Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 151 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#131

Post by muzani »

MrWiffles wrote: post #66
klenwell wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this point, there was some good practical advice in this HN comment that I've adopted and applied successfully: What I did is I prepared 10 different stories about my career experience and then tagged them with a bunch of prompts. For example I have a story about one project that had dual PMs that experienced a lot of scope creep and eventually fizzled on release. I can now use that story to answer a broad range o…

One thing I’m having trouble with is anticipating the questions themselves. Not the technology specific ones, but also the generic stuff and the things that are still generic (tell me about yourself) but also more relevant to our industry and software eng roles. Any resources you could suggest that have worked well for you or anyone you know?

If you interview often enough, you'll see a similar pattern. Here's my list:

"What's your product development attitude?"

"How did you know about this position?"

"How did you learn about Technology X?"

"Tell me about your latest role"

"Why are you switching jobs?"

"What would you change at current role?"

"Tell me about another project, it can be a side project."

"What do you plan on being in 5 years?"

"Why aren't you at senior/manager level yet?"

"I see you did tech X here, and then Y. Why the career shift?"

"What excites you?" (This is a surprisingly common question that throws me off. The first one I got it, I answered "productivity". Which was true, but it sounded like a bullshit answer and lost me that interview. I've learned to talk about AI or cooking or exponential growth and relate that to incremental games. This question is often a bullshit detector)

"What advice would you have for younger you?"

"What is something you've had trouble with recently?"

"How would you change that?"

"What's the worst mistake you've ever made?"

"Why haven't you joined FAANG?"

"Tell me how did you handle disagreements at work"

"What's your growth plan? What do you want?"

"What's your favourite design pattern?"

"How do you manage tech debt?"

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#133

Post by al_borland »

billti wrote: post #39
aarghh wrote: post #29

The best learnt behavior I have is to slow down. In practice that means using phrases like "Let me think about that for a second", and maybe looking at or writing notes. As an interviewer, if anyone actually took a minute to think about what I had just asked them, I would consider that a huge positive signal.

Someone posted this Steve Jobs response the other day that demonstrates this well. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeqPrUmVz-o ) . Even in front of an audience that size, there is no rush to answer. He takes quite a while to consider a response first. That said, he is still amazing at how he can have (apparently) a long narrative in mind as he starts to answer. I work with an architect who I can spring a complex qu…

>he'll start answering with something like, "There are four things I would..."

I've been know to start off replies like that. It's usually that the question is really long winded, so as they say it the issues start jumping out. Then you just kind of keep track of the count until they're done talking and give some space to answer. The hardest part is remembering all the points. If I was smarter I'd jot down a word or two to jog my memory.

Generally these are situations where I know a system really well and the other person does not. So they are saying something like, "why don't we try X", and I either already tried X and just need to list off all the ways in which it failed, or I thought about trying X before, but didn't because of all the ways I thought about it failing. Other times all the issues just seem really obvious, to the point that I can't believe they are talking without hearing the pitfalls.

I may have been the one to post that the other day, I know I left that video in a comment. Another Jobs story on this topic... I saw an article recently with someone talking about how to debate/argue with Jobs. Sadly I can't remember who it was, some other CEO I think. He would go into meet with Jobs and bring up and issue and Jobs would do what you mentioned and give 5 reasons why his idea sucked. Because Jobs' mind worked so much faster than his (his words), he just had to take it and leave. He'd spend the next week thinking about it and formulating his reply. He walk in again and Jobs would respond back instantly. The guy would leave and take another week to come up with his reply... it would go back and forth like this. Eventually Jobs would either finally get his point and say, "oh, you're right", or he'd give up and just tell him to do whatever.

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#134

Post by madeofpalk »

lucisferre wrote: post #84

The one tip I'd give any interviewee is to take time and *pause*. Often the interviewer is looking for fairly short and concise answers to their questions so they can direct the flow and conversations to what they need to hear through further questions. Filling all the available air time either forces them to rudely interrupt you (which feels awkward) or wait for you to finish even though they aren't that interested…

This is my biggest struggle as an interviewer - I either rudely interrupt (and cause more stress for the candidate) or waste all our team while they babble on aimlessly about something irrelevant.

