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Show HN: InterviewBit – Interactive Coach for Tech Interviews

97 points by syshackbot 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- kriro 11y ago
  I hope this doesn't sound unfriendly but that is a pretty "boring" PR post. People are generally way more interested in learning about your motivations and what you do and what drives you. So in the future I'd suggest a way more personal OP. Also the recaptcha box is misaligned in the layout (FF curren, OSX/MBP).
  - dragonstone 11y ago
    As far as I can tell, it drives home the point. Straight and without beating around the bush. If someone finds the post as a boring "PR" job, then it probably wasn't meant to be read by that someone. Agreed, it's not the best of the introductions one typically reads on a TechCrunch or a Vogue cover, but it really hits the eye for someone looking for a job in his dream company, and is deciding to try the service out, having been really exhausted with all the other unsatisfying 'resources' already out there that promise you more than what they can seemingly offer, under the garb of all the "PR" they display on the surface.
zerr 11y ago
It is frustrating how much time and energy is wasted on these useless tech interviews when it really has nothing to do with most real world jobs out there.
- ayahusa 11y ago
  Says the guy who was asking around if he should join Google, 14 days ago. FYI, the "useless" tech interviews are what would get you in, for now, or unless you are this guy: http://imgur.com/Fn1a8xr http://imgur.com/Fn1a8xr
  - zerr 11y ago
    > Says the guy who was asking around if he should join Google, 14 days ago. You mean this? http://www.quora.com/Is-Google-a-good-company-to-join-for-a-mid-career-software-developer-with-10-years-of-experience?share=1 http://www.quora.com/Is-Google-a-good-company-to-join-for-a-... That was a question someone asked on Quora, and I thought there was an interesting discussion regarding joining Google as a mid-career professional (the conclusion was that it is not a good idea, Google is more fresh-graduate oriented shop - thus the need for that useless interviews, I believe). As for personally me, these kind of interviews is one of the main reasons I've never applied to Google (other reasons: not remote friendly, not part-time friendly, and now I know - not mid-career friendly...).
  - DanAndersen 11y ago
    I don't see how that invalidates his point at all. If our industry required an acrobatic performance by all applicants to tech companies, doing somersaults would get one into a certain position -- but would still be useless.
  - dang 11y ago
    > Says the guy who Please don't do that here.
andrei512 11y ago
Similar concept - https://www.talentbuddy.co/practice https://www.talentbuddy.co/practice
- simi_ 11y ago
  I can vouch for TalentBuddy, they have a great service. If you're interviewing, I maintain a list here (that desperately needs some attention from me, btw): https://github.com/andreis/interview https://github.com/andreis/interview
nodesocket 11y ago
Nice job, but I really loathe tech interviews. I've absolutely bombed tech interviews in the past, I now will refuse to do any. Particularly, because I've got some "street cred" with my startup, and basically my work with my company and GitHub speaks for my talents. I get it, you have to "vet" a candidate, but tech interviews in my opinion are not a good solution. O(N) notation, data structures, academic computer science.... Rubbish.
- richmarr 11y ago
  What's your preferred solution?
  - nodesocket 11y ago
    Honestly, I like to hear high level architectural decisions. Take a project the candidate did and just ask them questions on it. Talk and reason about it. Then, hack on a small project for the hiring startup that would be useful. An internal tool or dashboard. Make it fun. This isn't school, college, academia. We don't need tests. Companies first and foremost need good culture fits, self-starters, independent, passionate, people. In fact, I'm actually fine with having a (beer || soda) with a candidate, and just talking as a first step.
    - threeseed 11y ago
      Seriously this is the best way to hire developers and have interviewed 100+ this way. Tell them they have a billion dollars and they need to invent a pinning, photo, social, whatever site that can scale to everyone on the planet. Then give them a whiteboard. With one question you can determine how they communicate, their thought process, level of creativity, what they know, what they don't know and because it is open ended their nerves will quickly fade away. The best developers are creative problem solvers not wrote learners.
      - drawkbox 11y ago
        That interview actually sounds fun. Rather than a test that doesn't mean anything, you go on an adventure of code/design/architecture and you can see how the developer thinks/organizes and the depth of their knowledge and experience. Hopefully companies start doing this more.
dotdi 11y ago
The signup form seems to reject passwords with special characters but there are no indications besides "8 characters minimum". Kinda lame.
simi_ 11y ago
Template modified from here [0]; doesn't inspire too much confidence to be honest. 0: http://startbootstrap.com/template-overviews/landing-page/ http://startbootstrap.com/template-overviews/landing-page/
- nodesocket 11y ago
  MVP. I don't have a problem with using templates.
- oskarth 11y ago
  These types of nitpicky, detail-oriented comments are toxic. Who cares? The only thing that matters right now is that they solve a real problem and do it well. Anything else is peripherals at this point.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Not all of us are designers - using a template is fine.
bunshin 11y ago
login/signup over http ╯□）╯︵-┻━┻
hellboy_86 11y ago
very good sight for the preparation of interview.The coachs are very helpful,they will listen your problem even at midnight and tell you the way to solve the problem
mkagenius 11y ago
Hey OP, I found the parallax image kind of jerky on scroll. OSX, Chrome Latest.
eranation 11y ago
Well done, I'm really impressed, works well on mobile, feels like elevate for CS. Still lot of work, but better than anything else out there that I know of. One obvious question: How do you plan to monetize? Become a hiring broker like piazza? Do these things work?
smcl 11y ago
Thanks for this. I'm absolutely awful in Tech Interviews (I'm a competent developer but I'm overcome with self-doubt and anxiety in these situations) and I'm planning on a move very soon. I've been putting it off because of the stress of the interview process, so hopefully this will help!
ignoramous 11y ago
To those who are unaware, in a country like India, there's real a lack of opportunities to work for top firms. What InterviewBit does is not just solve a problem of matching candidates with prospective employers, but solve the problem of preparing the candidate for the interviews. The success of interview books like one by Gayle Lakmann McDowell is an indicator enough that there's a huge market for this sort of stuff. Courses like one offered by InterviewBit provides a lot of candidates with a clear curriculum to getting a job at a mega-corp like Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Microsoft, or Facebook. Think of it as a highly specialized course in Interviewing. Of course, the right approach would be to what Recurse Center and the Insights Foundation are doing... focusing on the means (gaining expertise), rather the end itself (getting a job, making an earning); but that's not a priority in a country like India where STEM graduates by the millions graduate every year and only a smaller percentage of them land jobs at a "dream company" as it were. I personally think InterviewBit is an excellent product/market fit for a country like India. They're also good acquisition targets for companies like HackerRank, and LinkedIn. InterviewBit's co-founder on the product: https://www.quora.com/What-are-Anshuman-Singh-and-Abhimanyu-Saxena-working-on https://www.quora.com/What-are-Anshuman-Singh-and-Abhimanyu-...
- syshackbot 11y ago
  100% agree with you..

