5 ms·

Currently looking myself. It's rough out there. And companies will never give you any useful feedback, so you're just left with self-doubt.

ineedausername 4y ago
Yeah and it might be the case that the timing is pretty bad, hiring freezes probably matter.
- kaladin_1 4y ago
  The hiring freeze and the bleak looking economy right... Companies are not hiring as much they were when the world economy was booming. And for those of us outside the US, in Africa, to be precise, there's now less remote on HN whoishiring. The remote jobs posted there now are mainly for those domiciled in the US. I would have to look towards other platforms come next month. I've always used HN to connect to top companies but for a while things haven't been that good.
MarkMarine 4y ago
Giving feedback is fraught. Some people take it SUPER poorly, which ruins it for the rest of us. I think it's fair to ask what module of a multi-part interview was scored the lowest, and maybe that would give you some direction. If it makes you feel any better, I regularly see experienced people from (insert any of the 4-5 top tier tech company names) that fall flat on their face in a coding interview. Not practicing for 6 years doesn't make you better at this specific skill. At my current company, we understand that and work around it in the interview process, there is plenty of room to flex system architecture muscles or other mastery to override a lacking DS&A module. Table stakes (and it sucks to say this, but it's true) is you've mastered the leetcode/cracking the coding interview style questions. I'm a self taught SW engineer so I had to spend about a year cranking on these type of questions before I was proficient. I spend a month or two reviewing before I start any interview cycle. Do you have any idea where your weaknesses might be?
- ineedausername 4y ago
  I've been grinding LC myself for the last half a year or so, it is fun but at the same time it sucks that we need to do this to pass interviews.
  - throwaway675309 4y ago
    Just a counterpoint I've been working in the software engineering industry for 20 years and never once had to do any sort of grinding on leet code or anything else. I've found that the problem-solving whiteboarding that is common in the industry reflects my university comp sci education (binary tree, big O notation, etc). On the other hand, I also have zero interest in working for a FAANG so that might have something to do with it.
    - MarkMarine 4y ago
      If you have good recall and a solid comp sci background you’ll pass the table stakes part of the interview no problem. Crazy thing is I get candidates all the time who can’t explain any data structure beyond a list or map. I was trying to set a bar so the OP could know what to improve on if that was the weak point. Is it right that a lot of companies want you to invert a binary tree on a whiteboard to get a 400-600k TC job? I dunno. But that is the state of things, to me it seems pretty easy to just study for a couple months and then remove that hurdle from the process.
- morgante 4y ago
  > Some people take it SUPER poorly, which ruins it for the rest of us. Yeah, unfortunately some candidates get very abusive if you tell them why you've chosen not to move forward (ex. one sent me numerous nasty emails for months after they were rejected). I still like to give feedback to everyone, because I'd rather live in a more honest and direct culture, but it's very understandable why most employers don't.
  - ZeroSolstice 4y ago
    My thoughts are that companies don't receive any return in giving you feedback and it's easier to claim retaliation/fear/liability* as the reasoning for not doing it. I'm not sure why anyone thinks ghosting the person reduces their ability to retaliate. Maybe a company could ask a candidate to sign a NDA if they would like feedback otherwise let them know they may not hear back from you. I don't discount your situation above or pretend to know all the aspects, however objectively looking at it, blocking the persons email address would solve some of those issues. I assume most places do this. Noting that even if you didn't give them feedback, ghosted, or rejected them, they could have also sent numerous nasty emails anyway. I would like to see at some point some of the same professionalism, such as you show with your feedback to candidate's, from all companies that "evidently" have huge wishlists and want to hire professionals. * I haven't found any sites or papers that have tracked giving / not giving feedback to candidate's and the prospective results outside of anecdotal situations. * I did notice that some places such as Dragos do list feed back as part of the process. <https://www.dragos.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-interviewing-at-dragos/ https://www.dragos.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-interviewing...>
otikik 4y ago
One piece of advice: Use the last 5 minutes of each interview to ask questions yourself. About the company, the job, the people, etc. Also ask for feedback on your interview.
- MarkMarine 4y ago
  A lot of us are told to specifically not give feedback on the candidate's interview directly. Refer to earlier comment of mine, some people take it REALLY poorly. If you've been in industry for a bit I'm sure you've heard the stories.
  - otikik 4y ago
    Still he can ask. If the interviewers don’t give an answer, well, he will not be worse than before.
morgante 4y ago
On the flip side, most candidates never tell you why they declined—they just disappear without a trace. That being said, I'm committed to giving every applicant direct feedback. Feel free to apply to Grit. [0] https://getgrit.notion.site/Grit-Job-Board-31942eda7b0e49478ed7b0d6d2361f1f https://getgrit.notion.site/Grit-Job-Board-31942eda7b0e49478...
nitwit005 4y ago
The few times I've gotten feedback, were not exactly helpful. I recently got feedback that I "didn't have enough experience working with other teams". What I was actually asked in the interview was to tell a story about a time I'd worked with another team. Apparently that story wasn't good enough... somehow.
rmk 4y ago
Companies rarely give honest feedback, if ever. This is partly out of risk aversion but mainly because they can't admit they are dysfunctional. As far as they are concerned, if you leave with a neutral or positive impression overall, it's a win for the recruiter. That rules out saying anything truthful about the team, hiring manager, or work culture. Recruiters can usually tell you a great deal but they are barred from doing so and they also have zero incentive: if you leave with a mildly positive impression there is a chance you will let the recruiter connect with you on linkedin and search your contacts for matching skills, but if you have a very negative impression then you will give an anti-recommendation to your friends and also decline the opportunity to add the recruiter to your network.
Aeolun 4y ago
From the companies that did give me feedback I have learned that I really don’t want them to give me any. It’s almost invariably “I didn’t like the way you named this variable” kind. I can’t ever let it go when I get a result that is so clearly biased/bullshit.
ZeroSolstice 4y ago
I'm seeing this as well. I sometimes ask, if a NDA is part of the interview, if there will be useful feedback, sometimes there is sometimes there isn't. There will always be people that have difficulties with getting feedback but I imagine saying its a liability is an easy copout for a company that doesn't want to tell you that giving feedback doesn't benefit them so they don't want/see the need to do it. One interesting thing that happened to me was I kept at the interviews and found a few that flowed more like the conversations I would prefer to have at an interview. This helped with dissipating the self-doubt as I was constantly re-iterating on the positions I was applying to, the companies, job description wording, etc. and seriously questioned "Is this the state if hiring?" I'm in the cybersecurity realm coming from a sysadmin, networking, background with a recent masters. Companies want people with years of experience as if most businesses outside aerospace and the government in the last 10 years made security a high priority. My observation is that insurance companies realized the risk related to policy payouts and "now" security is a requirement of future riders/contracts.

