8 ms·

I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Parado

I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. Paradoxically, I think I interview a lot better. I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. Though this might just be a result of being pickier about who I interview with. If nothing else, it's _amazing_ for negotiating. "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders.

gpderetta 5y ago
I had similar experiences as well. When there are no stakes you can be very relaxed during the interview and have all the cards during negotiations.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
This is the proper way to negotiate. Most people don't do it while they have a job, only when they want one, and it puts them at a serious disadvantage.
- SkyPuncher 5y ago
  The flip side is it will often get you dropped out of most interview funnels since you're likely to be a waste of time.
  - sillysaurusx 5y ago
    Quite the opposite. Companies fight that much harder to get a candidate they know is valuable.
    - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
      That's true, if you have something to show for your value. You do sometimes get candidates who are very full of themselves but whose record track is not impressive, trying to use their confidence to skip past the interviews.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Which is fine because you arent desparate
  - ghaff 5y ago
    And that may be fine. If I (rarely) respond that I’m pretty happy where I am but happy to have a chat and you vanish, shows you’re not terribly interested either.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  And knowing this, if you can internalize it can maintain the advantage. I once took an extended time off working. When I realized that my personal 'runway' was running out, I didn't really have too many weeks to go through interview cycles with lots of companies. I didn't change how I interviewed and it payed off.
mattnewton 5y ago
I wonder how much "interviewing" is really testing the kind of performance anxiety that people without other good offers yet have. I experience this too as I not just as I progressed in my career, but even within one batch of interviewing. I've always tried to batch as many interviews as I can. By the third interview I am feeling much less anxious and just perform much better and by the fourth or fifth I am nailing them to the wall - performance seems to be inversely proportional to how much I am worried about doing well in this particular interview.
- kube-system 5y ago
  I interview and I explicitly adjust for this in my interviews. Anxiety is not too hard to pick up on, especially if you know family and friends who have it, and I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt in the case that I do notice it. Many people with social anxiety are excellent writers and I make sure we always have a written portion of our evaluation to give them.
  - mattnewton 5y ago
    I also do interviews, but find it is really hard to adjust for this. If a person repeatedly locks up and you give them space to come down from their anxious position for example, you simply get less signal than the person who confidently talks through their thought process the whole time and arrives at the right answer. Is the written portion the way to offset this in your experience? In addition to being hard to squeeze into typical 45 minute interview chunks, I’m not sure that would calm my anxiety personally. But I’m certainly willing to try.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      I’ve had some candidates who were mediocre in the verbal portion who blew me out of the water with their writing. They were clearly smart and capable people but were just anxious. I recommend these people be hired. I’ve also had people who did great in the verbal portion completely make a fool of themselves in the written portion. They have the confidence and social ability, but they often show they’re missing the skills. They’d probably make better sales people than engineers. I haven’t yet had someone who totally bombed the verbal do a good job in the written portion. All of the ones I’ve had were just overall poor communicators. If you can’t communicate an idea verbally or written, it’s going to be tough to work with a team of people who like to self-organize. I don’t put the written portion in any time-block, if that’s what you’re saying. I normally give it via email and give people a week to get back to me.
osrec 5y ago
> I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. I like this approach. Stops you from being painted into a corner, and if you are, you can still leave with your dignity. Some interviewers can be on such a power trip, which can make things feel pretty horrible for the interviewee.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  > Stops you from being painted into a corner, and if you are, you can still leave with your dignity. Talk about wasting time. You are bothering to do the interview because for one reason or another you're interested in the job. It's weird to feel good leaving the interview where you somehow saved face for yourself by not answering any of the questions. You just guaranteed that you neither get the job nor learn anything useful for your next set of interviews.
  - osrec 5y ago
