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Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#11

Post by Quinzel »

I remember when I was interviewing for basically an apprenticeship for the job/career I do now. They asked us to prepare and deliver a 10 minute presentation on why we wanted the job, that we were to give after we had completed the interview. During the interview they asked some serious questions but also questions like “imagine you had to find out the weight of a Boeing 747, but you’re not allowed to use scales, how would you do it?”. And then things like “if you could be a sandwich, which flavour would you choose, and why?” - everyone on the interview panel seemed so serious, and so it was quite a weird, and also intense interview. At the end, I gave my presentation, with the last side being a pie chart of all the things I hoped to gain from the job, and then the pie chart morphed into a smiley emoji and said… and “JOB SATISFACTION” at the end they thanked me, and then I heard nothing for 10 days. Eventually they offered me the job, one day I was sitting with one of the guys who interviewed me, and he told me I did the best interview they’d ever seen, and I was like… thanks but what was with some of those weird questions? and he was like…

“Oh… we just wanted to see how you’d react to uncertainty, and ambiguity while in a stressful situation, you did really well”.

I actually think while the questions were not directly relevant to the job I do, it was a good way to test how I’d react in uncertain and stressful times.

I definitely feel stressed at work often, but I never ever externalise it. Even today, I had a situation that was so stressful, I was literally feeling like I couldn’t breath, but I just held my shit together and then when appropriate I left the room to have a drink of water and take a few deep breaths to get myself grounded basically to do it all over again.

I think it’s been the best interview experience because it’s lead to some of the most interesting and personally challenging life and career experiences and even though I don’t plan to be doing the job I do now forever, it truely has been a pretty life changing one and I think I’m pretty lucky overall.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#12

Post by AnimalMuppet »

al_borland wrote: post #5

I was looking for a promotion within my company. One day when I was standing in the cafeteria waiting for someone else, the hiring manager walked up to me and said, “if anyone asks, I interviewed you.” Best interview I never had.

That also did a pretty good job of persuading you that he was a manager you wanted to work for...

Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#13

Post by alan-hn »

vunderba wrote: post #4

About 10 years ago, I was show a piece of code (directly from their codebase) which was about 50 lines long and we had a technical conversation around it in which the interviewer asked me the following questions: - What does this code appear to do (both technically and more importantly in the context of the business domain of the company) - Are there are any red flags, edge cases, etc. that this code might not cover?…

I like this idea a lot, its a different form of technical interview that relies on interpretation rather than getting them to write something that may be suboptimal and not the quality of what they would do on the job. It tests knowledge rather effectively

Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#14

Post by snicky »

An interview for a backend dev position with a CTO where the only technical question I had to answer was "how would you design a messaging service?". Looking back I find those open-ended system design questions best. They allow you to show your expertise and understanding in various topics and the dynamics of a meeting where you discuss some architectural challenges makes you feel like a partner in the discussion rather than a student during an exam. It resembles real life work environment situations much better than solving riddles or answering some framework-specific questions. It's also two-sided - you may learn as much about the interviewer as they learn about you. Another thing is that it just takes 20-30 minutes and you're done.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#15

Post by mbrain »

vunderba wrote: post #4

About 10 years ago, I was show a piece of code (directly from their codebase) which was about 50 lines long and we had a technical conversation around it in which the interviewer asked me the following questions: - What does this code appear to do (both technically and more importantly in the context of the business domain of the company) - Are there are any red flags, edge cases, etc. that this code might not cover?…

I've had a similar one and find it extremely helpful for both parties. It should get more common!

Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#17

Post by sky2224 »

andoando wrote: post #16

Tinder a while back. First and largest part of the interview was 3 hours where they left you alone in a room with the task of implementing a few simple endpoints end to end. Then everyone came back and reviewed your solution and asked questions.

Did you end up using the full 3 hours?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

#18

Post by andoando »

sky2224 wrote: post #17
andoando wrote: post #16

Tinder a while back. First and largest part of the interview was 3 hours where they left you alone in a room with the task of implementing a few simple endpoints end to end. Then everyone came back and reviewed your solution and asked questions.

Did you end up using the full 3 hours?

Don't completely remember but I think most of the time coding then spent the last 10-30 minutes thinking through what questions they might ask, what I would do if I had more time, etc.
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