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> So, just lie. I think this is bad advice. I have never lied in an interview. I've also never had a job not offered to me if I made it to the in person interv

by rsj_hn 5y ago

> So, just lie. I think this is bad advice. I have never lied in an interview. I've also never had a job not offered to me if I made it to the in person interview part. This isn't to say that I have magical job-getting powers, but only that not lying has not hurt my chances. In one job I applied for, I didn't have a lot of domain knowledge, but I had knowledge in an adjacent domain and wanted to to jump over to this one. I told this to the interviewer up front, and the interview was a bit rough but I managed to do OK. What I did was explained my thinking process and in many cases arrived at the right solution, or close to it. In others I didn't. The interviewer was sufficiently happy with my ability to solve problems on the spot that they hired me. It wasn't hard to acquire that new domain knowledge, but I had to work at it. I also took a level down in the new job, but they increased my pay over my old job, so I didn't care about the leveling. Long term, that helped me as my salary ended up being higher as a gained levels in the new place. So being honest about not being the perfect fit has worked out for me. I think it can work out for you, too.

austincheney 5y ago
Think about it like this. The goals are attain employment and maximize compensation. That’s it. That said you are probably best off training machine learning to do this for you. It won’t suffer the nonverbal faults associated with dishonesty, because truth to a machine is how effectively it completes the assigned goal.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > Think about it like this. The goals are attain employment and maximize compensation. That’s it. Meh, I think devoting 30-40% of your life to something is more than just maximizing compensation. In tech, at least, you normally have quite a few options about where you will work and what you will do. If you feel you need to lie just to get into the door and are convinced that you wont get the job unless you do lie, then consider that this might not be the best job. On the other hand, if you are too afraid to tell the truth even in the interview, it doesn't bode well for when you need to deal with other people in the corp bureaucracy (which is inevitable once you go past the junior engineer level).
  - austincheney 5y ago
    The reality is that most people are not completely honest. Extreme honesty is shocking and casually associated with extreme personality types or behavior disorders.
- spurgu 5y ago
  I recently accepted a position with 20% lower pay, because the work is more interesting, challenging and rewarding.
mark-r 5y ago
I once failed an interview, and I think it was because the interviewer laid a trap for me. He asked if I would use such-and-so algorithm to solve a particular problem, and I said sure. I had never heard of such-and-so algorithm, but I figured that I could look it up once I had the job. When I didn't get the job, I realized that such-and-so was probably made up by the interviewer to see if I was trying to BS my way into the job. Being honest would have been a better approach.

by rsj_hn 5y ago

austincheney 5y ago

Think about it like this. The goals are attain employment and maximize compensation. That’s it. That said you are probably best off training machine learning to do this for you. It won’t suffer the nonverbal faults associated with dishonesty, because truth to a machine is how effectively it completes the assigned goal.

rsj_hn 5y ago
> Think about it like this. The goals are attain employment and maximize compensation. That’s it. Meh, I think devoting 30-40% of your life to something is more than just maximizing compensation. In tech, at least, you normally have quite a few options about where you will work and what you will do. If you feel you need to lie just to get into the door and are convinced that you wont get the job unless you do lie, then consider that this might not be the best job. On the other hand, if you are too afraid to tell the truth even in the interview, it doesn't bode well for when you need to deal with other people in the corp bureaucracy (which is inevitable once you go past the junior engineer level).
- austincheney 5y ago
  The reality is that most people are not completely honest. Extreme honesty is shocking and casually associated with extreme personality types or behavior disorders.
spurgu 5y ago
I recently accepted a position with 20% lower pay, because the work is more interesting, challenging and rewarding.

mark-r 5y ago

I once failed an interview, and I think it was because the interviewer laid a trap for me. He asked if I would use such-and-so algorithm to solve a particular problem, and I said sure. I had never heard of such-and-so algorithm, but I figured that I could look it up once I had the job. When I didn't get the job, I realized that such-and-so was probably made up by the interviewer to see if I was trying to BS my way into the job. Being honest would have been a better approach.