ineedausername 4y ago

Yeah and it might be the case that the timing is pretty bad, hiring freezes probably matter.

kaladin_1 4y ago
The hiring freeze and the bleak looking economy right... Companies are not hiring as much they were when the world economy was booming. And for those of us outside the US, in Africa, to be precise, there's now less remote on HN whoishiring. The remote jobs posted there now are mainly for those domiciled in the US. I would have to look towards other platforms come next month. I've always used HN to connect to top companies but for a while things haven't been that good.

MarkMarine 4y ago

Giving feedback is fraught. Some people take it SUPER poorly, which ruins it for the rest of us. I think it's fair to ask what module of a multi-part interview was scored the lowest, and maybe that would give you some direction. If it makes you feel any better, I regularly see experienced people from (insert any of the 4-5 top tier tech company names) that fall flat on their face in a coding interview. Not practicing for 6 years doesn't make you better at this specific skill. At my current company, we understand that and work around it in the interview process, there is plenty of room to flex system architecture muscles or other mastery to override a lacking DS&A module. Table stakes (and it sucks to say this, but it's true) is you've mastered the leetcode/cracking the coding interview style questions. I'm a self taught SW engineer so I had to spend about a year cranking on these type of questions before I was proficient. I spend a month or two reviewing before I start any interview cycle. Do you have any idea where your weaknesses might be?