    Not quite. Confidence is a big part of interviewing, and having someone turn the screw on you on some esoteric topic doesn't really help build your knowledge or your confidence.
    - xyzelement 5y ago
      That's totally subjective. What someone may perceive as "turning the screw" could simply mean "probing deeper" or "seeing how you handle tough questions". One can get self righteous about that but it may be costing you tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings.
      - osrec 5y ago
        I understand your point of view, but I'm the sort of person that responds poorly to someone asserting too much authority. I've had issues with bad interviews before, where I've been rejected by someone, but then got the same job at the same firm, when interviewed by a different person. Also, the lost earnings argument doesn't matter much if it comes at the cost of your mental health. A bit unrelated, but there's an old joke my boss once told me, highlighting how poor interview questions/criteria can be at assessing one's ability for a particular job: A guy goes for an interview. The interviewer tells him "forget everything you learned in your degree, it won't be useful here". The guy says: "actually, I don't have a degree". The interviewer responds: "in that case, you're not qualified enough for this job"!
marcodave 5y ago
> If nothing else, it's _amazing_ for negotiating. "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders My cynical self is thinking whether this is (one of) the reason why young people are preferred in our industry. Young = Less experience in negotiating = lower wage
- xyzelement 5y ago
  >> My cynical self is thinking ... >> Young = Less experience in negotiating = lower wage Your compensation formula is completely void of the value someone can bring to the table. Young = less experienced, period. In negotiation, sure, but also in the on-the-job skills/experience/maturity. So of course they make less. If you're a kid out of college competing with thousands of equally green kids, what would be your negotiating leverage? If you are someone 20 years in the industry with unique and proven experience, you can negotiate because you have something to negotiate with - there isn't another you.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    I think you're right, but I think it's also true that plenty of companies either can't spot value or don't really care. It's important to remember that a lot of execs get measured not by results, but by the resources they control. I've done contract work on projects that I could have built for 10% of the total budget. But nobody cared, because actual results were like the 4th priority, with the top three being 1) make the blowhard in charge look good, 2) make the project look big and important, and 3) provide a dramatic finish with 80-hour-weeks so said blowhard could look like he was managing very hard. So it's no surprise that plenty of companies want cheap bodies more than they want the value of experience. And that's before we even get to the companies whose whole business model is based on hiring a lot of newbs and renting them out as highly competent bright sparks (coughaccenturecough).
xyzelement 5y ago
>> "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders. I would be very surprised if you say literally this and get results. No self-respecting company or manager is going to invest in talking to you if you describe yourself so overtly mercenary. Obviously, when you're happy where you are, money is part of the equation to get you to move, but making it seem like the only motivator is super gauche and culture-centric companies (which are the good ones) would hang up on this answer. So curious - are you actually literally saying this and people aren't hanging up on you?
- akomtu 5y ago
  Companies don't have self-respect and competent managers are necesserarily hypocritical, but your point is right for another reason: someone who speaks truth to power like that won't fit a typical team of hypocrites. A hiring manager would think: "if this dude disrespects my authority now, why is he going to respect it later? better to hire that less stellar candidate who at least will be manageable."
- jen20 5y ago
  > culture-centric companies (which are the good ones) This depends on what you are looking for.
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    > This depends on what you are looking for. I am open to learning other sides here because this is so foreign to me. What are the cases where you don't want to work in a place where people care about the mission and culture and want coworkers who do as well? What are the cases where you're happy working for the company whose attitude is "we don't care who you are and what you value, as long as you have the basic skills and are willing to take what we pay, welcome aboard?" Do such companies become great places to work and if so how? I am asking genuinely curious because I've always looked for high culture high mission companies because that's what I am like.
    - nemetroid 5y ago
b20000 5y ago
this is the way.
foobiekr 5y ago
This is my experience as well. I no longer interview for things, I interview people who want to hire me. At this point in my career, as an engineering IC, my initial conversations are with the VP/GMs of business units. Younger me would have been very surprised how much i actually enjoy these conversations with manager types. In my experience, _most_ of the VP GM and CEO types are much broader and more interesting than most engineers tend to believe, at least younger me.
