9 ms·

> Formulate high-signal questions (to get interviewers thinking). Interviews are often won or lost by the questions you ask the interviewer at the end. Half of

> Formulate high-signal questions (to get interviewers thinking). Interviews are often won or lost by the questions you ask the interviewer at the end. Half of the battle is preparing well and showing up to answer the interviewer’s questions; the other half is asking them questions that get them thinking (and make you stand out). I've performed hundreds of FAANG interviews, and I categorize this firmly in the "interview astrology" side. In my company we don't use questions asked by the candidate to determine the outcome (at least not for software engineers), and often we don't even record them. It sounds good to "impress your interviewer with your questions" but we are mindful about biases that might favour some candidates e.g. those with particularly good storytelling skills. My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the questions that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to focus on impressing your interviewer.

Arch-TK 3y ago
It's weird that you dont judge potential hires on the quality of their questions, the most important parts of most creative jobs are being able to ask the right questions.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job. And no, not really. My job is to assess their technical skills, not how well they ask me about my work life balance while in a relatively high stress environment.
  - Arch-TK 3y ago
    I'm not talking about inane questions like your work life balance. I am talking about questions about your product, your design decisions, etc. If I am interviewing at a company I certainly want to know that I am not going to be working at a dumpster fire. I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example, so I know that you uphold standards and dont just allow things to get progressively worse as time goes on due to systematic indifference. Now you could be lying to me but that's why I ask more than one question. Certainly to me it feels like if a candidate is asking these kinds of questions during an interview process then that candidate also cares about those things, which depending on whether you are running a java sweatshop or an organized and productive development company seems like it would have some importance.
    - yodsanklai 3y ago
      Maybe the candidate don't feel they need to ask such questions because they have 5 friends who work for the company and know the answer already. From an interviewer perspective, you get more signal from the candidate by asking them such questions in a behavior interview in a more standardized way.
    - toast0 3y ago
      > I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example I call this process fit. It's important to some candidates, and some employers. It's clearly important to you, and you should ask those questions; interviewing is a two-way street. But if I'm an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm not giving you points for those questions, because I'm going to be sussing out your process fit earlier anyway. If I'm not an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm probably not giving you points for those questions, because it's not a big deal to me (this could be a red flag for you, depending on the answers you get from your probing questions)
  - pavlov 3y ago
    > “The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job.” An apt symmetry, as typically the questions a candidate gets asked during an interview also have no overlap to the questions they would get asked as part of the real job.
- leetcrew 3y ago
  the quality of questions is important during the technical segment, almost as much as getting the correct (or at least reasonable) answer/solution. charging into a solution without picking up on the ambiguities is one of the classic ways a leetcode legend fails a technical interview. after all that, I feel the candidate deserves at least 5-10 minutes at the end to ask their own honest questions without having to worry about what they're signaling.
- jghn 3y ago
  When I'm asking an interviewer questions, I'm trying to get a read on what it's like to work there. Are there any red flags that'd turn me off? Is this a place I'll enjoy working? Do my potential coworkers seem like decent people? Does the work/life balance match what I want to see? When I'm actually working at a place, I don't need to ask those questions. I already know the answer.
  - Arch-TK 3y ago
    These questions are important but they are not the types of questions I am asking about. Part of determining if you want to work somewhere is figuring out how mature the team is when it comes to design decisions and the development process, to accurately ascertain this, you have to ask technical questions, the act of asking these questions is itself an indicator that you yourself are thinking about these important things and as such value them and should, to a well functioning development team with a working product, indicate that you would at least contribute to keeping things working optimally and contribute positively. I would be worried if someone nevet asked about the thing they were going to be working on, asked why certain design decisions were made, or asked how it gets developed.
    - jghn 3y ago
      Sure, I agree. That's part of me finding out if I want to work there. The unfortunate reality is usually you're given 5-10 mins at the end in a hasty "what would you like to ask me?" so I tend to stick to the more basic type questions. Repeating across interviewers to see what patterns pop up. That said I'm not shy about pushing back with questions during an interview session itself, and that's where things like you're talking about can get worked in. Of course if they insist on "solve this problem" type sessions, there's less of that. But it's also less likely I want to work there. So it works out for me.
- yodsanklai 3y ago
  One issue with that is it's very subjective. One interviewer will be impressed by a question, and another will not.
- sigstoat 3y ago
