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Maybe you need to work on soft skills, learn on how to read other's expectations, so that you can dynamically adapt your strategy to meet their expectations.
Speaking from my experiences in dozens of debriefs: I don't think I can recall a case where an otherwise good candidate was rejected for something like not liking someone's personality. There might be a middle ground between "technical skills" and "personality", though, which we do take into account, falling under "soft skills", which may be affected by certain personality traits. Things like polling the interviewer…
Most technical jobs can be done by most sufficiently skilled, or motivated candidates with enough intellect to handle the work. Not always to a certain level of craft, efficiency or trend setting, but it's not about that to most business stakeholders. I say this as someone who deeply cares about the craft, despite a rather insulting depiction, including some of my opinions and age I came across earlier today (grugbrain.dev).
Likeability is hard, and even then striking a balance in a given context is also hard. It often comes down to a level of self-reflection, which is where I think TFA is at right now. Which is an attempt to establish a balance of personal responsibility, with "culture fit." Given that many of us have personality traits that tend to be deviations from the norm in many ways, it's all that more important to understand that in ourselves and our efforts to adapt to society.
A pinnacle of this in Television is the show Dexter, where he regularly brings in doughnuts. I've had coworkers that did similar, and it's impressive the amount of affect this has on the working environment and relationships in turn.
Beyond this, comes the counter-intuitive position of being far more skilled than an interviewer. This can definitely work against you at times as well for a number of reasons. Just because you are the most technically adept for a position, doesn't mean you get the position. The technical aspects of most jobs are more about a minimum of, can they do the job. Not, are they the best fit.
As consultant I have learnt to answer what others are looking for, instead of what I actually think. Maybe you need to work on soft skills, learn on how to read other's expectations, so that you can dynamically adapt your strategy to meet their expectations.
Will be blunt since I imagine you're fed up and don't want affirmations. In the most common case where I see engineers who say they struggle with the soft skills parts of interviewing, the underlying issue is a lack of skill in communication - working out what's important, stating it clearly and concisely, and in a way appropriate to the audience. I read some of your blog and found it pleasantly chatty, well structur…
The posts on LinkedIn should probably go too.
Will be blunt since I imagine you're fed up and don't want affirmations. In the most common case where I see engineers who say they struggle with the soft skills parts of interviewing, the underlying issue is a lack of skill in communication - working out what's important, stating it clearly and concisely, and in a way appropriate to the audience. I read some of your blog and found it pleasantly chatty, well structur…
Will be blunt since I imagine you're fed up and don't want affirmations. In the most common case where I see engineers who say they struggle with the soft skills parts of interviewing, the underlying issue is a lack of skill in communication - working out what's important, stating it clearly and concisely, and in a way appropriate to the audience. I read some of your blog and found it pleasantly chatty, well structur…
My advice is 2 portions of Chivas Regal 4 hours before the interview and then 2 full bottles of The Famous Grouse and Blue Label, 15 minutes before. Then, let it flow. If they don't get that you are a good tech guy, move on, they don't deserve you. Now, I've had a few strange things myself with interviews. Except for the company I ended work for, all other were a disaster. Everyone from HR knew 0 about Linux or progr…
For what it is worth in my recent experience most interviewers have commented about how pleasant and likable I am before they reject me, usually for some perceived technical flaw such as not realizing the essence of software quality is embracing their favorite fuzzing solution.