6 ms·

I had many many technical interviews this year. Nobody wanted to listen to my stories. I got a technical task and needed to solve it. From explaining steps in V

by lnsru 3y ago

I had many many technical interviews this year. Nobody wanted to listen to my stories. I got a technical task and needed to solve it. From explaining steps in Visual Studio on paper how to create a functional hello world GUI. To some crazy undefined system design tasks. The single story I was allowed to tell was my introduction. I never experienced an interview where somebody wanted to do something else than assess my technical skills.

mewpmewp2 3y ago
I think there can be good stories that capture interest, however you should use some sort of method to first test the waters whether this sort of story would be interesting to the other party. Reading the blog post, the story about tripping due to bad shoes to me would be a turn off to hear. Because are they going to tell this story from out of nowhere? If they started off with "I had a crazy scare today, I almost slipped and fell walking high up.", I might appreciate it more since I can choose myself then to ask whether I want to hear more details about the story. Otherwise the story just takes up too much time and it's not polite to interrupt them. It's a risky investment of time that the other party might not appreciate or care for. Of course it depends on the personality of the person who you are telling the story to. Some people definitely may appreciate the detailed visuals etc, but to me when someone ends up with a long winded answer, I tend to think "man, they could've just summed all of this information up with one sentence".
- maroonblazer 3y ago
  I took the story as simply an example of the difference between an interesting vs uninteresting anecdote. I think it's implicit in the article that the story you choose to tell is relevant to the interview situation you're in.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    Yes, however still to me people sometimes will talk too much, when it would be much better where they are concise at first and I can ask immediate interactive follow ups about the details. Interview is such a limited time so to me it seems most efficient to have a dialogue out of the box. Or they should at least make pauses to give opportunity for cuts. I don't want to listen to prose someone studied word by word. I don't need to "feel" the challenge as the author said. I need to be able to figure out during 1 hour the problem solving capability of the candidate. If they spend unnecessarily much time on stories, I would be concerned whether they are a bser and want to limit my ability to ask questions as the time runs out.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Maybe at the beginning. But later they will definitely want to hear more about what was accomplished on past projects, and that lends itself to the story.
lesuorac 3y ago
Well yeah of course. Even the article didn't think story telling is appropriate for technical interviews; its the behavior ones you tell stories in.
candiddevmike 3y ago
According to the article, had you spun an interesting enough yarn full of half truths, you might've been able to skip all that stuff as you lulled your audience into a false sense of security.
cebert 3y ago
> I never experienced an interview where somebody wanted to do something else than assess my technical skills. I don’t understand why interviews in the software I industry are so different compared to other industries. I also get the impression that during many interviews what you’re about and what you’ve done matters very little. All that matters is if you can solve two Leetcode hards in an hour multiple times.
- fassssst 3y ago
  Engineers are treated like robots.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    And yet, the majority seems to oppose unionizing despite calling themselves tech workers. Puzzling, how often people act against their own interests.
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      That seems to be mostly a US thing. Programmers there seems to be more libertarian than elsewhere, and unions are seen as, if not an embodiment of Big Bad Communism, at least a recognition that we’re not as independent as we might would like. Here in France we’re hardly opposed to unions. We’re lazy in not joining for sure, and some do say they’re useless, but almost no one would dare suggest they’re bad. By the way I believe the difference between our ways of thinking goes beyond such politics, and influence our technical decisions as well. Someone who’s all about negative freedom (lack of restrictions) and distrusting authorities (most notably governments), is I think more likely to prefer permissive licences and dynamic typing. Conversely, those who prefer static typing are more likely to see programming as a branch of applied maths, accept more immediate loss of freedom for a greater good, and believe that a government can be trustworthy even if they may not like their current one.
    - Salgat 3y ago
      It's because the top earners make obscene levels of money, and a union might disrupt that. So you have a situation where a company might only lose lower performers to unionization, which they can afford to handle.
belter 3y ago
You lost an opportunity... https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview
asadawadia 3y ago
you are 100% right Nobody cares about anything except that coding question that is given during the interview Even if you have an impressive portfolio of dev related work - the only thing you are judged on is that leetcode task during the interview maybe at the vp/em level - where the job is talking it might be more appropriate
devnullbrain 3y ago
>I never experienced an interview where somebody wanted to do something else than assess my technical skills. That's such an outlier I struggle to believe it. Nobody has ever asked you about your work history? Never about a time when you needed to work in a team to solve a problem, etc.?
- TrueGeek 3y ago
  I worked at a company where we split the interview up. 5 interviews (including HR screen). The 3 tech screens were just that - tech screens. You didn't go over the work history or work in a team. It was three 45 minute sessions with a developer where you were given leetcode questions to complete in the 45 minutes. Nothing else. I was asked to do one for another team and during the meeting where we discussed if the prospective hire would get hired I got in trouble because I didn't copy and paste the candidates pseudo-do code into an IDE and see if it compiled. I never agreed to do one again.
- lnsru 3y ago
  But it’s not traditional storytelling like in role playing games. It’s some small made up lie for every possible special situation in the interview.
maximinus_thrax 3y ago
It probably depends on the company, the 'tier' of companies or your level. After reaching 'staff', the bulk of time spent in interviews is on the behavioral side, which is literally storytelling. Even interviewers tasked with evaluating technical competencies reserved 10-15 minutes at the end to ask 'loaded' TMAAT questions - 'Tell me about a time when you wanted to quit on the spot', 'Tell me about a time when you were publicly humiliated' - and the likes.