  do you ask all of your interviewers the same set of questions to ensure they’re all suitably impressed by you? if not how do you decide to allocate them?
mynameisvlad 3y ago
This. I might call out a particularly good question in the debrief but only as an aside. I don’t think I ever made a decision where the questions factored in at all; most of the time there’s more than enough material in the actual interview to cover a decision being made.
Zach_the_Lizard 3y ago
I think the questions that matter are clarifying questions in e.g. architecture rounds. E.g. design a document storage system Asking about requirements can help provide evidence you're aware of tradeoffs, various concepts, etc. and separate yourself from other candidates. Not surface level "what QPS do we need to support?" type questions, but beyond that. Otherwise, yes, I agree, questions are not recorded and don't matter (unless there's a serious red flag like someone asking if they can avoid working with $GROUP_THEY_DONT_LIKE which raises HR type concerns)
whafro 3y ago
On the other hand, at small companies, this can be a big deal. FAANG companies pretty much know how interested you are in working there, based on the fact that you’re the type of person who thinks they want to work at a FAANG company. And since the scope of these companies is so large, there are all sorts of ways to fit your interests into work at such a company over the mid-to-long-term. But early-stage companies are looking for folks who have an interest and understanding in the task at hand. For many hiring managers at these companies, expertise – or at least interest – in the problem space is noteworthy. On the hard-skill side, it can suggest that you may be able to help see around corners with your product team, identifying and solving issues during planning or on the fly. On the soft-skill side, it can suggest that you’re bringing positive energy and motivation to the still-nascent team. In the end, it’s still a matter of knowing your audience and reading the room. It may be a waste of time in some places, and may be the difference-maker in others.
- lmeyerov 3y ago
  Yep. Folks at 200+ and especially FAANG companies are mostly interchangeable. The interviewer is mostly derisking chance of a dud and comparing a 86%er vs 87%er. A few exceptions like at the rarer million dollar comp level. For everyone else, especially non-insiders... Cookie cutter comparisons it is, and whatever edge. Startups are very much making a more existential bet. For our openings, I'm equally looking for ownership, interest in our customers/mission/long-term, and other bits that have little to with a whiteboard. On a HN Hiring thread from yesterday, you'd be surprised how many emails I got that were 'here is my stale CV from 5-10 years ago' and little about why they're excited to do hard things with us. Likewise, if someone is on a second round with us and hasn't bothered to use our free tier, that also tells us a lot about their (dis)interest in doing for what is, for everyone else on our team, career-defining creations.
  - grogenaut 3y ago
    Frankly most startups aren't very interesting. The ones who want you to be super interested are often the most boring ideas "were passionate about sox compliance", and if they are interesting they won't tell you shit about the company due to secret sauce or just moving so fast nothing is documented. It's hard as a candidate to get excited about every idea. And many people purposefully don't as they don't want to get shot down later by a job they were excited about. Finally if I'm actively looking I have 10 leads I'm following and I'm practicing for interviews. Signing up for every beta tryout eats into that time. I'll take a look when ivw got an offer. I took a career pivot from web forms /rails to AAA playstation games. I played the game after they flew me to Seattle and gave me an offer. It involved buying a PlayStation 3 and their previous game. And that's an obviously cool job. Bought it right after I landed home and played it the next morning. Accepted the offer a few hours later.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
yodsanklai 3y ago
Exactly, same thing in my company, at least for technical interviews. I always tell interviewees that questions are off the record, and if they don't have any questions, it's totally fine.
aidenn0 3y ago
OTOH, I have known interviewers that would not pass an interviewee that asked no questions. Wasn't first-round interviews though.
- jghn 3y ago
  The only universal truth when it comes to interviews is that there are no universal truths. As an interviewee there is nothing you can do that will universally be read as a positive across all interviewers. There are so many contradictory rules among interviewers that you might as well not bother gaming the system and do what you want to do. Let the chips fall as they may. As an interviewer, no filter you put in place will give you a perfect read on what it's intended to test. For instance I know I have my quirks in terms of things that'll turn me off of a candidate based on resume alone. But I also recognize that many candidates are coached to do it this way in the first place. So I need to be conscious of this and try to not interpret these things as "shitty candidate"
  - goostavos 3y ago
    >The only universal truth when it comes to interviews is that there are no universal truths. 100%. This is what makes me roll my eyes in all of these threads. Do enough interviews and you'll see people regularly dismissed for the most pretty and inane reasons. Hell, just the other day in one of these threads you had someone saying that they rejected a candidate because they said "bro" too much. No amount of interview prep, "They Hate This One Weird Trick" blogs, or hiring astrology will beat the fact that there are humans sitting on the other side of the table. And humans are weird and finicky
    - ghaff 3y ago
      >they rejected a candidate because they said "bro" too much It would depend on context but that would certainly trip alarm bells for me.
      - goostavos 3y ago
jghn 3y ago