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#135

Post by madeofpalk »

MarkMarine wrote: post #21

As an interviewer, if your code is great, solves the problem concisely and is easy to understand, you don’t need refined English language skills. Respond honestly to my questions and I don’t care one but if the English isn’t perfect, you can say umm and mmaaa all you want. I’ve given technical interviews to people in China who barely speak english, just understand a bit, and I can’t speak one word of Mandarin. But we…

The more senior (in responsibility) the developer, the more they’re expected to communicate their work.

That said, in my experience, many ESL are a lot more overly-critical of their English speaking ability than they need to be.

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#136

Post by muzani »

jvanderbot wrote: post #97
klenwell wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this point, there was some good practical advice in this HN comment that I've adopted and applied successfully: What I did is I prepared 10 different stories about my career experience and then tagged them with a bunch of prompts. For example I have a story about one project that had dual PMs that experienced a lot of scope creep and eventually fizzled on release. I can now use that story to answer a broad range o…

One step further: Choose characteristics about yourself that you want to emphasize. Perhaps you want to be know as dilligent and detail oriented, or a fast mover, or a creative person. Then craft many stories about those points and have them in reserve. Chances are someone will ask a question that lets you bring up those qualities.

I try to mention that I started by making games as a kid. That seems to resonate with a large number of interviewers. Then we can talk about something fun like Monte Carlo effect for calculating which part of a grid has civilization, or procedural story generation.

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#137

Post by zarzavat »

jstanley wrote: post #69
muzani wrote: post #2

Preparation. Anyone who has done public speaking knows that it's a lot of work to be a good speaker. Neil DeGrasse Tyson says you have to be 10x more prepared than you need to be. He calls it his Batman utility belt. You anticipate every question you'll get and do your research. One interviewer asked Neil whether it was worth the $3B mission to Saturn. He brought up that it's $3B over 12 years and that it's how much…

Waste disposal. You can always put sewage in the bin, but you can't empty your bins into the sewage.

Yes after having living in cities with neither, a waste disposal system is absolutely more important.

No sewage system, you will be fine. People will use septic tanks instead.

No waste disposal system = trash everywhere.

Even if your waterways get polluted by raw sewage, that’s a lot easier to clean up than a waterway polluted by trash.

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#138

Post by muzani »

IE6 wrote: post #101
unsupp0rted wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He calls it his Batman utility belt. You anticipate every question you'll get and do your research. Part of the reason Neil DeGrasse Tyson is so painful to watch/listen to (especially on his recent appearances) is that this over-preparation or expectation of specific talking points comes off as smugness, interrupting behavior, etc... is it this which hurts the flow of conversation and even seemed to exasperate Joe…

This to me is tangential - I am wondering if you are more annoyed at his preparation (which I believe is an excellent example and suggestion to the OP's question) or that he talked over Joe Rogan and didn't let him finish his joke ...

I think it's a great counterpoint. It's unnatural behaviour, even for NDT. He applies the technique where it clearly doesn't work - right in the middle of someone talking.

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#139

Post by Aeolun »

The only relevant thing that comes immediately to mind is to train yourself to suppress the urge to mmmaaa and hmmm in your talking. A little bit of silence comes across a lot better (as you considering the answer, as opposed to flailing for words).

Re: Ask HN: How to talk with logical flow and coherence at interviews?

#140

Post by muzani »

kettro wrote: post #85
kube-system wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you answer immediately, you will "ummmm uhhh" a lot. Learn to take a breather and buy time. Some of the best advice I've ever gotten for this was: If you're pausing to think, just be silent. Practice for a while and have someone call you out on it. It's a hard habit to break, but someone who doesn't fill space with "um" will sound twice as smart.

A coworker I had (a good friend and an _amazing_ engineer) would generally just pause silently and think after a question. It was initially off putting, and I couldn’t tell what was happening, but very quickly got used to it. I started doing it myself, but start with a short “hmm” to indicate that I’m now thinking about the question, or just say “let me think”. Waiting helps you ignore the impulse responses, and doub…

I think it's off-putting if you ask someone a question and they stare into your eyes for 7 seconds.

"Hmm" and "That is a good question" are good loading indicators. "Errr" and "Uhh" are loading indicators too, just a little harsher. You can be silent and look at the ground, finger to chin, as long as it's clear you'retthinking.

Post reply on HN