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Stuff I've Messed Up While Interviewing

195 points by luu 12y ago

raverbashing 12y ago
This reminds me that every single time Google recruiters tried to reach me after I interviewed (and got rejected) there they just stopped responding me after I got back to them I find this extremely rude behaviour and managed to make my will of ever interviewing back to Google plummet to zero (that and the stories I've heard) Also, yes, people screw up (me inclusive), get passed, such is life, but really, people should avoid alienating their candidates, and this seems to happen more often than not.
- throwaway223344 12y ago
  What I also find strange (rude?) if an application process requires a bit more effort from the applicant than just sending a CV and the other side does not even care about writing back a single 'No thanks'. Mapbox.com has been looking for engineers last month and you had to send them a C++ code solving some kind of pathfinding problem -- not a huge thing but still takes at least a couple of hours to code. So you invest 3-5 hours and then they don't have 30 seconds to inform you that you're rejected. Quite sad.
- sebnukem2 12y ago
  I had such an awful experience with Google interviews it completely turned me off from wanting to work there. I don't want to be around people like that.
Sir_Substance 12y ago
I have found myself wishing a lot over the last year or so that interviewing was less of an art and more of a science. The writer talks about being quizzed on a google product she had only superficially used. She recommends that people do their homework more, but honestly, even a dedicated googlophile would struggle to have tried every google product in depth. She was unlucky that they asked about that specific product. Honestly, there is a lot more luck in the interview process than makes me comfortable. The difference between getting the job vs losing it can be that the interviewer chose to ask you about smart pointers rather than heap allocation, and that's galling when the reality of the job is that you're going to spend half your time moving text boxes by two pixels and changing log formats to suit the new Unified Log Structure your sysadmins have dreamed up.
- ArekDymalski 12y ago
  > interviewing was less of an art and more of a science I'd extend your wish to "Whole recruitment process should be less of an art and more of a science". The problem is that even the properly conducted interview using established, good practices (like competence based/behavioral interview) can give you max. 50% accuracy in assessing the competencies. What means that additional methods are absolutely necessary. But even the most accurate methods will lead to wrong decisions when companies don't have precisely and adequately defined what competencies are actually required to perform well in a given position. And from my experience this is the core problem. People debate over questions/fizz-buzz/puzzles/whiteboard/whatever but usually do not invest enough time to determine what would they like to measure with these methods.
  - MikeTaylor 12y ago
    The point of fizz-buzz and similar exercises is not to find suitable candidates. It's to eliminate plainly unsuitable candidates, very early in the process, at minimal cost.
  - blowski 12y ago
    Until messy human beings are replaced with perfectly rational robots, the recruitment process is always going to be an 'art'. Roles are often vaguely defined, because it depends on who is available. People lie, exaggerate and game the system in interviews. Neither side wants to reveal their weak points. Figuring out the underlying truth and matching the best available candidate to the best possible job description is not something algorithms are good at.
    - ArekDymalski 12y ago
      You are right. However, there's a whole spectrum between messy and irrational human being and perfect robot. My point was that people should take an effort to reduce/control their imperfection, biases etc.. The choice of "I'll be messy because I can't be as good as robot" is easy but flawed.
  - shamney 12y ago
SeanDav 12y ago
> Spring 2008, Microsoft – “Give me 10 ways to improve an elevator.” . . . The interviewer called me on it, and (verbatim) said “are you fucking with me?” Got to laugh at the irony of this comment during a software/programming interview.
hessenwolf 12y ago
Things I have screwed up: 1. No ability to do mental arithmetic whatsoever. 2. No ability to write standard template library-based C++ code from memory, except maybe cout and cin. 3. Being late. (3 times at least) 4. Being in a different country and forgetting about it. 5. Trying to sell myself because that is what I was told to do and coming across as unforgiveably arrogant. (a difficult balance) 6. When asked about if I minded the data-cleaning work, which could be boring, I joked that if I was worried about being bored I would have chosen a different career. Maybe this isn't even a joke. Either way, highly offended interviewer. 7. Couldn't really speak the language. 8. When interviewing for a position as a bartender, said I could pour beer. Then proceeded to spray the customers with my attempt when I was asked to prove it. (I was young) However, the bar owner then let me work for free as a trainee for the night, and I got the next job.
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iamben 12y ago
Long term recruiter friend of mine has always said a great response to the "do you have any questions for me?" is "if I could do this whole interview again, where could I have been better?" Anecdotally, the few times I've used it, I've had a great or worthwhile response to that. Edit: Obviously ask this at the very end after a couple of the normal questions about the company...
- atom-morgan 12y ago
  Similar question: "Based on everything you've heard in this interview what makes you think I'm not the person for this job?" I've used it once so far (that I can remember) and it led to a great discussion and eventually a job offer after what I believed was my worst technical interview ever.
  - iamben 12y ago
    That's an excellent one. I'll be sure to remember that!
zerr 12y ago
> Fall 2005, Princeton – “Do you have any questions?” Before I get to this question, I've researched the company so much (products, monetization, even approximate salary ranges), that I've to play like I don't know and ask something... :)
pja 12y ago
The author seems to beat herself up a lot over failings that I don’t think were her fault. Sure, the "do you have any questions?" foul-up is a huge own-goal, but some of the others? Eg, "I wanted to talk about Gmail (I used it daily) but the interviewer didn’t want to. Instead, we opted to talk about Google Docs. Unfortunately, the interviewer had been the Google Docs PM, and I’d only used it at a surface level. Every suggestion I made turned out to already be in the Product. Whoops." To me, this has the smell of the "know it all" interviewer who is more interested in proving their superiority over the candidate than actually conducting a decent interview. Of course the interviewer wanted to stick to discussing the product they were the PM on, how else would they be able to smugly call out the interviewee on their (perfectly reasonable) suggestions?
- kethinov 12y ago
  I recently completed five (yes, five) interviews with Stack Exchange and had to give the "no" answer to "do you have any questions?" on the fifth interview. After five interviews, I pretty much had all my questions answered. Seemed like a valid answer to me in that context. I was declined at interview #5, after passing the previous four. Not sure how much that question played a role. It was also the weakest of my technical interviews. I was surprised to get hit with more programming questions after having passed so many other technical interviews with them. After 5 interviews which dragged out for almost two months that was super disappointing though. It was probably the last interview I needed to pass. It's like being knocked out of the race with a blue shell in the last 20 seconds in Mario Kart.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    An aside, but do they really normally run a 2-month interview process, or was it some kind of scheduling issue? Seems like a lot of candidates wouldn't even stick around for the end of that, since they'll have gotten an offer from somewhere else before then.
    - kethinov 12y ago
      Probably a combination of scheduling issue + normal process. I got the impression they subject candidates to much more vetting than normal, but it was also not uncommon for a week or more to go by between interviews.
richev 12y ago
Many years ago an interviewer had me handwriting my solution to a code challenge on a whiteboard. As I scribbled away I had a sense that something was amiss...the ink on the pen didn't smell quite right. Focussing on the problem at hand, I dutifully filled the whiteboard with my solution. All was well until I needed to erase the board, only to discover that I had selected a permanent marker rather than a dry wipe one. Whiteboard ruined. I did not get the job, but I did learn the importance of checking what type of pen you're using _before_ you start to use it...
- zhte415 12y ago
  Have done similar (though not in an interview). Usually an alcohol-based cleaning fluid can get that off with minimal effort. Why they had a permanent marker next to a whiteboard is another question - incompetence, or to stop you rubbing anything out?
  - dasboth 12y ago
    "incompetence, or to stop you rubbing anything out" Even worse is if it was some sort of test to see if he'd check before starting to write...
  - nailer 12y ago
    Also: you can go over permanent marker with whiteboard marker and rub it off.
  - marcosdumay 12y ago
    It looks like everybody keeps a permanent marker next to their whiteboard. I have no idea why, but I make sure to ask the responsible person every time I see one. (I never got the same answer twice, I once got one that was honest.) If richev really lost the job because of the marker, he safely got out of a place where people lose jobs because of powerfull people's (the interviewer) fault. Good for him.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      The permanent markers are there to mark the writable disc media. But everywhere I have worked, the dry erase markers are kept near the whiteboards, and the permanent markers are kept next to the stack of blank discs, or near the disc-writer drives. Keeping them both in the same place is a Murphy's Law infraction.