As an interviewer, the only signal I ever take away from interviewee questions is if they manage to come across like a complete asshole. And this isn't common because most people aren't complete assholes, and those who are usually have displayed their colors earlier on in the interview. As an interviewee, I refuse to put any effort into gaming the system and hoping to come across as a better candidate. I treat these sessions as me interviewing them. And yes, this means that a lot of times my questions will come across as banal. But you can get some decent signal on red flags by asking several potential peers to describe their day, challenges that they're facing, and that sort of thing.
- foobarian 3y ago
  On few occasions the questions interviewees asked at the end did help me form a better picture of them as candidates; example, someone asked what Java version we run predominantly and, and this is the important bit, didn't balk when the answer was some ancient LTS version but instead a nervous laugh of commiseration followed by war story time. This told me a lot both about the candidate's maturity and experience.
  - jrockway 3y ago
    That's a good heuristic. Someone just starting doesn't know what "best practices" are. Someone early into their career demands strict adherence to the best practices. Someone later into their career knows what rules can be bent, and knows a good reason for doing it.
- pandaman 3y ago
  >As an interviewee, I refuse to put any effort into gaming the system and hoping to come across as a better candidate. This is something missing from all the "interview coaching" advise and very few people seem to understand. Suppose there is an actual technique that allows you to get a job you otherwise would not get. Say, hypothetically, you used it to become an astronaut. Do you think you perform well as an astronaut even though the selection process would have culled you? I'd imagine you get kicked out anyways so all you gained is a line in a resume. The same advise also insists that having a whole bunch of 0.5-1 year "gigs" in your work history is normal, but is it really? Do people really believe hiring managers don't see the pattern? Does anyone really think that people go: "Oh, we should hire this person, he worked in all of FAANG, one year in each, must be very good!"?
samstave 3y ago
I have failed several interviews by knowing too much about the employer, or in cases, even the interviewer --- where I felt I didnt have any pertinent questions to ask at the end of the interview... If I already know the answer I have to consciously remember to still ask questions at the end.... No worse interview feeling of suddenly thinking of all the questions you _should_ have asked after youve left the meeting...
- a_e_k 3y ago
  In the past, I've dealt with that by saying something like "I would ask you X, but I saw from [place] that the answer is Y. Can you confirm that this is correct / confirm that this still true / tell me more?" I put my cards on the table to show that I've done my homework and establish what I know already, then elicit more information. If there's nothing more to be said, then fine, but at least an interviewer who cares what I ask will know what I'm curious about even if I already happen to have an answer. And if I'm wrong, then it gives them an opportunity to correct the record. Or it gives them an opening to provide additional nuance.
KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
> My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the questions that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to focus on impressing your interviewer. I agree with this, except in one sense that I think lends to the point of the blog post. The questions you ask can drive perception of how you might act as an employee. On more than one occasion I have asked a question about X at an interview and then had a subsequent conversation with a recruiter where they ask "is [something related to X] a concern for you?" I've not ever had one discontinue me due to it but it shows what's coming up in conversation at the interview debriefs.
belter 3y ago
Out of those hundreds of interviews, can you discern some clear patterns, that are common to all candidates that impress positively?
edelans 3y ago
> hundreds of FAANG interviews hundreds?? So that's at least 200. Assuming you interview for the 5 FAANG in parallel, and you have, let's say 5 rounds per application (and you do reach the 5th). You would have done the whole process 8 times. Assuming they let you apply only once per year, that means you have interviewed at the very least every year for the last 8y. okay.
- Centigonal 3y ago
  I assume they mean as the interviewer
- angarg12 3y ago
  517 interviews as an interviewer.
pclmulqdq 3y ago
Google is the only place I have worked where we didn't judge peoples' follow-up questions. I'm not sure FAANG is representative in that respect.
idopmstuff 3y ago
Counterpoint: I've performed hundreds of interviews at early-stage startups, and this is spot-on, fantastic advice. If you can ask questions about things that I have spent time thinking about, that's a really good sign to me that you were able to look at the company from the outside and apply your knowledge to understand what's important. If you can ask questions about things I haven't been thinking about but that subsequently get me thinking, even better. Questions really distinguish you from other candidates more than answers because the fact that they're unprompted means they tell me more about where you focus your attention than do the answers to my questions. > My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the questions that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to focus on impressing your interviewer. With all of that said, I still 100% agree with this. The ideal result is that you ask me questions about things that are important to you and that I find those questions compelling - then we've probably got a good match. But do make sure you have some thoughtful, researched questions. Those are always better than "what's the best thing about working here?" regardless of topic.