ineedausername 4y ago
I've been grinding LC myself for the last half a year or so, it is fun but at the same time it sucks that we need to do this to pass interviews.
- throwaway675309 4y ago
  Just a counterpoint I've been working in the software engineering industry for 20 years and never once had to do any sort of grinding on leet code or anything else. I've found that the problem-solving whiteboarding that is common in the industry reflects my university comp sci education (binary tree, big O notation, etc). On the other hand, I also have zero interest in working for a FAANG so that might have something to do with it.
  - MarkMarine 4y ago
    If you have good recall and a solid comp sci background you’ll pass the table stakes part of the interview no problem. Crazy thing is I get candidates all the time who can’t explain any data structure beyond a list or map. I was trying to set a bar so the OP could know what to improve on if that was the weak point. Is it right that a lot of companies want you to invert a binary tree on a whiteboard to get a 400-600k TC job? I dunno. But that is the state of things, to me it seems pretty easy to just study for a couple months and then remove that hurdle from the process.
morgante 4y ago
> Some people take it SUPER poorly, which ruins it for the rest of us. Yeah, unfortunately some candidates get very abusive if you tell them why you've chosen not to move forward (ex. one sent me numerous nasty emails for months after they were rejected). I still like to give feedback to everyone, because I'd rather live in a more honest and direct culture, but it's very understandable why most employers don't.
- ZeroSolstice 4y ago
  My thoughts are that companies don't receive any return in giving you feedback and it's easier to claim retaliation/fear/liability* as the reasoning for not doing it. I'm not sure why anyone thinks ghosting the person reduces their ability to retaliate. Maybe a company could ask a candidate to sign a NDA if they would like feedback otherwise let them know they may not hear back from you. I don't discount your situation above or pretend to know all the aspects, however objectively looking at it, blocking the persons email address would solve some of those issues. I assume most places do this. Noting that even if you didn't give them feedback, ghosted, or rejected them, they could have also sent numerous nasty emails anyway. I would like to see at some point some of the same professionalism, such as you show with your feedback to candidate's, from all companies that "evidently" have huge wishlists and want to hire professionals. * I haven't found any sites or papers that have tracked giving / not giving feedback to candidate's and the prospective results outside of anecdotal situations. * I did notice that some places such as Dragos do list feed back as part of the process. <https://www.dragos.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-interviewing-at-dragos/ https://www.dragos.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-interviewing...>

otikik 4y ago

One piece of advice: Use the last 5 minutes of each interview to ask questions yourself. About the company, the job, the people, etc. Also ask for feedback on your interview.

MarkMarine 4y ago
A lot of us are told to specifically not give feedback on the candidate's interview directly. Refer to earlier comment of mine, some people take it REALLY poorly. If you've been in industry for a bit I'm sure you've heard the stories.
- otikik 4y ago
  Still he can ask. If the interviewers don’t give an answer, well, he will not be worse than before.

morgante 4y ago

On the flip side, most candidates never tell you why they declined—they just disappear without a trace. That being said, I'm committed to giving every applicant direct feedback. Feel free to apply to Grit. [0] https://getgrit.notion.site/Grit-Job-Board-31942eda7b0e49478ed7b0d6d2361f1f https://getgrit.notion.site/Grit-Job-Board-31942eda7b0e49478...

nitwit005 4y ago

The few times I've gotten feedback, were not exactly helpful. I recently got feedback that I "didn't have enough experience working with other teams". What I was actually asked in the interview was to tell a story about a time I'd worked with another team. Apparently that story wasn't good enough... somehow.

rmk 4y ago

Companies rarely give honest feedback, if ever. This is partly out of risk aversion but mainly because they can't admit they are dysfunctional. As far as they are concerned, if you leave with a neutral or positive impression overall, it's a win for the recruiter. That rules out saying anything truthful about the team, hiring manager, or work culture. Recruiters can usually tell you a great deal but they are barred from doing so and they also have zero incentive: if you leave with a mildly positive impression there is a chance you will let the recruiter connect with you on linkedin and search your contacts for matching skills, but if you have a very negative impression then you will give an anti-recommendation to your friends and also decline the opportunity to add the recruiter to your network.

Aeolun 4y ago

From the companies that did give me feedback I have learned that I really don’t want them to give me any. It’s almost invariably “I didn’t like the way you named this variable” kind. I can’t ever let it go when I get a result that is so clearly biased/bullshit.

ZeroSolstice 4y ago

I'm seeing this as well. I sometimes ask, if a NDA is part of the interview, if there will be useful feedback, sometimes there is sometimes there isn't. There will always be people that have difficulties with getting feedback but I imagine saying its a liability is an easy copout for a company that doesn't want to tell you that giving feedback doesn't benefit them so they don't want/see the need to do it. One interesting thing that happened to me was I kept at the interviews and found a few that flowed more like the conversations I would prefer to have at an interview. This helped with dissipating the self-doubt as I was constantly re-iterating on the positions I was applying to, the companies, job description wording, etc. and seriously questioned "Is this the state if hiring?" I'm in the cybersecurity realm coming from a sysadmin, networking, background with a recent masters. Companies want people with years of experience as if most businesses outside aerospace and the government in the last 10 years made security a high priority. My observation is that insurance companies realized the risk related to policy payouts and "now" security is a requirement of future riders/contracts.