edw519 12y ago
Of all the things I've ever tried in order to do well in interviews, one of them trumps all of the others: I am interviewing them. That's it. It's that simple. The sooner we understand that every interview is a 2 way interview and that we are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing us, the sooner we can adopt the right mental attitude the make the rest of the bullshit details melt away. I even take it a step further: it's much more important the I make the right choice than they do. I am giving them my time, which I can never get back. They are giving me their money, which they have plenty of and can always get more. Interview them. Be nice. Have a nice 2 way dialogue. And never forget: it's your party, not theirs. If it doesn't lead anywhere, no problem. There are plenty more of them, but only one of you. Aside: More thoughts in Chapter 3 here: http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html
- jedrek 12y ago
  Once you get past pencil pushing jobs and jobs that don't require more than a week of training, interviews need to stop becoming interviews and need to start being conversation. It needs to stop being, "will they give me a job!?" and transition to, "do we want to work together?"
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    This But the hubris of employers seems to be ever increasing.
- e40 12y ago
  I am interviewing them. I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed someone and they never asked me a single question. Even if they seemed good, I always put them into the reject pile. Not a single question? Wow.
  - odonnellryan 12y ago
    I don't ask questions if I lose interest during the interview process.
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- shawabawa3 12y ago
  > There are no downsides to this There are, otherwise everyone would be doing that Just a few off the top of my head: 1. Can't hire people who are already employed (few people would be willing to quit or take multiple days off for a potential job) 2. Burden on existing employees to find stuff for potential hires to do, set up equipment for them etc 3. Huge amount of time is wasted for every rejection 4. Can't possibly have the time to let every applicant do this 5. To narrow down the applicants, you have to....interview them anyway
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sethammons 12y ago
While the author is focusing on the PM role, I feel you should take the same advice when applying for a developer position.
shalmanese 12y ago
Holy hell, just reading that made me feel sympathetic anxiousness. Don't do the things she's suggesting, it's a short walk to a lifetime of stress, anxiety and being underappreciated for your work. The problem is that the OP is fundamentally approaching the interview process as a role in which she must please the interviewer in order to be granted the prize of a job. All of her advice is to prepare better and be more on your game so that the other person might perhaps like you more. Coming in with this mindset automatically puts you on a back footing and makes everything more difficult. Instead, focus on flipping the status game around. When you're with the interviewer, you're with a peer. Talk to them as if you're talking to a friend, not as if you're in a high pressure, life or death situation. Take the VC interview, for example. Imagine if you're catching up with your best friend from college and they ask you if you've made any friends in NYC yet. Do you freeze up and start blabbering incoherently? No, you laugh about it and bitch about how tough it is and ask them if they have any advice or whatever it is that you would do. Approaching it this way changes the entire tenor of the interview process. This is where unskilled and unaware of it genuinely comes in handy. People who are just bad enough that they have no idea how they compare easily sail through interviews since they assume they're above average while genuinely talented people spend so much time comparing themselves to others they get wracked by insecurity. I know this is something easier said than done and that some people in particular find it especially challenging. So is learning Javascript or Photoshop, yet we don't complain when a job requires us to know them to be hired. Learning social skills is as equally important to your career as technical skills so just nut up and do it.
- picks_at_nits 12y ago
  The particular example that stood out for me was the story of the elevator design problem. At some point, she lost interest. Fine, she lost interest. I think it’s fine to say so. “Sorry, I really can’t think of anything more productive or interesting to do with this problem.” That happens in real life. You reach diminishing returns thinking about something. In real life, maybe you have a reasonable starting point and can get going with work on one of your designs. Maybe you rope a colleague in for fresh insights. Maybe you think about another problem and come back to this one when you’re fresh. Or maybe you decide that the problem isn’t interesting to you and you don’t want to spend the only currency you truly have--your time--on it. Hand-waving the entire question of whether puzzle problems are an effective interviewing technique, one of the things they select for is people who find that particular problem interesting. I recall being asked about balancing rocks in an interview. I honestly found it interesting. But I know good people who don’t. Should the question never be asked? I dunno. But I would personally NEVER fault someone for taking an honest crack at it and then saying, “That’s it, I’m out of ideas for balancing rocks.” If I were interviewing and someone asked me about something that didn’t interest me, I’d take my best crack at it. If I ran out of juice, I’d say so. If they wanted to fail me for that, why should I argue? That’s one of the things they’re testing for. Why should I lie to them about my level of interest and personality just to get a job offer? This leads me to another faux pas. I have particular tactics for “Do you have any questions for us?” But I have been in interviews where I have lost interest in the process and don’t have any questions. That’s fine. Not all interviews involve me being curious at the end. Why lie to them about being interested, if I’m not?
chrisbennet 12y ago
Re: "Do you have any questions?" A few years ago I started asking the interviewer this question: "I'm always looking to learn new things. Given what you've seen of my resume', what new things could I learn here?" I sincerely wanted/want to know this but I discovered that there was an unintended side benefit: In response to this question, the interviewer often tries to "sell" you on the company which changes the dynamic. Instead of you trying to please the interviewer, the interviewer is now trying to please you instead - or at least it seemed that way to me.
- qzcx 12y ago
  I also like the question "Now that you've interviewed me and seen my abilities, how do you feel my working here will impact the team/company? What will I help out the most with?" I found it to be an effective question at turning it around, but it also makes them think about just what I could accomplish for them. It gives me a good gage of how well I did before I even leave the interview.
  - CaveTech 12y ago
    I feel that question is far too upfront for an interview, definitely an initial interview anyways. You're not asking where they think you could fit, you've phrased it as where do I fit?. It's an interview, not a job offer.
    - qzcx 12y ago
      This wouldn't happen in a phone screen. This is for the on-site interview after I've already gotten a positive feel for it. Maybe I didn't word it perfectly, but it is partially out of a desire to know how they think I would benefit the company. Am I just another redundant cog in the machine, or am I really going to play a key role? I guess it is a good point to still make it in hypothetical language.
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  - jandrese 12y ago
mootothemax 12y ago
"Do you have any questions?" I've always found this tricky, as generally interviews with me go both ways, and I'm asking questions about the work, company, people and so on throughout the interview. If you need a safe fallback, asking them to describe your typical day, who'll you'll be working with, and what project(s) you'll start with are both useful and a pleasant note to end the interview on.
- johnward 12y ago
  I usually just go to the fallbacks because I honestly have no questions. So I just go to the standard BS. I don't really care about the company to be honest. I've never liked any job I've ever had in this industry and I don't really see that changing based on company. I only work because I have to. to provide the lifestyle I want for myself and my family. I work because I need money and that's the absolute only reason. I know people are going to tell me how wrong this is but I'm just being honest. How can I pretend to be interested when I'm actually not? Coincidentally I've been looking to make a move and not finding anything but I guess that's not surprising. There is nothing I really like in life but at least people tell me I'm pretty good (or at least I've never been fired) at this software stuff so I just stick with it.
  - ghettoCoder 12y ago
    Holy hell! Get out of my brain. That's my life, not yours. On a more serious note, drop me a note if you want. I've been wondering for some time at which point most of us lose (not really the right word. maybe fades is better) that drive.
  - ryandrake 12y ago
    Its kind of sad (and telling) that you expect people here to jump in and tell you your opinion is "wrong". Have an upvote--I don't think there is anything wrong or even unusual about your attitude. In reality, I've worked with many more people in Technology who work because they like getting paid and whose job is "just a job," than I've worked with people who were passionately in love with writing an accounting app or CRUD web service. Not saying that attitude is "wrong" either, but it does appear to be the prevailing one in this community.