Arch-TK 3y ago

It's weird that you dont judge potential hires on the quality of their questions, the most important parts of most creative jobs are being able to ask the right questions.

mynameisvlad 3y ago
The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job. And no, not really. My job is to assess their technical skills, not how well they ask me about my work life balance while in a relatively high stress environment.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  I'm not talking about inane questions like your work life balance. I am talking about questions about your product, your design decisions, etc. If I am interviewing at a company I certainly want to know that I am not going to be working at a dumpster fire. I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example, so I know that you uphold standards and dont just allow things to get progressively worse as time goes on due to systematic indifference. Now you could be lying to me but that's why I ask more than one question. Certainly to me it feels like if a candidate is asking these kinds of questions during an interview process then that candidate also cares about those things, which depending on whether you are running a java sweatshop or an organized and productive development company seems like it would have some importance.
  - yodsanklai 3y ago
    Maybe the candidate don't feel they need to ask such questions because they have 5 friends who work for the company and know the answer already. From an interviewer perspective, you get more signal from the candidate by asking them such questions in a behavior interview in a more standardized way.
  - toast0 3y ago
    > I want to know how you internally resolve conflicts relating to code reviews for example I call this process fit. It's important to some candidates, and some employers. It's clearly important to you, and you should ask those questions; interviewing is a two-way street. But if I'm an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm not giving you points for those questions, because I'm going to be sussing out your process fit earlier anyway. If I'm not an employer that makes process a big deal, I'm probably not giving you points for those questions, because it's not a big deal to me (this could be a red flag for you, depending on the answers you get from your probing questions)
- pavlov 3y ago
  > “The questions a candidate asks during that part of the interview have almost no overlap to the questions they would ask as part of a real job.” An apt symmetry, as typically the questions a candidate gets asked during an interview also have no overlap to the questions they would get asked as part of the real job.
leetcrew 3y ago
the quality of questions is important during the technical segment, almost as much as getting the correct (or at least reasonable) answer/solution. charging into a solution without picking up on the ambiguities is one of the classic ways a leetcode legend fails a technical interview. after all that, I feel the candidate deserves at least 5-10 minutes at the end to ask their own honest questions without having to worry about what they're signaling.
jghn 3y ago
When I'm asking an interviewer questions, I'm trying to get a read on what it's like to work there. Are there any red flags that'd turn me off? Is this a place I'll enjoy working? Do my potential coworkers seem like decent people? Does the work/life balance match what I want to see? When I'm actually working at a place, I don't need to ask those questions. I already know the answer.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  These questions are important but they are not the types of questions I am asking about. Part of determining if you want to work somewhere is figuring out how mature the team is when it comes to design decisions and the development process, to accurately ascertain this, you have to ask technical questions, the act of asking these questions is itself an indicator that you yourself are thinking about these important things and as such value them and should, to a well functioning development team with a working product, indicate that you would at least contribute to keeping things working optimally and contribute positively. I would be worried if someone nevet asked about the thing they were going to be working on, asked why certain design decisions were made, or asked how it gets developed.
  - jghn 3y ago
    Sure, I agree. That's part of me finding out if I want to work there. The unfortunate reality is usually you're given 5-10 mins at the end in a hasty "what would you like to ask me?" so I tend to stick to the more basic type questions. Repeating across interviewers to see what patterns pop up. That said I'm not shy about pushing back with questions during an interview session itself, and that's where things like you're talking about can get worked in. Of course if they insist on "solve this problem" type sessions, there's less of that. But it's also less likely I want to work there. So it works out for me.
yodsanklai 3y ago
One issue with that is it's very subjective. One interviewer will be impressed by a question, and another will not.
sigstoat 3y ago
do you ask all of your interviewers the same set of questions to ensure they’re all suitably impressed by you? if not how do you decide to allocate them?

mynameisvlad 3y ago

This. I might call out a particularly good question in the debrief but only as an aside. I don’t think I ever made a decision where the questions factored in at all; most of the time there’s more than enough material in the actual interview to cover a decision being made.

