people, perhaps for this reason. I was at Google for 10+ years and did 100+ interviews, HC etc and once you talked to the people in charge of the process they admitted that the process is really weak for hiring senior (L5+ in Google speak) candidates. They in many ways perform worse than new grads in coding interviews which is not really surprising. So Google hardly hires anyone experience before you get to the director levels (hardly as a percentage of course). The other well know secret is that if all of us would try to do an interview unprepared we would probably fail.
pmiller2 6y ago
Even when you prepare for months, your preparation needs to be related to what you'll actually see in the interview to pay off. Because few companies actually tell people what to expect in the interview, even preparation involves luck.

bradlys 6y ago

Luck is likely not far off from preparation in terms of effect though. Luck could be divided up into separate parts like: chance you get an interviewer who asks easy problems, chance you get a hostile interviewer, chance your interviewer is racist/sexist/tabs-ist/hates-your-face, chance your interviewer loves you for no apparent reason, chance your interview is going through a divorce, etc.. I've seen some of the best interviewers I know still fail at various companies. Including ones they were given offers to before. Luck might not be the #1 component but it sure feels like it's not a distant second.

decafninja 6y ago
There are some components to the interview you can directly affect, and some you can't. By grinding leetcode, you raise the odds that you'll get a problem you've seen before, or at least similar enough that you recognize the way to solve it without having to waste time by starting from absolute scratch. I guess that's still luck, but this is one area you can increase the odds in your favor. You can't change whether you get a hostile interviewer, etc. of course.
alkibiades 6y ago
i agree but regarding your example about failing companies that you’ve previously had offers from: ive seen this as well. but it was a case of hubris where the person didn’t put in the work to prepare as hard the second time because of their previous results. the shitty thing about interviewing is you have to prepare hard every time you approach it
- bradlys 6y ago
  While that might be the case for people you've known - I've seen it with people who prepared even more than the last time. I've also seen the opposite - right? People don't prepare anywhere near as much as the last time and still get offers. I've seen folks get offers at Google and spent maybe a few hours preparing. Luck is just a very wild component.

kmonsen 6y ago

Yeah, I'm 40+ but takes the time to prepare well for interviews and that has been the key for me. Gotten job offers from all the FAANG's without being very smart. Just go on leetcode and practice for a few months when needed. This does very unfairly skew towards people like me without kids that can take the time to do this.

akhilcacharya 6y ago
Being good at LC requires being smart. Most people won't be able to do "justify text" in 20 minutes without looking up an implementation (and potentially memorizing it).
- alkibiades 6y ago
  for me atleast that also came with experience. ie that would have been impossible in my first job search. But repeating the process of searching for jobs a few times over a decade, each time i’m preparing for interviews i’m able to build somewhat on previous times to where problems like that are manageable.
- kerng 6y ago
  Not really, most questions have answers and discussion threads - during an interview you can see people just writing up solutions flawlessly - they just memorised them. I have interviewed 100+ people. I don't think regular coding questions, LC tell you anything meaningful in an interview. I'm more experienced now, so refuse doing it and recruiters and interviewers get all funny about it. But please, please interview. I know I'm pretty privileged compared to others but I won't ever do a LC question anymore and tell that upfront to Google and the likes. I have canceled loops because of the inflexibilty of some companies in that regard. Sometimes they tried sneaking it in last minute - also tells you much.
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    Can I ask why you refuse? For me it is more of a formality at this point. I know it won't tell a lot about me, except I cared enough to put in the hours to get this job, but still you have to do what you have to do. I'm pretty senior as well but don't really see why I should not do this when everyone else has to. In general though the tech industry has a really hard time hiring senior people, perhaps for this reason. I was at Google for 10+ years and did 100+ interviews, HC etc and once you talked to the people in charge of the process they admitted that the process is really weak for hiring senior (L5+ in Google speak) candidates. They in many ways perform worse than new grads in coding interviews which is not really surprising. So Google hardly hires anyone experience before you get to the director levels (hardly as a percentage of course). The other well know secret is that if all of us would try to do an interview unprepared we would probably fail.

pmiller2 6y ago

Even when you prepare for months, your preparation needs to be related to what you'll actually see in the interview to pay off. Because few companies actually tell people what to expect in the interview, even preparation involves luck.