cryoshon 12y ago
I'll piggyback onto this article with a few mistakes I made in the past. 1. Correcting the interviewer. In one of my interviews, an MD/PhD was explaining to me his experimental design, which involved training a cohort of people to do a task, then afterward subjecting that cohort to electrical brain stimulation while performing the task in order to compare results on the task. Concerned, I mentioned that the experiment wasn't controlled for people merely becoming better at the task as they had more exposure to it. The person in charge didn't approve of this, and perceived it as an attack on their experiment. Clearly, this was the point at which I "lost" the interview. Lesson: the interview isn't the place to tear apart problematic projects. 2. Being honest with the interviewer. In another of my interviews, I was discussing various volunteering projects that I had undertaken. The woman who was interviewing me was old enough to be my mother, and seemed to be approving of my extensive list of volunteering opportunities, which she had inquired about. This lulled me into a false sense of security, leading me to disclose one of my volunteering projects which involved video-game-based mentorship of disadvantaged youth. This immediately raised her hackles, prompting her to ask if I "played video games a lot". I said yes, being young and stupid, assuming it'd be absurd to hold something that I did in my private time against me. I "lost" the interview" with that admission, even though I'd been golden up to that point. Lesson: the interview isn't a place for anything other than pushing the interviewer's buttons until you get exactly what you want. 3. Asking questions for which there is no feel good answer. In yet another interview, I started to get a whiff of desperation from the interviewers regarding workflow from manager to employee. I probed the issue, then asked directly, "How is success measured here?" suspecting that I'd get an answer like "completed projects per week" or something else which would come off as overly controlling to employees. I was told there was a quota based system. This turned me off immensely, and turned the interviewer off as well for having to admit such an embarrassing thing. I still got a job offer after this mistake, but I ended up rejecting it. Lesson: don't embarrass the organization you're interviewing for by making them admit weaknesses. 4. Permitting bad behavior from the interviewer. In three (3) separate interviews for different organizations, the interviewer arrived 10-15 minutes late with no apology. In the first of these interviews, the interviewer's beeper went off, causing a flurry of cussing and an interruption of the interview for an extended phone call. This happened again later in the interview. I "lost" the interview because of the constant interruptions by the interviewer's other commitments, and didn't get the job-- maybe a bullet dodged here. In the second of the three late interviews, the interviewer notified me beforehand he'd have to stop in the middle in order to check his son's scores, as his son was in some sort of sports competition at that moment. Sure enough, the interview was in a state of anti-flow due to his constant pausing and checking his son's scores, at times cheering quietly. I "lost" this interview because of blatant disrespect-- maybe another bullet dodged. The final late interview was spared any interruptions, but was instead occupied by a bizarre egotistical rant based on the interviewer's past accomplishments, detailing how the interviewer had presented his research to a crowd of many people and made a name for himself. This was irritating, but tolerable. Following his ego-trip, the interviewer then went on to compare me and the other (not present) candidates to his son, saying how his son was the ideal candidate and that everyone in my generation other than his son was extremely entitled and should really lower their expectations because of how hard he had it when he was coming up. I can't make this shit up. I lost the interview when I failed to behave like his son. Lesson: don't be afraid to stand up and walk out of an interview if the interviewer isn't prepared to take you seriously.
kabdib 12y ago
"Have you made any friends since moving to NYC" Really? I would never, ever ask that question in an interview. Too many ways it can fail.
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  It definitely was appropriate during a VC interview. I previously posted a longer explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150092
pgl 12y ago
"Do you have any questions?" I've come up with a load that I like to ask. Some of them are naturally answered during an interview process anyway, but generally there are at least a few left: TEAM: * How big is the team I would be working with? * Do team members socialise out of hours? * What is the average age of team members? * How long has the longest member of the team been there? * What language is spoken in the team - both socially and for business reasons? * Does the company have a "no arseholes" rule (or "no brilliant jerks")? THE WORK: * What kind of projects would I be working on? * What software development methodology do you use? * Does the company release any software as open source? COMPANY: * How old is the company? * Is the company constantly recruiting, or has it recently started hiring more people? * How would I progress in the company? What opportunities for promotion exist? COMPENSATION: * What kind of salary range are you offering for this position? (I realise that it depends on skill and experience, but hopefully you should have a good idea of that based on my CV.) * Does the company provide any relocation assistance?
- logfromblammo 12y ago
  I never ask the money questions directly, during the interview. It's a red flag for some companies, who seem to think that people should love the work and be paid for it as a happy coincidence. Salary negotiation happens after the company decides it wants you, and then you come in with a sack of potential nickels and dimes in benefits that they can give you in lieu of higher base pay. But you save all that until it is already clear that they want you. Instead of asking about the salary range, ask about what local neighborhoods the employees live in. Look up the home prices later, on a real estate site. Instead of asking about promotion paths, ask about how the roles of the employees have changed as the company has matured. Instead of asking about relocation assistance, ask about how much experience the company has in hiring non-local candidates. You can also ask about what the <position title> can do individually to increase the revenues of the company. That answer will give you an idea about how flexible they are on salaries for <position title>.
  - pgl 12y ago
    I understand why you wouldn't want to talk about money questions earlier on, but for me there's two main reasons to bring it up: 1) Employers have always me about my salary expectations. If they want to know from me, why shouldn't they answer as well? 2) If the range expectations are way off, you don't have to waste your time going through a series of interviews only to find out that their salary range is 10k less than you were expecting, or they don't offer relocation, or whatever. Personally, I only ever want to be paid a fair wage; I'm not after the most I can possibly get. So finding out whether the range matches what the market seems as fair early on is important.
dreamweapon 12y ago
The interviewer called me on it, and (verbatim) said “are you fucking with me?” I still haven’t met anyone else who got told to stop fucking around in an interview. Which she can safely take as a sign that she should be very, very glad not to have "passed" that MS interview. It may or may not have been a very useful question to ask, but the interviewer's response indicates that he had clearly let the task assigned to him go to his head, and was basically on power trip, by that point. The question that turned me into a babbling buffoon was “have you made any friends since moving to NYC?” Also not an appropriate question to ask, and indicates a lack of respect for basic personal boundaries on the part of the interviewer.
- jschwartzi 12y ago
  It was also a terrible question, since you could have absolutely no technical knowledge of elevators and thus no thoughts about improvement. It sounds like it was meant to gauge her enthusiasm for making suggestions about things she's ignorant of. She definitely dodged a bullet there.
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  > Also not an appropriate question to ask It was an appropriate question. This was not a technical interview, it was an interview for a job with a VC firm. Someone in VC generally needs to have an outgoing personality and good "people skills". Ease of making friends in a new city could be quite indicative of what the VC firm is looking for in a new associate. I, personally, don't want many friends. I relate more with Dr. Weaver in MIB, i.e. "I hate the living". But I'll never be interviewing for a VC job.
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codyb 12y ago
I haven't yet read the article but wanted to point out that the first link is broken. It links to https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product-manager https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product-manager which is a 404. However https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs and https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product_designer https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product_designer both work. Just wanted to check out the job description. Good luck.
roneesh 12y ago
The question I love asking an interview is: "In the trade-offs between time, cost, and quality, we know you can have two but not all three, which two are valued here? And you can't say we value all three." The last part is important, because when I first started asking it people just said they were special and did all three, but we know that it never works that way.
JoshDoody 12y ago