Zach_the_Lizard 3y ago

I think the questions that matter are clarifying questions in e.g. architecture rounds. E.g. design a document storage system Asking about requirements can help provide evidence you're aware of tradeoffs, various concepts, etc. and separate yourself from other candidates. Not surface level "what QPS do we need to support?" type questions, but beyond that. Otherwise, yes, I agree, questions are not recorded and don't matter (unless there's a serious red flag like someone asking if they can avoid working with $GROUP_THEY_DONT_LIKE which raises HR type concerns)

whafro 3y ago

On the other hand, at small companies, this can be a big deal. FAANG companies pretty much know how interested you are in working there, based on the fact that you’re the type of person who thinks they want to work at a FAANG company. And since the scope of these companies is so large, there are all sorts of ways to fit your interests into work at such a company over the mid-to-long-term. But early-stage companies are looking for folks who have an interest and understanding in the task at hand. For many hiring managers at these companies, expertise – or at least interest – in the problem space is noteworthy. On the hard-skill side, it can suggest that you may be able to help see around corners with your product team, identifying and solving issues during planning or on the fly. On the soft-skill side, it can suggest that you’re bringing positive energy and motivation to the still-nascent team. In the end, it’s still a matter of knowing your audience and reading the room. It may be a waste of time in some places, and may be the difference-maker in others.

lmeyerov 3y ago
Yep. Folks at 200+ and especially FAANG companies are mostly interchangeable. The interviewer is mostly derisking chance of a dud and comparing a 86%er vs 87%er. A few exceptions like at the rarer million dollar comp level. For everyone else, especially non-insiders... Cookie cutter comparisons it is, and whatever edge. Startups are very much making a more existential bet. For our openings, I'm equally looking for ownership, interest in our customers/mission/long-term, and other bits that have little to with a whiteboard. On a HN Hiring thread from yesterday, you'd be surprised how many emails I got that were 'here is my stale CV from 5-10 years ago' and little about why they're excited to do hard things with us. Likewise, if someone is on a second round with us and hasn't bothered to use our free tier, that also tells us a lot about their (dis)interest in doing for what is, for everyone else on our team, career-defining creations.
- grogenaut 3y ago
  Frankly most startups aren't very interesting. The ones who want you to be super interested are often the most boring ideas "were passionate about sox compliance", and if they are interesting they won't tell you shit about the company due to secret sauce or just moving so fast nothing is documented. It's hard as a candidate to get excited about every idea. And many people purposefully don't as they don't want to get shot down later by a job they were excited about. Finally if I'm actively looking I have 10 leads I'm following and I'm practicing for interviews. Signing up for every beta tryout eats into that time. I'll take a look when ivw got an offer. I took a career pivot from web forms /rails to AAA playstation games. I played the game after they flew me to Seattle and gave me an offer. It involved buying a PlayStation 3 and their previous game. And that's an obviously cool job. Bought it right after I landed home and played it the next morning. Accepted the offer a few hours later.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

yodsanklai 3y ago

Exactly, same thing in my company, at least for technical interviews. I always tell interviewees that questions are off the record, and if they don't have any questions, it's totally fine.

aidenn0 3y ago

OTOH, I have known interviewers that would not pass an interviewee that asked no questions. Wasn't first-round interviews though.

jghn 3y ago
The only universal truth when it comes to interviews is that there are no universal truths. As an interviewee there is nothing you can do that will universally be read as a positive across all interviewers. There are so many contradictory rules among interviewers that you might as well not bother gaming the system and do what you want to do. Let the chips fall as they may. As an interviewer, no filter you put in place will give you a perfect read on what it's intended to test. For instance I know I have my quirks in terms of things that'll turn me off of a candidate based on resume alone. But I also recognize that many candidates are coached to do it this way in the first place. So I need to be conscious of this and try to not interpret these things as "shitty candidate"
- goostavos 3y ago
  >The only universal truth when it comes to interviews is that there are no universal truths. 100%. This is what makes me roll my eyes in all of these threads. Do enough interviews and you'll see people regularly dismissed for the most pretty and inane reasons. Hell, just the other day in one of these threads you had someone saying that they rejected a candidate because they said "bro" too much. No amount of interview prep, "They Hate This One Weird Trick" blogs, or hiring astrology will beat the fact that there are humans sitting on the other side of the table. And humans are weird and finicky
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >they rejected a candidate because they said "bro" too much It would depend on context but that would certainly trip alarm bells for me.
    - goostavos 3y ago

jghn 3y ago

As an interviewer, the only signal I ever take away from interviewee questions is if they manage to come across like a complete asshole. And this isn't common because most people aren't complete assholes, and those who are usually have displayed their colors earlier on in the interview. As an interviewee, I refuse to put any effort into gaming the system and hoping to come across as a better candidate. I treat these sessions as me interviewing them. And yes, this means that a lot of times my questions will come across as banal. But you can get some decent signal on red flags by asking several potential peers to describe their day, challenges that they're facing, and that sort of thing.