- LASR 5y ago
  Above a certain level of expertise, ICs are far harder to hire than management-like positions. This is definitely surprising to younger ICs in the industry - who seem to want to become engineering managers any way they can. The ceiling of genius you can possibly spike to as an engineer is far higher. I’ve seen single engineers at smaller startups perform the work of entire teams at big companies. And these folks get paid maybe 3x-4x the standard engineer salary. Huge savings. But hard to hire these folks.
  - rolleiflex 5y ago
    LASR, you seem to be shadowbanned, but your history doesn’t show anything weird. I vouched for this post to make it visible to everyone, but I don’t know if vouching lifts the shadowban entirely or just makes visible this particular post. You might want to reach out to dang just in case to figure this out.
- justinlloyd 5y ago
  I am at the same point in my career. I don't interview. I have a conversation with the person who wants to hire me. I've had two formal job interviews in the past 14 years, both at a FANG. Did not enjoy the interview experience at all. Got offers for both, and turned down both offers.
User23 5y ago
If you’re not willing to walk away from the deal then you’re not actually negotiating.
geoduck14 5y ago
>I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. I've interviewed people who have resched this point. It makes for a chill interview. In some cases, the interviewee is overly "chill" and is bored with the challenges described in the job. I prefer to hire people who are EXCITED about the challenges they will face in the job.
- isoos 5y ago
  It is much better to face boring challenges with interesting people than interesting challenges with boring people. Maybe focusing on the team would excite these kind of persons.
  - geoduck14 5y ago
    >It is much better to face boring challenges with interesting people than interesting challenges with boring people. I absolutely agree. I like to work with interesting people, too.
- FinanceAnon 5y ago
  I don't really understand why software engineers need to be EXCITED about their profession. I don't think the same would be expected from a lawyer or a doctor. I also think that excitement =/= passion. For example, if you look at the top chess player - Magnus Carlsen - he always looks bored talking about chess, and yet that's what he does all the time and is the best at it.
  - stavros 5y ago
    Yeah, I don't care about people being excited about their job, as long as they do it well. Why would I?
  - geoduck14 5y ago
    >For example, if you look at the top chess player - Magnus Carlsen - he always looks bored talking about chess, and yet that's what he does all the time and is the best at it. Serious question: Does Magnus have a team of people that he works with? Do they enjoy working with him? Do they think he is boring? Is he the type of person you want to work along side?
Invictus0 5y ago
It's because you're coming from a position of abundance. Works wonders in dating as well. The trick is realizing you don't actually need to have abundance to take a position of abundance.
annexrichmond 5y ago
Yeah it's a much better mindset to be in to interview when you aren't desperate to leave. At my last job which I was decently happy and comfortable I still interviewed once a year just to see what was out there. Though I was often asked "So why are you leaving?". Who said I was leaving? But interviewing every now and then has other benefits: - it has actually helped me become better at interviewing candidates - a competing offer helped me get a better salary at a job I liked, so I didn't have to leave - it kept my interview skills sharp for the next time I decided to interview
zz865 5y ago
If you have a great paying job you like, why do you interview? Is it when someone cold calls you? I'm in a similar job and haven't interviewed for years but want to start and not sure how to go about it.
- discordance 5y ago
  I was in a similar position. I made a prioritized list of target companies and projects, and then ‘practiced’ interviewing from the bottom up. One surprising thing I learned from the initial interviews with my lower priority targets was that my prioritization was wrong, in terms of challenges, interests and compensation.
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Doesn't mean there isn't an even better option out there :-) Also I'd like to work on something related to tackling climate breakdown, so I'll almost always chat to companies in that space. Sadly I need to pay off some debt before I can take a paycut to work on these problems (or risk a startup).
Griffinsauce 5y ago
The best experience I've had while interviewing is when I did not care at all about getting the job. It allows you to be genuine. Not playing the game of trying to show what they want to see but just truly being yourself. It didn't have anything to do with my career though. It was early, I had an okay position and just encountered something really interesting and exciting. So perhaps the learning is more about how and when you choose to go explore something that excited you rather than other reasons to find a new job.