This is a great blog post because it confirms that hiring managers ask wacky questions all the time. (I confess I've done this as well.) I'm writing a career management guide right now, and one of my chapters is explicitly on this topic ("How to ace your next interview"). I think about this a lot (I'm a hiring manager, currently building my team, so I've been on both sides of the desk). I break the interview phase down into four phases (Preparation, Pre-interview, Interview, Post-Interview). I think "Preparation" and "Interview" are really appropriate here. Here's what I recommend thinking about when preparing for an interview: PREPARATION - Do basic company research. You should understand the basics of the company: what they do, how they make money, how big they are. - Know which job you’re applying for. Read the description a few times to make sure you understand it well. - Know which other jobs the company is trying to fill. You can learn a lot about a company by looking at their job openings. See if you can get a sense of where they’re currently focused and how you can either contribute directly to helping them get there, or how you can contribute indirectly in this job. Take note of other jobs you might be a good fit for, just in case. - Prepare for the dreaded salary question. They’ll probably ask what you’re making now, and what you want to make. I recommend telling them your current salary (because they can probably figure it out anyway), and not telling them your desired salary. For the desired salary piece of the dreaded salary question, I usually say, “I want this move to be a big step forward for me in terms of both responsibility and compensation.” INTERVIEW - Be early. Don’t keep your interviewer waiting—that’s a horrible way to make a first impression. - Bring a notebook and your resume. You should take notes, and it’s possible your interviewer won’t already have your resume. Be prepared. - Try to relax and be honest during introductions. It’s ok to make small talk for a few minutes so you and your interviewer can get settled in, but don’t spend too much time on this. - Come prepared for different types of questions. Here’s a partial list of common types of questions you may be asked: * Questions about your resume * Questions about you personally * Questions about tools and technology * Technical questions * Questions about your career goals and aspirations * “Why do you want to work here?” * Questions about “a challenging situation” * Questions about special projects or side projects you’ve done - Don’t be afraid to ask for some time to think about your answer. This shows intentionality and may help you formulate better answers to tricky questions. But don’t do this more than a couple times during an interview. - Don’t be caught off guard by crazy questions. If your interviewer asks you something wacky, just gather your thoughts, listen carefully, and formulate the best answer you can. Make sure to account for any constraints that are part of the question as well. - When things start wrapping up, look for opportunities to ask questions to learn more about the company and the role you’re interviewing for. Here are two good questions you can ask if they haven’t been addressed already: * “So what does a typical day look like for this role?” * “What are the greatest challenges for your team right now?” or “What is the greatest challenge for this particular role?" If both of those questions have already been covered, see if any of your Pre-interview questions might work. - Only ask questions if you can learn new information from them. If you’ve already covered everything in your interview, it’s ok to say, “I think we actually covered everything already!” That's a summary of each phase, and the chapter itself goes into quite a bit more detail. You can get the full chapter for free here: http://JoshDoody.com/interview?ref=hn4 http://JoshDoody.com/interview?ref=hn4
iN7h33nD 12y ago
I have been interviewing a lot lately, and I have to say that Company's really expect you to waste a lot of time just so they can weed you out. Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews, or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week. Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time?
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  >Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If you don't hear back, the company's not interested. Few people write rejection letters as few people react well to them. We do coding exercises before we interview candidates, but try to keep them as minimalist as possible. It sucks for the candidate who is doing 10 of these a week, but companies waste huge amounts of time with people who are totally unqualified and the pre-screen is necessary to weed such persons out. >If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews Hiring someone is a big commitment. If a company wants to interview you a reasonable amount of times, be flattered and enjoy it. Recognize that this is a big commitment for them and they have a lot of candidates to choose from. >or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week Stay away from any company that wants you to work for free. Sure, a probationary contract is fine, but if they're actually expecting you to do any non-interview work without paying you for it, you don't want to be involved with that company. Don't even entertain these types of offers. >Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time? Look online for postings that discuss that company's hiring processes. In your cover letter, tell them that you're excited about the prospect of working for their company and ask about their interview process. This will hint that you're sensitive to excessive prospective-employer time consumption, and you'll probably get back some kind of answer with which you can make more of a decision. After you interview, post about the process online for future applicants' benefit.
bitwize 12y ago
Real world recursion: "Lather, rinse, repeat." More elaborate example: Most human languages are recursively defined, with sentence or phrase units able to be part of bigger sentence/phrase units.
- wtbob 12y ago
  > Real world recursion: "Lather, rinse, repeat." I think that's iteration… Interestingly, while trying to think of real-life examples of things that were either iteration or recursion but not both, I realised that any example of one could be considered an example of the other. I'd already known & been comfortable knowing that they are equivalent, but now I understand it in a way I didn't before.
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    That's interesting, I also thought that naturally "Lather, rinse, repeat" is iteration, but it really can be "written" either way. On the other hand I think the grammar of a language is a perfect fit for a recursive model, as the op says.
  - asgard1024 12y ago
    I thought about it too. Most biological systems that grow are examples of recursion (like trees). Most human manufacturing systems are examples of iteration (production line, building with a crane floor by floor).
- deleted 12y ago
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erroneousfunk 12y ago
I've also been in the situation where I'm on the umpteenth interview with the company when the "Do you have any questions?" question comes around. I try to have at least one question about the company where the answer might vary from person to person. Something like "What's one thing you'd like to improve about the company?" or "What's your average day like?" Even if interviewers compare notes, I don't look weird for asking the same question, and I don't have to awkwardly admit I don't have any questions.
shanemhansen 12y ago
The author lost me right at the beginning: "It’s important to realize that one bad interview doesn’t mean you’ll never get a job. It might just mean you aren’t a good fit for that company, or that you didn’t prepare well enough." While it might mean those things, it's just as likely to mean that the interviewer is unprepared. This happens surprisingly often. Interviewers will either ask questions you've been asked already, or they will make up questions on the spot that they think they know the answers to but don't. Maybe your interviewer spilled coffee on themselves on the way to work, maybe they just interviewed 3 candidates in front of your and they are exhausted/picky. Quite often an interviewer will fail to clarify an important issue, and give negative feedback because they aren't sure if you're competent in that area.
cpprototypes 12y ago
I hate what Silicon Valley companies (Google, Amazon, etc.) have done to the software engineer interviewing process. It heavily favors recent college graduates and destroys job mobility for older senior engineers who have a busy life. For example, look at the answers to this Quora question about interviewing: http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-did-you-spend-preparing-for-Googles-interviews?share=1 http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-did-you-spend-preparing-f... The first reply mentions spending 5 weeks of studying, 2.5 hours every weekday and 8 hours on every weekend day. That's 28.5 hours of studying every week. 5 weeks of that is 142.5 hours. And he also spent time doing mock interviews. I have a family and as a senior engineer I'm busy with work. What little free time I have is spent keeping up with new technologies. It has been many years since college. This process is basically very hostile to most senior engineers who have years of experience. I wish more companies would recognize this and change their process.
- crucifiction 12y ago
  People who are studying that much for the interview are never going to make it at those companies even if they "pass" the interview. They will be managed out in a year or so since weeks of studying to produce actual work isn't really a viable strategy. Having done 200+ interviews at one of the Big Companies you can generally see through "studied and memorized the question" from earnest attempts at solving it as well (asking them WHY they are doing something is an easy tell). If I were going out to interview again, the main thing I would brush up on is coding small example problems on a piece of paper/white board. The transition from IDE+internet -> whiteboard in a high pressure situation is not something you want to be coming in cold for. If you are a senior engineer, the problems/coding themselves shouldn't be that hard to tackle blind, but doing them on a whiteboard will throw you off if you haven't tried recently.