97 points by syshackbot 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

kriro 11y ago
I hope this doesn't sound unfriendly but that is a pretty "boring" PR post. People are generally way more interested in learning about your motivations and what you do and what drives you. So in the future I'd suggest a way more personal OP. Also the recaptcha box is misaligned in the layout (FF curren, OSX/MBP).
- dragonstone 11y ago
  As far as I can tell, it drives home the point. Straight and without beating around the bush. If someone finds the post as a boring "PR" job, then it probably wasn't meant to be read by that someone. Agreed, it's not the best of the introductions one typically reads on a TechCrunch or a Vogue cover, but it really hits the eye for someone looking for a job in his dream company, and is deciding to try the service out, having been really exhausted with all the other unsatisfying 'resources' already out there that promise you more than what they can seemingly offer, under the garb of all the "PR" they display on the surface.

zerr 11y ago

It is frustrating how much time and energy is wasted on these useless tech interviews when it really has nothing to do with most real world jobs out there.

ayahusa 11y ago
Says the guy who was asking around if he should join Google, 14 days ago. FYI, the "useless" tech interviews are what would get you in, for now, or unless you are this guy: http://imgur.com/Fn1a8xr http://imgur.com/Fn1a8xr
- zerr 11y ago
  > Says the guy who was asking around if he should join Google, 14 days ago. You mean this? http://www.quora.com/Is-Google-a-good-company-to-join-for-a-mid-career-software-developer-with-10-years-of-experience?share=1 http://www.quora.com/Is-Google-a-good-company-to-join-for-a-... That was a question someone asked on Quora, and I thought there was an interesting discussion regarding joining Google as a mid-career professional (the conclusion was that it is not a good idea, Google is more fresh-graduate oriented shop - thus the need for that useless interviews, I believe). As for personally me, these kind of interviews is one of the main reasons I've never applied to Google (other reasons: not remote friendly, not part-time friendly, and now I know - not mid-career friendly...).
- DanAndersen 11y ago
  I don't see how that invalidates his point at all. If our industry required an acrobatic performance by all applicants to tech companies, doing somersaults would get one into a certain position -- but would still be useless.
- dang 11y ago
  > Says the guy who Please don't do that here.