gpderetta 5y ago

I had similar experiences as well. When there are no stakes you can be very relaxed during the interview and have all the cards during negotiations.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

This is the proper way to negotiate. Most people don't do it while they have a job, only when they want one, and it puts them at a serious disadvantage.

SkyPuncher 5y ago
The flip side is it will often get you dropped out of most interview funnels since you're likely to be a waste of time.
- sillysaurusx 5y ago
  Quite the opposite. Companies fight that much harder to get a candidate they know is valuable.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
    That's true, if you have something to show for your value. You do sometimes get candidates who are very full of themselves but whose record track is not impressive, trying to use their confidence to skip past the interviews.
- vmception 5y ago
  Which is fine because you arent desparate
- ghaff 5y ago
  And that may be fine. If I (rarely) respond that I’m pretty happy where I am but happy to have a chat and you vanish, shows you’re not terribly interested either.
karmakaze 5y ago
And knowing this, if you can internalize it can maintain the advantage. I once took an extended time off working. When I realized that my personal 'runway' was running out, I didn't really have too many weeks to go through interview cycles with lots of companies. I didn't change how I interviewed and it payed off.

mattnewton 5y ago

I wonder how much "interviewing" is really testing the kind of performance anxiety that people without other good offers yet have. I experience this too as I not just as I progressed in my career, but even within one batch of interviewing. I've always tried to batch as many interviews as I can. By the third interview I am feeling much less anxious and just perform much better and by the fourth or fifth I am nailing them to the wall - performance seems to be inversely proportional to how much I am worried about doing well in this particular interview.

kube-system 5y ago
I interview and I explicitly adjust for this in my interviews. Anxiety is not too hard to pick up on, especially if you know family and friends who have it, and I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt in the case that I do notice it. Many people with social anxiety are excellent writers and I make sure we always have a written portion of our evaluation to give them.
- mattnewton 5y ago
  I also do interviews, but find it is really hard to adjust for this. If a person repeatedly locks up and you give them space to come down from their anxious position for example, you simply get less signal than the person who confidently talks through their thought process the whole time and arrives at the right answer. Is the written portion the way to offset this in your experience? In addition to being hard to squeeze into typical 45 minute interview chunks, I’m not sure that would calm my anxiety personally. But I’m certainly willing to try.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    I’ve had some candidates who were mediocre in the verbal portion who blew me out of the water with their writing. They were clearly smart and capable people but were just anxious. I recommend these people be hired. I’ve also had people who did great in the verbal portion completely make a fool of themselves in the written portion. They have the confidence and social ability, but they often show they’re missing the skills. They’d probably make better sales people than engineers. I haven’t yet had someone who totally bombed the verbal do a good job in the written portion. All of the ones I’ve had were just overall poor communicators. If you can’t communicate an idea verbally or written, it’s going to be tough to work with a team of people who like to self-organize. I don’t put the written portion in any time-block, if that’s what you’re saying. I normally give it via email and give people a week to get back to me.

osrec 5y ago

> I can steer conversation towards stuff I care about, and if they insist on being annoying, just thank them for their time and leave. I like this approach. Stops you from being painted into a corner, and if you are, you can still leave with your dignity. Some interviewers can be on such a power trip, which can make things feel pretty horrible for the interviewee.

xyzelement 5y ago
> Stops you from being painted into a corner, and if you are, you can still leave with your dignity. Talk about wasting time. You are bothering to do the interview because for one reason or another you're interested in the job. It's weird to feel good leaving the interview where you somehow saved face for yourself by not answering any of the questions. You just guaranteed that you neither get the job nor learn anything useful for your next set of interviews.
- osrec 5y ago
  Not quite. Confidence is a big part of interviewing, and having someone turn the screw on you on some esoteric topic doesn't really help build your knowledge or your confidence.
  - xyzelement 5y ago
    That's totally subjective. What someone may perceive as "turning the screw" could simply mean "probing deeper" or "seeing how you handle tough questions". One can get self righteous about that but it may be costing you tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost earnings.
    - osrec 5y ago
      I understand your point of view, but I'm the sort of person that responds poorly to someone asserting too much authority. I've had issues with bad interviews before, where I've been rejected by someone, but then got the same job at the same firm, when interviewed by a different person. Also, the lost earnings argument doesn't matter much if it comes at the cost of your mental health. A bit unrelated, but there's an old joke my boss once told me, highlighting how poor interview questions/criteria can be at assessing one's ability for a particular job: A guy goes for an interview. The interviewer tells him "forget everything you learned in your degree, it won't be useful here". The guy says: "actually, I don't have a degree". The interviewer responds: "in that case, you're not qualified enough for this job"!