195 points by luu 12y ago

This reminds me that every single time Google recruiters tried to reach me after I interviewed (and got rejected) there they just stopped responding me after I got back to them I find this extremely rude behaviour and managed to make my will of ever interviewing back to Google plummet to zero (that and the stories I've heard) Also, yes, people screw up (me inclusive), get passed, such is life, but really, people should avoid alienating their candidates, and this seems to happen more often than not.

throwaway223344 12y ago
What I also find strange (rude?) if an application process requires a bit more effort from the applicant than just sending a CV and the other side does not even care about writing back a single 'No thanks'. Mapbox.com has been looking for engineers last month and you had to send them a C++ code solving some kind of pathfinding problem -- not a huge thing but still takes at least a couple of hours to code. So you invest 3-5 hours and then they don't have 30 seconds to inform you that you're rejected. Quite sad.
sebnukem2 12y ago
I had such an awful experience with Google interviews it completely turned me off from wanting to work there. I don't want to be around people like that.

Sir_Substance 12y ago

I have found myself wishing a lot over the last year or so that interviewing was less of an art and more of a science. The writer talks about being quizzed on a google product she had only superficially used. She recommends that people do their homework more, but honestly, even a dedicated googlophile would struggle to have tried every google product in depth. She was unlucky that they asked about that specific product. Honestly, there is a lot more luck in the interview process than makes me comfortable. The difference between getting the job vs losing it can be that the interviewer chose to ask you about smart pointers rather than heap allocation, and that's galling when the reality of the job is that you're going to spend half your time moving text boxes by two pixels and changing log formats to suit the new Unified Log Structure your sysadmins have dreamed up.

ArekDymalski 12y ago
> interviewing was less of an art and more of a science I'd extend your wish to "Whole recruitment process should be less of an art and more of a science". The problem is that even the properly conducted interview using established, good practices (like competence based/behavioral interview) can give you max. 50% accuracy in assessing the competencies. What means that additional methods are absolutely necessary. But even the most accurate methods will lead to wrong decisions when companies don't have precisely and adequately defined what competencies are actually required to perform well in a given position. And from my experience this is the core problem. People debate over questions/fizz-buzz/puzzles/whiteboard/whatever but usually do not invest enough time to determine what would they like to measure with these methods.
- MikeTaylor 12y ago
  The point of fizz-buzz and similar exercises is not to find suitable candidates. It's to eliminate plainly unsuitable candidates, very early in the process, at minimal cost.
- blowski 12y ago
  Until messy human beings are replaced with perfectly rational robots, the recruitment process is always going to be an 'art'. Roles are often vaguely defined, because it depends on who is available. People lie, exaggerate and game the system in interviews. Neither side wants to reveal their weak points. Figuring out the underlying truth and matching the best available candidate to the best possible job description is not something algorithms are good at.
  - ArekDymalski 12y ago
    You are right. However, there's a whole spectrum between messy and irrational human being and perfect robot. My point was that people should take an effort to reduce/control their imperfection, biases etc.. The choice of "I'll be messy because I can't be as good as robot" is easy but flawed.
- shamney 12y ago

SeanDav 12y ago

> Spring 2008, Microsoft – “Give me 10 ways to improve an elevator.” . . . The interviewer called me on it, and (verbatim) said “are you fucking with me?” Got to laugh at the irony of this comment during a software/programming interview.

hessenwolf 12y ago

Things I have screwed up: 1. No ability to do mental arithmetic whatsoever. 2. No ability to write standard template library-based C++ code from memory, except maybe cout and cin. 3. Being late. (3 times at least) 4. Being in a different country and forgetting about it. 5. Trying to sell myself because that is what I was told to do and coming across as unforgiveably arrogant. (a difficult balance) 6. When asked about if I minded the data-cleaning work, which could be boring, I joked that if I was worried about being bored I would have chosen a different career. Maybe this isn't even a joke. Either way, highly offended interviewer. 7. Couldn't really speak the language. 8. When interviewing for a position as a bartender, said I could pour beer. Then proceeded to spray the customers with my attempt when I was asked to prove it. (I was young) However, the bar owner then let me work for free as a trainee for the night, and I got the next job.

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iamben 12y ago

Long term recruiter friend of mine has always said a great response to the "do you have any questions for me?" is "if I could do this whole interview again, where could I have been better?" Anecdotally, the few times I've used it, I've had a great or worthwhile response to that. Edit: Obviously ask this at the very end after a couple of the normal questions about the company...

atom-morgan 12y ago
Similar question: "Based on everything you've heard in this interview what makes you think I'm not the person for this job?" I've used it once so far (that I can remember) and it led to a great discussion and eventually a job offer after what I believed was my worst technical interview ever.
- iamben 12y ago
  That's an excellent one. I'll be sure to remember that!

zerr 12y ago

> Fall 2005, Princeton – “Do you have any questions?” Before I get to this question, I've researched the company so much (products, monetization, even approximate salary ranges), that I've to play like I don't know and ask something... :)

pja 12y ago

The author seems to beat herself up a lot over failings that I don’t think were her fault. Sure, the "do you have any questions?" foul-up is a huge own-goal, but some of the others? Eg, "I wanted to talk about Gmail (I used it daily) but the interviewer didn’t want to. Instead, we opted to talk about Google Docs. Unfortunately, the interviewer had been the Google Docs PM, and I’d only used it at a surface level. Every suggestion I made turned out to already be in the Product. Whoops." To me, this has the smell of the "know it all" interviewer who is more interested in proving their superiority over the candidate than actually conducting a decent interview. Of course the interviewer wanted to stick to discussing the product they were the PM on, how else would they be able to smugly call out the interviewee on their (perfectly reasonable) suggestions?

kethinov 12y ago
I recently completed five (yes, five) interviews with Stack Exchange and had to give the "no" answer to "do you have any questions?" on the fifth interview. After five interviews, I pretty much had all my questions answered. Seemed like a valid answer to me in that context. I was declined at interview #5, after passing the previous four. Not sure how much that question played a role. It was also the weakest of my technical interviews. I was surprised to get hit with more programming questions after having passed so many other technical interviews with them. After 5 interviews which dragged out for almost two months that was super disappointing though. It was probably the last interview I needed to pass. It's like being knocked out of the race with a blue shell in the last 20 seconds in Mario Kart.
- _delirium 12y ago
  An aside, but do they really normally run a 2-month interview process, or was it some kind of scheduling issue? Seems like a lot of candidates wouldn't even stick around for the end of that, since they'll have gotten an offer from somewhere else before then.
  - kethinov 12y ago
    Probably a combination of scheduling issue + normal process. I got the impression they subject candidates to much more vetting than normal, but it was also not uncommon for a week or more to go by between interviews.

richev 12y ago

Many years ago an interviewer had me handwriting my solution to a code challenge on a whiteboard. As I scribbled away I had a sense that something was amiss...the ink on the pen didn't smell quite right. Focussing on the problem at hand, I dutifully filled the whiteboard with my solution. All was well until I needed to erase the board, only to discover that I had selected a permanent marker rather than a dry wipe one. Whiteboard ruined. I did not get the job, but I did learn the importance of checking what type of pen you're using _before_ you start to use it...

zhte415 12y ago
Have done similar (though not in an interview). Usually an alcohol-based cleaning fluid can get that off with minimal effort. Why they had a permanent marker next to a whiteboard is another question - incompetence, or to stop you rubbing anything out?
- dasboth 12y ago
  "incompetence, or to stop you rubbing anything out" Even worse is if it was some sort of test to see if he'd check before starting to write...
- nailer 12y ago
  Also: you can go over permanent marker with whiteboard marker and rub it off.
- marcosdumay 12y ago
  It looks like everybody keeps a permanent marker next to their whiteboard. I have no idea why, but I make sure to ask the responsible person every time I see one. (I never got the same answer twice, I once got one that was honest.) If richev really lost the job because of the marker, he safely got out of a place where people lose jobs because of powerfull people's (the interviewer) fault. Good for him.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    The permanent markers are there to mark the writable disc media. But everywhere I have worked, the dry erase markers are kept near the whiteboards, and the permanent markers are kept next to the stack of blank discs, or near the disc-writer drives. Keeping them both in the same place is a Murphy's Law infraction.

