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

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

#141

Post by Aeolun »

klenwell wrote: post #115
MrWiffles wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's the "What's your greatest weakness?" type of questions that always throw me. Some variations include: - What's something your not good at? - What's the biggest mistake you've ever made on the job? - Describe a time you disagreed with a colleague. How did you resolve it? - Tell us about a time you received some negative feedback from a manager and how you handled it. For these types of questions, it has definitel…

> - Describe a time you disagreed with a colleague. How did you resolve it? - Tell us about a time you received some negative feedback from a manager and how you handled it.

These questions are incredibly annoying when asked.

For one thing I’ve literally never received negative feedback from my manager, but nobody believes that when you tell them, so you have to come up with something absolutely trivial, and somehow blow that up into ‘negative feedback’, then think of a way you dealt with it other than ‘I didn’t do it again’, because that isn’t what they want to hear.

The times I disagree with a colleague are not situations we ‘resolve’, it’s something my manager ultimately decides. I don’t know what kind of answer they’re fishing for here. At least ‘we talk about it, and then either not disagree anymore, or escalate it’ does not seem to make anyone happy.

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

#142

Post by muzani »

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.

My wife's village has neither. We burn the trash, and have septic tanks. Diapers don't burn though.

There's a truck that comes in every now and then to clean it out, but that probably counts as waste disposal.

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

#143

Post by muzani »

blowski wrote: post #48
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…

First time I gave a presentation, an experienced speaker congratulated me afterwards. I said that I’d had to rehearse the talk 5 times before I gave it. He said he still rehearsed his 10 times.

I taught technical courses. A ground rule I had was 3 hours rehearsal for 1 hour of content. A 1 week class meant 3 weeks of practice. I still think this is what separates the bland teachers from the great ones.

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

#144

Post by osigurdson »

scrozier wrote: post #74
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…

Thank you! I've always found DeGrasse Tyson unbearable. He's clearly a very smart guy, but as a communicator of the people? Not at all sure why he's so popular. That clip is positively grotesque.

He's a little weird/rude in those clips but there is no vindictiveness behind it. He was great in Cosmos.

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

#145

Post by eddieroger »

crispyambulance wrote: post #86
eddieroger wrote: post #13

Regarding verbal crutches, the best advice I've received is to just say nothing instead, and pauses never feel as long to the other parties as they do you. So when you feel yourself saying "umm" or "mmmaa", instead say nothing, take a breath, and move forward. With English not being your first language, I think you can apply this plan to formulating your responses in general. Just take a moment, plan your reply, and…

You're right about "C-A-R", although I find it jarring and difficult to think directly in those terms. It can be too daunting, much like in a game of billiards when someone announces what their shot is going to do in advance and then takes the shot and expects everything to unfold as it was pre-declared. It's wonderful when it works, but it can be really hard to recover from if things go sideways. Many of us achieve…

I don't think these ideas disagree with each other, actually. Good stories have structure, and I'm just giving a name to one such structure. It also doesn't have to be so dogmatically used that one doesn't deviate from the structure. For sure, once you're comfortable presenting, deviate and modify as appropriate. But for someone struggling to organize their thoughts, let alone the words to use, I hoped it would be a helpful way of creating the narrative.

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

#146

Post by cl42 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #90
cl42 wrote: post #19

Here is what I recommend for everyone , regardless of role. 1. Make an Excel/Google sheet with 50+ questions you think will come up in an interview. 2. Open Zoom and start recording. 3. Randomize the question list and practice answering each question in 1-2 minutes. Take a break. 4. Watch the video and critique yourself. 5. Rinse and repeat. You will get very, very good over time.

I wonder if people actually do that. I think watching how much I suck will be depressing.

You know, it does kind of suck at times... But you'll also be really surprised at how quickly you improve.

I give this advice to dozens of people and maybe 5% actually do it. After spending an hour, they go from mediocre to good!

It's amazing how many people show up to interviews having done ZERO prep like this and of course they struggle as a result. You never want to do something for the first time during an interview.

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

#147

Post by idoh »

gcanyon wrote: post #121
idoh wrote: post #45

This is a bit wild, but learning and being fluid in MECE changed my life. Not really, but it really helped me in interviews and all types of conversations. Check out How to be MECE on Youtube. MECE = mutually exhaustive and completely exclusive. The short version is that when you describe something you want to divide it up into mutually exclusive and completely exhaustive chunks. There are five ways to be MECE - alge…

Mutually exclusive and comprehensively exhaustive. That’s just pedantic — great write up!

Turns out, we were both wrong, it is "collectively" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECE_principle

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

#148

Post by Jugurtha »

cl42 wrote: post #19

Here is what I recommend for everyone , regardless of role. 1. Make an Excel/Google sheet with 50+ questions you think will come up in an interview. 2. Open Zoom and start recording. 3. Randomize the question list and practice answering each question in 1-2 minutes. Take a break. 4. Watch the video and critique yourself. 5. Rinse and repeat. You will get very, very good over time.

I use this to improve the product. I'll start recording and do a product demo as I would do for a prospect. I'll go over the problems it solves, then will illustrate with features. The goal is to make bugs or UX smells shine.

If I find myself saying "and you can easily do X, you just do [7 steps]", cognitive dissonance will kick in and I feel uncomfortable because it's a damn 7 step process that contradicts the "easily" word I used.

Dogfooding helps unearth these, but doing a demo makes the ones we gloss over even more blatant.

I find myself cursing because the load time for example, while simply irritating during daily use, becomes unbearable when you're recording, and you fix that.

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

#149

Post by harish_yadav »

One of the advices that I often give is to watch YouTube videos of creators explaining the solution or mock interviews before going into an interview.

Just watching the YouTuber explain an algorithm or their approach to problem solving can help you get into the zone of thinking out loud that helps you talk with logical flow & coherence at interviews.

I have found this is the fastest to approach what you are aiming for. The more you practice the better you will be.

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

#150

Post by cl42 »

Jugurtha wrote: post #148
cl42 wrote: post #19

Here is what I recommend for everyone , regardless of role. 1. Make an Excel/Google sheet with 50+ questions you think will come up in an interview. 2. Open Zoom and start recording. 3. Randomize the question list and practice answering each question in 1-2 minutes. Take a break. 4. Watch the video and critique yourself. 5. Rinse and repeat. You will get very, very good over time.

I use this to improve the product. I'll start recording and do a product demo as I would do for a prospect. I'll go over the problems it solves, then will illustrate with features. The goal is to make bugs or UX smells shine. If I find myself saying "and you can easily do X, you just do [7 steps]", cognitive dissonance will kick in and I feel uncomfortable because it's a damn 7 step process that contradicts the "easi…

That’s brilliant. I’m going to use this for all my product development work moving forward. Thanks for that!
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