foobarian 3y ago
On few occasions the questions interviewees asked at the end did help me form a better picture of them as candidates; example, someone asked what Java version we run predominantly and, and this is the important bit, didn't balk when the answer was some ancient LTS version but instead a nervous laugh of commiseration followed by war story time. This told me a lot both about the candidate's maturity and experience.
- jrockway 3y ago
  That's a good heuristic. Someone just starting doesn't know what "best practices" are. Someone early into their career demands strict adherence to the best practices. Someone later into their career knows what rules can be bent, and knows a good reason for doing it.
pandaman 3y ago
>As an interviewee, I refuse to put any effort into gaming the system and hoping to come across as a better candidate. This is something missing from all the "interview coaching" advise and very few people seem to understand. Suppose there is an actual technique that allows you to get a job you otherwise would not get. Say, hypothetically, you used it to become an astronaut. Do you think you perform well as an astronaut even though the selection process would have culled you? I'd imagine you get kicked out anyways so all you gained is a line in a resume. The same advise also insists that having a whole bunch of 0.5-1 year "gigs" in your work history is normal, but is it really? Do people really believe hiring managers don't see the pattern? Does anyone really think that people go: "Oh, we should hire this person, he worked in all of FAANG, one year in each, must be very good!"?

samstave 3y ago

I have failed several interviews by knowing too much about the employer, or in cases, even the interviewer --- where I felt I didnt have any pertinent questions to ask at the end of the interview... If I already know the answer I have to consciously remember to still ask questions at the end.... No worse interview feeling of suddenly thinking of all the questions you _should_ have asked after youve left the meeting...

a_e_k 3y ago
In the past, I've dealt with that by saying something like "I would ask you X, but I saw from [place] that the answer is Y. Can you confirm that this is correct / confirm that this still true / tell me more?" I put my cards on the table to show that I've done my homework and establish what I know already, then elicit more information. If there's nothing more to be said, then fine, but at least an interviewer who cares what I ask will know what I'm curious about even if I already happen to have an answer. And if I'm wrong, then it gives them an opportunity to correct the record. Or it gives them an opening to provide additional nuance.

KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago

> My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the questions that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to focus on impressing your interviewer. I agree with this, except in one sense that I think lends to the point of the blog post. The questions you ask can drive perception of how you might act as an employee. On more than one occasion I have asked a question about X at an interview and then had a subsequent conversation with a recruiter where they ask "is [something related to X] a concern for you?" I've not ever had one discontinue me due to it but it shows what's coming up in conversation at the interview debriefs.

belter 3y ago

Out of those hundreds of interviews, can you discern some clear patterns, that are common to all candidates that impress positively?

edelans 3y ago

> hundreds of FAANG interviews hundreds?? So that's at least 200. Assuming you interview for the 5 FAANG in parallel, and you have, let's say 5 rounds per application (and you do reach the 5th). You would have done the whole process 8 times. Assuming they let you apply only once per year, that means you have interviewed at the very least every year for the last 8y. okay.

Centigonal 3y ago
I assume they mean as the interviewer
angarg12 3y ago
517 interviews as an interviewer.

pclmulqdq 3y ago

Google is the only place I have worked where we didn't judge peoples' follow-up questions. I'm not sure FAANG is representative in that respect.

idopmstuff 3y ago

Counterpoint: I've performed hundreds of interviews at early-stage startups, and this is spot-on, fantastic advice. If you can ask questions about things that I have spent time thinking about, that's a really good sign to me that you were able to look at the company from the outside and apply your knowledge to understand what's important. If you can ask questions about things I haven't been thinking about but that subsequently get me thinking, even better. Questions really distinguish you from other candidates more than answers because the fact that they're unprompted means they tell me more about where you focus your attention than do the answers to my questions. > My advice would be to not overthink it. Just ask the questions that are genuinely important to you, and don't try to focus on impressing your interviewer. With all of that said, I still 100% agree with this. The ideal result is that you ask me questions about things that are important to you and that I find those questions compelling - then we've probably got a good match. But do make sure you have some thoughtful, researched questions. Those are always better than "what's the best thing about working here?" regardless of topic.