edw519 12y ago

Of all the things I've ever tried in order to do well in interviews, one of them trumps all of the others: I am interviewing them. That's it. It's that simple. The sooner we understand that every interview is a 2 way interview and that we are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing us, the sooner we can adopt the right mental attitude the make the rest of the bullshit details melt away. I even take it a step further: it's much more important the I make the right choice than they do. I am giving them my time, which I can never get back. They are giving me their money, which they have plenty of and can always get more. Interview them. Be nice. Have a nice 2 way dialogue. And never forget: it's your party, not theirs. If it doesn't lead anywhere, no problem. There are plenty more of them, but only one of you. Aside: More thoughts in Chapter 3 here: http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html http://static.v25media.com/edw519_mod.html

jedrek 12y ago
Once you get past pencil pushing jobs and jobs that don't require more than a week of training, interviews need to stop becoming interviews and need to start being conversation. It needs to stop being, "will they give me a job!?" and transition to, "do we want to work together?"
- raverbashing 12y ago
  This But the hubris of employers seems to be ever increasing.
e40 12y ago
I am interviewing them. I can't tell you how many times I've interviewed someone and they never asked me a single question. Even if they seemed good, I always put them into the reject pile. Not a single question? Wow.
- odonnellryan 12y ago
  I don't ask questions if I lose interest during the interview process.

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shawabawa3 12y ago
> There are no downsides to this There are, otherwise everyone would be doing that Just a few off the top of my head: 1. Can't hire people who are already employed (few people would be willing to quit or take multiple days off for a potential job) 2. Burden on existing employees to find stuff for potential hires to do, set up equipment for them etc 3. Huge amount of time is wasted for every rejection 4. Can't possibly have the time to let every applicant do this 5. To narrow down the applicants, you have to....interview them anyway
- deleted 12y ago
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sethammons 12y ago

While the author is focusing on the PM role, I feel you should take the same advice when applying for a developer position.

shalmanese 12y ago

Holy hell, just reading that made me feel sympathetic anxiousness. Don't do the things she's suggesting, it's a short walk to a lifetime of stress, anxiety and being underappreciated for your work. The problem is that the OP is fundamentally approaching the interview process as a role in which she must please the interviewer in order to be granted the prize of a job. All of her advice is to prepare better and be more on your game so that the other person might perhaps like you more. Coming in with this mindset automatically puts you on a back footing and makes everything more difficult. Instead, focus on flipping the status game around. When you're with the interviewer, you're with a peer. Talk to them as if you're talking to a friend, not as if you're in a high pressure, life or death situation. Take the VC interview, for example. Imagine if you're catching up with your best friend from college and they ask you if you've made any friends in NYC yet. Do you freeze up and start blabbering incoherently? No, you laugh about it and bitch about how tough it is and ask them if they have any advice or whatever it is that you would do. Approaching it this way changes the entire tenor of the interview process. This is where unskilled and unaware of it genuinely comes in handy. People who are just bad enough that they have no idea how they compare easily sail through interviews since they assume they're above average while genuinely talented people spend so much time comparing themselves to others they get wracked by insecurity. I know this is something easier said than done and that some people in particular find it especially challenging. So is learning Javascript or Photoshop, yet we don't complain when a job requires us to know them to be hired. Learning social skills is as equally important to your career as technical skills so just nut up and do it.

picks_at_nits 12y ago
The particular example that stood out for me was the story of the elevator design problem. At some point, she lost interest. Fine, she lost interest. I think it’s fine to say so. “Sorry, I really can’t think of anything more productive or interesting to do with this problem.” That happens in real life. You reach diminishing returns thinking about something. In real life, maybe you have a reasonable starting point and can get going with work on one of your designs. Maybe you rope a colleague in for fresh insights. Maybe you think about another problem and come back to this one when you’re fresh. Or maybe you decide that the problem isn’t interesting to you and you don’t want to spend the only currency you truly have--your time--on it. Hand-waving the entire question of whether puzzle problems are an effective interviewing technique, one of the things they select for is people who find that particular problem interesting. I recall being asked about balancing rocks in an interview. I honestly found it interesting. But I know good people who don’t. Should the question never be asked? I dunno. But I would personally NEVER fault someone for taking an honest crack at it and then saying, “That’s it, I’m out of ideas for balancing rocks.” If I were interviewing and someone asked me about something that didn’t interest me, I’d take my best crack at it. If I ran out of juice, I’d say so. If they wanted to fail me for that, why should I argue? That’s one of the things they’re testing for. Why should I lie to them about my level of interest and personality just to get a job offer? This leads me to another faux pas. I have particular tactics for “Do you have any questions for us?” But I have been in interviews where I have lost interest in the process and don’t have any questions. That’s fine. Not all interviews involve me being curious at the end. Why lie to them about being interested, if I’m not?

chrisbennet 12y ago

Re: "Do you have any questions?" A few years ago I started asking the interviewer this question: "I'm always looking to learn new things. Given what you've seen of my resume', what new things could I learn here?" I sincerely wanted/want to know this but I discovered that there was an unintended side benefit: In response to this question, the interviewer often tries to "sell" you on the company which changes the dynamic. Instead of you trying to please the interviewer, the interviewer is now trying to please you instead - or at least it seemed that way to me.

qzcx 12y ago
I also like the question "Now that you've interviewed me and seen my abilities, how do you feel my working here will impact the team/company? What will I help out the most with?" I found it to be an effective question at turning it around, but it also makes them think about just what I could accomplish for them. It gives me a good gage of how well I did before I even leave the interview.
- CaveTech 12y ago
  I feel that question is far too upfront for an interview, definitely an initial interview anyways. You're not asking where they think you could fit, you've phrased it as where do I fit?. It's an interview, not a job offer.
  - qzcx 12y ago
    This wouldn't happen in a phone screen. This is for the on-site interview after I've already gotten a positive feel for it. Maybe I didn't word it perfectly, but it is partially out of a desire to know how they think I would benefit the company. Am I just another redundant cog in the machine, or am I really going to play a key role? I guess it is a good point to still make it in hypothetical language.
- deleted 12y ago
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- jandrese 12y ago

mootothemax 12y ago

"Do you have any questions?" I've always found this tricky, as generally interviews with me go both ways, and I'm asking questions about the work, company, people and so on throughout the interview. If you need a safe fallback, asking them to describe your typical day, who'll you'll be working with, and what project(s) you'll start with are both useful and a pleasant note to end the interview on.

johnward 12y ago
I usually just go to the fallbacks because I honestly have no questions. So I just go to the standard BS. I don't really care about the company to be honest. I've never liked any job I've ever had in this industry and I don't really see that changing based on company. I only work because I have to. to provide the lifestyle I want for myself and my family. I work because I need money and that's the absolute only reason. I know people are going to tell me how wrong this is but I'm just being honest. How can I pretend to be interested when I'm actually not? Coincidentally I've been looking to make a move and not finding anything but I guess that's not surprising. There is nothing I really like in life but at least people tell me I'm pretty good (or at least I've never been fired) at this software stuff so I just stick with it.
- ghettoCoder 12y ago
  Holy hell! Get out of my brain. That's my life, not yours. On a more serious note, drop me a note if you want. I've been wondering for some time at which point most of us lose (not really the right word. maybe fades is better) that drive.
- ryandrake 12y ago
  Its kind of sad (and telling) that you expect people here to jump in and tell you your opinion is "wrong". Have an upvote--I don't think there is anything wrong or even unusual about your attitude. In reality, I've worked with many more people in Technology who work because they like getting paid and whose job is "just a job," than I've worked with people who were passionately in love with writing an accounting app or CRUD web service. Not saying that attitude is "wrong" either, but it does appear to be the prevailing one in this community.