marcodave 5y ago

> If nothing else, it's _amazing_ for negotiating. "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders My cynical self is thinking whether this is (one of) the reason why young people are preferred in our industry. Young = Less experience in negotiating = lower wage

xyzelement 5y ago
>> My cynical self is thinking ... >> Young = Less experience in negotiating = lower wage Your compensation formula is completely void of the value someone can bring to the table. Young = less experienced, period. In negotiation, sure, but also in the on-the-job skills/experience/maturity. So of course they make less. If you're a kid out of college competing with thousands of equally green kids, what would be your negotiating leverage? If you are someone 20 years in the industry with unique and proven experience, you can negotiate because you have something to negotiate with - there isn't another you.
- wpietri 5y ago
  I think you're right, but I think it's also true that plenty of companies either can't spot value or don't really care. It's important to remember that a lot of execs get measured not by results, but by the resources they control. I've done contract work on projects that I could have built for 10% of the total budget. But nobody cared, because actual results were like the 4th priority, with the top three being 1) make the blowhard in charge look good, 2) make the project look big and important, and 3) provide a dramatic finish with 80-hour-weeks so said blowhard could look like he was managing very hard. So it's no surprise that plenty of companies want cheap bodies more than they want the value of experience. And that's before we even get to the companies whose whole business model is based on hiring a lot of newbs and renting them out as highly competent bright sparks (coughaccenturecough).

xyzelement 5y ago

>> "honestly I'm really happy where I am, but every man has his price, what can you offer?" does wonders. I would be very surprised if you say literally this and get results. No self-respecting company or manager is going to invest in talking to you if you describe yourself so overtly mercenary. Obviously, when you're happy where you are, money is part of the equation to get you to move, but making it seem like the only motivator is super gauche and culture-centric companies (which are the good ones) would hang up on this answer. So curious - are you actually literally saying this and people aren't hanging up on you?

akomtu 5y ago
Companies don't have self-respect and competent managers are necesserarily hypocritical, but your point is right for another reason: someone who speaks truth to power like that won't fit a typical team of hypocrites. A hiring manager would think: "if this dude disrespects my authority now, why is he going to respect it later? better to hire that less stellar candidate who at least will be manageable."
jen20 5y ago
> culture-centric companies (which are the good ones) This depends on what you are looking for.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  > This depends on what you are looking for. I am open to learning other sides here because this is so foreign to me. What are the cases where you don't want to work in a place where people care about the mission and culture and want coworkers who do as well? What are the cases where you're happy working for the company whose attitude is "we don't care who you are and what you value, as long as you have the basic skills and are willing to take what we pay, welcome aboard?" Do such companies become great places to work and if so how? I am asking genuinely curious because I've always looked for high culture high mission companies because that's what I am like.
  - nemetroid 5y ago

b20000 5y ago

this is the way.

foobiekr 5y ago

This is my experience as well. I no longer interview for things, I interview people who want to hire me. At this point in my career, as an engineering IC, my initial conversations are with the VP/GMs of business units. Younger me would have been very surprised how much i actually enjoy these conversations with manager types. In my experience, _most_ of the VP GM and CEO types are much broader and more interesting than most engineers tend to believe, at least younger me.