andrei512 11y ago

Similar concept - https://www.talentbuddy.co/practice https://www.talentbuddy.co/practice

simi_ 11y ago
I can vouch for TalentBuddy, they have a great service. If you're interviewing, I maintain a list here (that desperately needs some attention from me, btw): https://github.com/andreis/interview https://github.com/andreis/interview

nodesocket 11y ago

Nice job, but I really loathe tech interviews. I've absolutely bombed tech interviews in the past, I now will refuse to do any. Particularly, because I've got some "street cred" with my startup, and basically my work with my company and GitHub speaks for my talents. I get it, you have to "vet" a candidate, but tech interviews in my opinion are not a good solution. O(N) notation, data structures, academic computer science.... Rubbish.

richmarr 11y ago
What's your preferred solution?
- nodesocket 11y ago
  Honestly, I like to hear high level architectural decisions. Take a project the candidate did and just ask them questions on it. Talk and reason about it. Then, hack on a small project for the hiring startup that would be useful. An internal tool or dashboard. Make it fun. This isn't school, college, academia. We don't need tests. Companies first and foremost need good culture fits, self-starters, independent, passionate, people. In fact, I'm actually fine with having a (beer || soda) with a candidate, and just talking as a first step.
  - threeseed 11y ago
    Seriously this is the best way to hire developers and have interviewed 100+ this way. Tell them they have a billion dollars and they need to invent a pinning, photo, social, whatever site that can scale to everyone on the planet. Then give them a whiteboard. With one question you can determine how they communicate, their thought process, level of creativity, what they know, what they don't know and because it is open ended their nerves will quickly fade away. The best developers are creative problem solvers not wrote learners.
    - drawkbox 11y ago
      That interview actually sounds fun. Rather than a test that doesn't mean anything, you go on an adventure of code/design/architecture and you can see how the developer thinks/organizes and the depth of their knowledge and experience. Hopefully companies start doing this more.

dotdi 11y ago

The signup form seems to reject passwords with special characters but there are no indications besides "8 characters minimum". Kinda lame.

simi_ 11y ago

Template modified from here [0]; doesn't inspire too much confidence to be honest. 0: http://startbootstrap.com/template-overviews/landing-page/ http://startbootstrap.com/template-overviews/landing-page/

nodesocket 11y ago
MVP. I don't have a problem with using templates.
oskarth 11y ago
These types of nitpicky, detail-oriented comments are toxic. Who cares? The only thing that matters right now is that they solve a real problem and do it well. Anything else is peripherals at this point.
jnbiche 11y ago
Not all of us are designers - using a template is fine.

bunshin 11y ago

hellboy_86 11y ago

very good sight for the preparation of interview.The coachs are very helpful,they will listen your problem even at midnight and tell you the way to solve the problem

mkagenius 11y ago

Hey OP, I found the parallax image kind of jerky on scroll. OSX, Chrome Latest.

eranation 11y ago

Well done, I'm really impressed, works well on mobile, feels like elevate for CS. Still lot of work, but better than anything else out there that I know of. One obvious question: How do you plan to monetize? Become a hiring broker like piazza? Do these things work?

smcl 11y ago

Thanks for this. I'm absolutely awful in Tech Interviews (I'm a competent developer but I'm overcome with self-doubt and anxiety in these situations) and I'm planning on a move very soon. I've been putting it off because of the stress of the interview process, so hopefully this will help!

ignoramous 11y ago

To those who are unaware, in a country like India, there's real a lack of opportunities to work for top firms. What InterviewBit does is not just solve a problem of matching candidates with prospective employers, but solve the problem of preparing the candidate for the interviews. The success of interview books like one by Gayle Lakmann McDowell is an indicator enough that there's a huge market for this sort of stuff. Courses like one offered by InterviewBit provides a lot of candidates with a clear curriculum to getting a job at a mega-corp like Google, Amazon, LinkedIn, Microsoft, or Facebook. Think of it as a highly specialized course in Interviewing. Of course, the right approach would be to what Recurse Center and the Insights Foundation are doing... focusing on the means (gaining expertise), rather the end itself (getting a job, making an earning); but that's not a priority in a country like India where STEM graduates by the millions graduate every year and only a smaller percentage of them land jobs at a "dream company" as it were. I personally think InterviewBit is an excellent product/market fit for a country like India. They're also good acquisition targets for companies like HackerRank, and LinkedIn. InterviewBit's co-founder on the product: https://www.quora.com/What-are-Anshuman-Singh-and-Abhimanyu-Saxena-working-on https://www.quora.com/What-are-Anshuman-Singh-and-Abhimanyu-...

syshackbot 11y ago
100% agree with you..