cryoshon 12y ago

I'll piggyback onto this article with a few mistakes I made in the past. 1. Correcting the interviewer. In one of my interviews, an MD/PhD was explaining to me his experimental design, which involved training a cohort of people to do a task, then afterward subjecting that cohort to electrical brain stimulation while performing the task in order to compare results on the task. Concerned, I mentioned that the experiment wasn't controlled for people merely becoming better at the task as they had more exposure to it. The person in charge didn't approve of this, and perceived it as an attack on their experiment. Clearly, this was the point at which I "lost" the interview. Lesson: the interview isn't the place to tear apart problematic projects. 2. Being honest with the interviewer. In another of my interviews, I was discussing various volunteering projects that I had undertaken. The woman who was interviewing me was old enough to be my mother, and seemed to be approving of my extensive list of volunteering opportunities, which she had inquired about. This lulled me into a false sense of security, leading me to disclose one of my volunteering projects which involved video-game-based mentorship of disadvantaged youth. This immediately raised her hackles, prompting her to ask if I "played video games a lot". I said yes, being young and stupid, assuming it'd be absurd to hold something that I did in my private time against me. I "lost" the interview" with that admission, even though I'd been golden up to that point. Lesson: the interview isn't a place for anything other than pushing the interviewer's buttons until you get exactly what you want. 3. Asking questions for which there is no feel good answer. In yet another interview, I started to get a whiff of desperation from the interviewers regarding workflow from manager to employee. I probed the issue, then asked directly, "How is success measured here?" suspecting that I'd get an answer like "completed projects per week" or something else which would come off as overly controlling to employees. I was told there was a quota based system. This turned me off immensely, and turned the interviewer off as well for having to admit such an embarrassing thing. I still got a job offer after this mistake, but I ended up rejecting it. Lesson: don't embarrass the organization you're interviewing for by making them admit weaknesses. 4. Permitting bad behavior from the interviewer. In three (3) separate interviews for different organizations, the interviewer arrived 10-15 minutes late with no apology. In the first of these interviews, the interviewer's beeper went off, causing a flurry of cussing and an interruption of the interview for an extended phone call. This happened again later in the interview. I "lost" the interview because of the constant interruptions by the interviewer's other commitments, and didn't get the job-- maybe a bullet dodged here. In the second of the three late interviews, the interviewer notified me beforehand he'd have to stop in the middle in order to check his son's scores, as his son was in some sort of sports competition at that moment. Sure enough, the interview was in a state of anti-flow due to his constant pausing and checking his son's scores, at times cheering quietly. I "lost" this interview because of blatant disrespect-- maybe another bullet dodged. The final late interview was spared any interruptions, but was instead occupied by a bizarre egotistical rant based on the interviewer's past accomplishments, detailing how the interviewer had presented his research to a crowd of many people and made a name for himself. This was irritating, but tolerable. Following his ego-trip, the interviewer then went on to compare me and the other (not present) candidates to his son, saying how his son was the ideal candidate and that everyone in my generation other than his son was extremely entitled and should really lower their expectations because of how hard he had it when he was coming up. I can't make this shit up. I lost the interview when I failed to behave like his son. Lesson: don't be afraid to stand up and walk out of an interview if the interviewer isn't prepared to take you seriously.

kabdib 12y ago

"Have you made any friends since moving to NYC" Really? I would never, ever ask that question in an interview. Too many ways it can fail.

PhantomGremlin 12y ago
It definitely was appropriate during a VC interview. I previously posted a longer explanation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150092 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9150092

pgl 12y ago

"Do you have any questions?" I've come up with a load that I like to ask. Some of them are naturally answered during an interview process anyway, but generally there are at least a few left: TEAM: * How big is the team I would be working with? * Do team members socialise out of hours? * What is the average age of team members? * How long has the longest member of the team been there? * What language is spoken in the team - both socially and for business reasons? * Does the company have a "no arseholes" rule (or "no brilliant jerks")? THE WORK: * What kind of projects would I be working on? * What software development methodology do you use? * Does the company release any software as open source? COMPANY: * How old is the company? * Is the company constantly recruiting, or has it recently started hiring more people? * How would I progress in the company? What opportunities for promotion exist? COMPENSATION: * What kind of salary range are you offering for this position? (I realise that it depends on skill and experience, but hopefully you should have a good idea of that based on my CV.) * Does the company provide any relocation assistance?

logfromblammo 12y ago
I never ask the money questions directly, during the interview. It's a red flag for some companies, who seem to think that people should love the work and be paid for it as a happy coincidence. Salary negotiation happens after the company decides it wants you, and then you come in with a sack of potential nickels and dimes in benefits that they can give you in lieu of higher base pay. But you save all that until it is already clear that they want you. Instead of asking about the salary range, ask about what local neighborhoods the employees live in. Look up the home prices later, on a real estate site. Instead of asking about promotion paths, ask about how the roles of the employees have changed as the company has matured. Instead of asking about relocation assistance, ask about how much experience the company has in hiring non-local candidates. You can also ask about what the <position title> can do individually to increase the revenues of the company. That answer will give you an idea about how flexible they are on salaries for <position title>.
- pgl 12y ago
  I understand why you wouldn't want to talk about money questions earlier on, but for me there's two main reasons to bring it up: 1) Employers have always me about my salary expectations. If they want to know from me, why shouldn't they answer as well? 2) If the range expectations are way off, you don't have to waste your time going through a series of interviews only to find out that their salary range is 10k less than you were expecting, or they don't offer relocation, or whatever. Personally, I only ever want to be paid a fair wage; I'm not after the most I can possibly get. So finding out whether the range matches what the market seems as fair early on is important.

dreamweapon 12y ago

The interviewer called me on it, and (verbatim) said “are you fucking with me?” I still haven’t met anyone else who got told to stop fucking around in an interview. Which she can safely take as a sign that she should be very, very glad not to have "passed" that MS interview. It may or may not have been a very useful question to ask, but the interviewer's response indicates that he had clearly let the task assigned to him go to his head, and was basically on power trip, by that point. The question that turned me into a babbling buffoon was “have you made any friends since moving to NYC?” Also not an appropriate question to ask, and indicates a lack of respect for basic personal boundaries on the part of the interviewer.

jschwartzi 12y ago
It was also a terrible question, since you could have absolutely no technical knowledge of elevators and thus no thoughts about improvement. It sounds like it was meant to gauge her enthusiasm for making suggestions about things she's ignorant of. She definitely dodged a bullet there.
PhantomGremlin 12y ago
> Also not an appropriate question to ask It was an appropriate question. This was not a technical interview, it was an interview for a job with a VC firm. Someone in VC generally needs to have an outgoing personality and good "people skills". Ease of making friends in a new city could be quite indicative of what the VC firm is looking for in a new associate. I, personally, don't want many friends. I relate more with Dr. Weaver in MIB, i.e. "I hate the living". But I'll never be interviewing for a VC job.

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codyb 12y ago

I haven't yet read the article but wanted to point out that the first link is broken. It links to https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product-manager https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product-manager which is a 404. However https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs and https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product_designer https://www.kickstarter.com/jobs/product_designer both work. Just wanted to check out the job description. Good luck.

roneesh 12y ago

The question I love asking an interview is: "In the trade-offs between time, cost, and quality, we know you can have two but not all three, which two are valued here? And you can't say we value all three." The last part is important, because when I first started asking it people just said they were special and did all three, but we know that it never works that way.