LASR 5y ago
Above a certain level of expertise, ICs are far harder to hire than management-like positions. This is definitely surprising to younger ICs in the industry - who seem to want to become engineering managers any way they can. The ceiling of genius you can possibly spike to as an engineer is far higher. I’ve seen single engineers at smaller startups perform the work of entire teams at big companies. And these folks get paid maybe 3x-4x the standard engineer salary. Huge savings. But hard to hire these folks.
- rolleiflex 5y ago
  LASR, you seem to be shadowbanned, but your history doesn’t show anything weird. I vouched for this post to make it visible to everyone, but I don’t know if vouching lifts the shadowban entirely or just makes visible this particular post. You might want to reach out to dang just in case to figure this out.
justinlloyd 5y ago
I am at the same point in my career. I don't interview. I have a conversation with the person who wants to hire me. I've had two formal job interviews in the past 14 years, both at a FANG. Did not enjoy the interview experience at all. Got offers for both, and turned down both offers.

User23 5y ago

If you’re not willing to walk away from the deal then you’re not actually negotiating.

geoduck14 5y ago

>I've finally reached a point in my career where I have a great paying job and like it well enough, and really don't give a shit what interviewers think. I've interviewed people who have resched this point. It makes for a chill interview. In some cases, the interviewee is overly "chill" and is bored with the challenges described in the job. I prefer to hire people who are EXCITED about the challenges they will face in the job.

isoos 5y ago
It is much better to face boring challenges with interesting people than interesting challenges with boring people. Maybe focusing on the team would excite these kind of persons.
- geoduck14 5y ago
  >It is much better to face boring challenges with interesting people than interesting challenges with boring people. I absolutely agree. I like to work with interesting people, too.
FinanceAnon 5y ago
I don't really understand why software engineers need to be EXCITED about their profession. I don't think the same would be expected from a lawyer or a doctor. I also think that excitement =/= passion. For example, if you look at the top chess player - Magnus Carlsen - he always looks bored talking about chess, and yet that's what he does all the time and is the best at it.
- stavros 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't care about people being excited about their job, as long as they do it well. Why would I?
- geoduck14 5y ago
  >For example, if you look at the top chess player - Magnus Carlsen - he always looks bored talking about chess, and yet that's what he does all the time and is the best at it. Serious question: Does Magnus have a team of people that he works with? Do they enjoy working with him? Do they think he is boring? Is he the type of person you want to work along side?

Invictus0 5y ago

It's because you're coming from a position of abundance. Works wonders in dating as well. The trick is realizing you don't actually need to have abundance to take a position of abundance.

annexrichmond 5y ago

Yeah it's a much better mindset to be in to interview when you aren't desperate to leave. At my last job which I was decently happy and comfortable I still interviewed once a year just to see what was out there. Though I was often asked "So why are you leaving?". Who said I was leaving? But interviewing every now and then has other benefits: - it has actually helped me become better at interviewing candidates - a competing offer helped me get a better salary at a job I liked, so I didn't have to leave - it kept my interview skills sharp for the next time I decided to interview

zz865 5y ago

If you have a great paying job you like, why do you interview? Is it when someone cold calls you? I'm in a similar job and haven't interviewed for years but want to start and not sure how to go about it.

discordance 5y ago
I was in a similar position. I made a prioritized list of target companies and projects, and then ‘practiced’ interviewing from the bottom up. One surprising thing I learned from the initial interviews with my lower priority targets was that my prioritization was wrong, in terms of challenges, interests and compensation.
CalRobert 5y ago
Doesn't mean there isn't an even better option out there :-) Also I'd like to work on something related to tackling climate breakdown, so I'll almost always chat to companies in that space. Sadly I need to pay off some debt before I can take a paycut to work on these problems (or risk a startup).

Griffinsauce 5y ago

The best experience I've had while interviewing is when I did not care at all about getting the job. It allows you to be genuine. Not playing the game of trying to show what they want to see but just truly being yourself. It didn't have anything to do with my career though. It was early, I had an okay position and just encountered something really interesting and exciting. So perhaps the learning is more about how and when you choose to go explore something that excited you rather than other reasons to find a new job.