by lnsru 3y ago

mewpmewp2 3y ago

I think there can be good stories that capture interest, however you should use some sort of method to first test the waters whether this sort of story would be interesting to the other party. Reading the blog post, the story about tripping due to bad shoes to me would be a turn off to hear. Because are they going to tell this story from out of nowhere? If they started off with "I had a crazy scare today, I almost slipped and fell walking high up.", I might appreciate it more since I can choose myself then to ask whether I want to hear more details about the story. Otherwise the story just takes up too much time and it's not polite to interrupt them. It's a risky investment of time that the other party might not appreciate or care for. Of course it depends on the personality of the person who you are telling the story to. Some people definitely may appreciate the detailed visuals etc, but to me when someone ends up with a long winded answer, I tend to think "man, they could've just summed all of this information up with one sentence".

maroonblazer 3y ago
I took the story as simply an example of the difference between an interesting vs uninteresting anecdote. I think it's implicit in the article that the story you choose to tell is relevant to the interview situation you're in.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Yes, however still to me people sometimes will talk too much, when it would be much better where they are concise at first and I can ask immediate interactive follow ups about the details. Interview is such a limited time so to me it seems most efficient to have a dialogue out of the box. Or they should at least make pauses to give opportunity for cuts. I don't want to listen to prose someone studied word by word. I don't need to "feel" the challenge as the author said. I need to be able to figure out during 1 hour the problem solving capability of the candidate. If they spend unnecessarily much time on stories, I would be concerned whether they are a bser and want to limit my ability to ask questions as the time runs out.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Maybe at the beginning. But later they will definitely want to hear more about what was accomplished on past projects, and that lends itself to the story.

lesuorac 3y ago

Well yeah of course. Even the article didn't think story telling is appropriate for technical interviews; its the behavior ones you tell stories in.

candiddevmike 3y ago

According to the article, had you spun an interesting enough yarn full of half truths, you might've been able to skip all that stuff as you lulled your audience into a false sense of security.

cebert 3y ago

> I never experienced an interview where somebody wanted to do something else than assess my technical skills. I don’t understand why interviews in the software I industry are so different compared to other industries. I also get the impression that during many interviews what you’re about and what you’ve done matters very little. All that matters is if you can solve two Leetcode hards in an hour multiple times.

fassssst 3y ago
Engineers are treated like robots.
- hef19898 3y ago
  And yet, the majority seems to oppose unionizing despite calling themselves tech workers. Puzzling, how often people act against their own interests.
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    That seems to be mostly a US thing. Programmers there seems to be more libertarian than elsewhere, and unions are seen as, if not an embodiment of Big Bad Communism, at least a recognition that we’re not as independent as we might would like. Here in France we’re hardly opposed to unions. We’re lazy in not joining for sure, and some do say they’re useless, but almost no one would dare suggest they’re bad. By the way I believe the difference between our ways of thinking goes beyond such politics, and influence our technical decisions as well. Someone who’s all about negative freedom (lack of restrictions) and distrusting authorities (most notably governments), is I think more likely to prefer permissive licences and dynamic typing. Conversely, those who prefer static typing are more likely to see programming as a branch of applied maths, accept more immediate loss of freedom for a greater good, and believe that a government can be trustworthy even if they may not like their current one.
  - Salgat 3y ago
    It's because the top earners make obscene levels of money, and a union might disrupt that. So you have a situation where a company might only lose lower performers to unionization, which they can afford to handle.

belter 3y ago

You lost an opportunity... https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview https://aphyr.com/posts/341-hexing-the-technical-interview

asadawadia 3y ago

you are 100% right Nobody cares about anything except that coding question that is given during the interview Even if you have an impressive portfolio of dev related work - the only thing you are judged on is that leetcode task during the interview maybe at the vp/em level - where the job is talking it might be more appropriate

devnullbrain 3y ago

>I never experienced an interview where somebody wanted to do something else than assess my technical skills. That's such an outlier I struggle to believe it. Nobody has ever asked you about your work history? Never about a time when you needed to work in a team to solve a problem, etc.?

TrueGeek 3y ago
I worked at a company where we split the interview up. 5 interviews (including HR screen). The 3 tech screens were just that - tech screens. You didn't go over the work history or work in a team. It was three 45 minute sessions with a developer where you were given leetcode questions to complete in the 45 minutes. Nothing else. I was asked to do one for another team and during the meeting where we discussed if the prospective hire would get hired I got in trouble because I didn't copy and paste the candidates pseudo-do code into an IDE and see if it compiled. I never agreed to do one again.
lnsru 3y ago
But it’s not traditional storytelling like in role playing games. It’s some small made up lie for every possible special situation in the interview.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago

It probably depends on the company, the 'tier' of companies or your level. After reaching 'staff', the bulk of time spent in interviews is on the behavioral side, which is literally storytelling. Even interviewers tasked with evaluating technical competencies reserved 10-15 minutes at the end to ask 'loaded' TMAAT questions - 'Tell me about a time when you wanted to quit on the spot', 'Tell me about a time when you were publicly humiliated' - and the likes.