JoshDoody 12y ago

This is a great blog post because it confirms that hiring managers ask wacky questions all the time. (I confess I've done this as well.) I'm writing a career management guide right now, and one of my chapters is explicitly on this topic ("How to ace your next interview"). I think about this a lot (I'm a hiring manager, currently building my team, so I've been on both sides of the desk). I break the interview phase down into four phases (Preparation, Pre-interview, Interview, Post-Interview). I think "Preparation" and "Interview" are really appropriate here. Here's what I recommend thinking about when preparing for an interview: PREPARATION - Do basic company research. You should understand the basics of the company: what they do, how they make money, how big they are. - Know which job you’re applying for. Read the description a few times to make sure you understand it well. - Know which other jobs the company is trying to fill. You can learn a lot about a company by looking at their job openings. See if you can get a sense of where they’re currently focused and how you can either contribute directly to helping them get there, or how you can contribute indirectly in this job. Take note of other jobs you might be a good fit for, just in case. - Prepare for the dreaded salary question. They’ll probably ask what you’re making now, and what you want to make. I recommend telling them your current salary (because they can probably figure it out anyway), and not telling them your desired salary. For the desired salary piece of the dreaded salary question, I usually say, “I want this move to be a big step forward for me in terms of both responsibility and compensation.” INTERVIEW - Be early. Don’t keep your interviewer waiting—that’s a horrible way to make a first impression. - Bring a notebook and your resume. You should take notes, and it’s possible your interviewer won’t already have your resume. Be prepared. - Try to relax and be honest during introductions. It’s ok to make small talk for a few minutes so you and your interviewer can get settled in, but don’t spend too much time on this. - Come prepared for different types of questions. Here’s a partial list of common types of questions you may be asked: * Questions about your resume * Questions about you personally * Questions about tools and technology * Technical questions * Questions about your career goals and aspirations * “Why do you want to work here?” * Questions about “a challenging situation” * Questions about special projects or side projects you’ve done - Don’t be afraid to ask for some time to think about your answer. This shows intentionality and may help you formulate better answers to tricky questions. But don’t do this more than a couple times during an interview. - Don’t be caught off guard by crazy questions. If your interviewer asks you something wacky, just gather your thoughts, listen carefully, and formulate the best answer you can. Make sure to account for any constraints that are part of the question as well. - When things start wrapping up, look for opportunities to ask questions to learn more about the company and the role you’re interviewing for. Here are two good questions you can ask if they haven’t been addressed already: * “So what does a typical day look like for this role?” * “What are the greatest challenges for your team right now?” or “What is the greatest challenge for this particular role?" If both of those questions have already been covered, see if any of your Pre-interview questions might work. - Only ask questions if you can learn new information from them. If you’ve already covered everything in your interview, it’s ok to say, “I think we actually covered everything already!” That's a summary of each phase, and the chapter itself goes into quite a bit more detail. You can get the full chapter for free here: http://JoshDoody.com/interview?ref=hn4 http://JoshDoody.com/interview?ref=hn4

iN7h33nD 12y ago

I have been interviewing a lot lately, and I have to say that Company's really expect you to waste a lot of time just so they can weed you out. Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews, or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week. Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time?

cookiecaper 12y ago
>Here is a coding exercise that will take around and hour. Once you finish it you never end up hearing back anyway and when you send a followup they still don't respond. How are can you know whether you should waste your time doing a coding exercise or not? If you don't hear back, the company's not interested. Few people write rejection letters as few people react well to them. We do coding exercises before we interview candidates, but try to keep them as minimalist as possible. It sucks for the candidate who is doing 10 of these a week, but companies waste huge amounts of time with people who are totally unqualified and the pre-screen is necessary to weed such persons out. >If its not coding exercises its an excessive number of hour long interviews Hiring someone is a big commitment. If a company wants to interview you a reasonable amount of times, be flattered and enjoy it. Recognize that this is a big commitment for them and they have a lot of candidates to choose from. >or the employer requiring that you work with them for free for anywhere from a few hours to a week Stay away from any company that wants you to work for free. Sure, a probationary contract is fine, but if they're actually expecting you to do any non-interview work without paying you for it, you don't want to be involved with that company. Don't even entertain these types of offers. >Is there any way to weed them out before you waste so much of your time? Look online for postings that discuss that company's hiring processes. In your cover letter, tell them that you're excited about the prospect of working for their company and ask about their interview process. This will hint that you're sensitive to excessive prospective-employer time consumption, and you'll probably get back some kind of answer with which you can make more of a decision. After you interview, post about the process online for future applicants' benefit.

bitwize 12y ago

Real world recursion: "Lather, rinse, repeat." More elaborate example: Most human languages are recursively defined, with sentence or phrase units able to be part of bigger sentence/phrase units.

wtbob 12y ago
> Real world recursion: "Lather, rinse, repeat." I think that's iteration… Interestingly, while trying to think of real-life examples of things that were either iteration or recursion but not both, I realised that any example of one could be considered an example of the other. I'd already known & been comfortable knowing that they are equivalent, but now I understand it in a way I didn't before.
- Kurtz79 12y ago
  That's interesting, I also thought that naturally "Lather, rinse, repeat" is iteration, but it really can be "written" either way. On the other hand I think the grammar of a language is a perfect fit for a recursive model, as the op says.
- asgard1024 12y ago
  I thought about it too. Most biological systems that grow are examples of recursion (like trees). Most human manufacturing systems are examples of iteration (production line, building with a crane floor by floor).
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erroneousfunk 12y ago

I've also been in the situation where I'm on the umpteenth interview with the company when the "Do you have any questions?" question comes around. I try to have at least one question about the company where the answer might vary from person to person. Something like "What's one thing you'd like to improve about the company?" or "What's your average day like?" Even if interviewers compare notes, I don't look weird for asking the same question, and I don't have to awkwardly admit I don't have any questions.

shanemhansen 12y ago

The author lost me right at the beginning: "It’s important to realize that one bad interview doesn’t mean you’ll never get a job. It might just mean you aren’t a good fit for that company, or that you didn’t prepare well enough." While it might mean those things, it's just as likely to mean that the interviewer is unprepared. This happens surprisingly often. Interviewers will either ask questions you've been asked already, or they will make up questions on the spot that they think they know the answers to but don't. Maybe your interviewer spilled coffee on themselves on the way to work, maybe they just interviewed 3 candidates in front of your and they are exhausted/picky. Quite often an interviewer will fail to clarify an important issue, and give negative feedback because they aren't sure if you're competent in that area.

cpprototypes 12y ago

I hate what Silicon Valley companies (Google, Amazon, etc.) have done to the software engineer interviewing process. It heavily favors recent college graduates and destroys job mobility for older senior engineers who have a busy life. For example, look at the answers to this Quora question about interviewing: http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-did-you-spend-preparing-for-Googles-interviews?share=1 http://www.quora.com/How-much-time-did-you-spend-preparing-f... The first reply mentions spending 5 weeks of studying, 2.5 hours every weekday and 8 hours on every weekend day. That's 28.5 hours of studying every week. 5 weeks of that is 142.5 hours. And he also spent time doing mock interviews. I have a family and as a senior engineer I'm busy with work. What little free time I have is spent keeping up with new technologies. It has been many years since college. This process is basically very hostile to most senior engineers who have years of experience. I wish more companies would recognize this and change their process.

crucifiction 12y ago
People who are studying that much for the interview are never going to make it at those companies even if they "pass" the interview. They will be managed out in a year or so since weeks of studying to produce actual work isn't really a viable strategy. Having done 200+ interviews at one of the Big Companies you can generally see through "studied and memorized the question" from earnest attempts at solving it as well (asking them WHY they are doing something is an easy tell). If I were going out to interview again, the main thing I would brush up on is coding small example problems on a piece of paper/white board. The transition from IDE+internet -> whiteboard in a high pressure situation is not something you want to be coming in cold for. If you are a senior engineer, the problems/coding themselves shouldn't be that hard to tackle blind, but doing them on a whiteboard will throw you off if you haven't tried recently.