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

51–60 of 151 posts

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

#51

Post by idoh »

corrral wrote: post #46
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…

> fluid Fluent?

Fluid as in able to easily apply MECE to conversations. I guess being fluid with the application of MECE will lead to more fluent conversations. They both have the same latin root.

edit - updated the GP to make it clear that I was talking about being fluid in applying MECE to a given domain, which could be written or oral.

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

#52

Post by adamhi »

ryandrake wrote: post #50

Take breaks as you talk! Pause in silence. Whether you are giving a technical answer, or answering a behavioral/scenario question, make it a conversation with pauses and opportunities for your interviewer to help steer. As an interviewer, the worst candidates are the ones who just launch into a stream of words, talking and talking and talking with no break. Just a continuous stream of consciousness or memorized prepa…

This is good advice. You should almost always be talking more slowly and taking more breaks than you want to, if you're nervous. Pause between sentences, and even just try to pronounce words more slowly. You'll seem less nervous, and you'll be less nervous, and as a result of this you will think more clearly as well as have more time to consider what you're saying.

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

#53

Post by sto_hristo »

That is normal. Even one of the best recent Presidents can "struggle" with interviews. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4bDuFJuriw This is the best speaker on the planet. On the planet. His bread and butter is pro-speaking actually. "Struggle" in quotes, because he's not struggling really, it's just how normal human beings speak as they are constructing answers in their brains.

But why on most of his others interviews he was going so smoothly and effortlessly? Because those were scripted and everything was predictable and prepared for in advance by a huge staff in the background. He already has all the answers in the brain and is merely giving a mental reading.

So ground yourself. You're not giving speeches and your interview is NOT going by a script you've been given prior. Relax, answer questions to the best of your ability and KNOW THAT you'll be judged most likely by people with skills inferior to yours.

Looking at other answers asking you to prepare for interview as if you're running for president. Sure thing. Do that. But only if you're actually running for president and there are millions on the table for the taking.

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

#54

Post by blowski »

publicola1990 wrote: post #4
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…

But some people seems so at ease with spontaneity, dealing with dynamic, emergent conversations, and even the ability to direct it to particular directions or narratives. I doubt all of it is preparation.

There’s an article about Boris Johnson’s bumbling talking style, and how it’s all a schtick.

Before he was even London Mayor, so had fewer repeat listeners, a journalist went to three of his speeches in the same year. In each one, Boris arrived and apparently didn’t know where he was. He then made a brilliant speech with the same “ad-lib” jokes, mixed up his reading notes at the same point.

Making public speaking look effortless takes a lot of effort.

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

#55

Post by sleepdreamy »

publicola1990 wrote: post #4
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…

But some people seems so at ease with spontaneity, dealing with dynamic, emergent conversations, and even the ability to direct it to particular directions or narratives. I doubt all of it is preparation.

This is me. I work in IT(Not Coding) but we still get fairly technical questions etc all day. I have no issue going into a tirade about issues I faced recently at work, the way PMs work with the team bla bla bla. I am a naturally good conversationalist. My fiancee on the other hand is the polar opposite to me and has to prepare when speaking in front of people. She is very shy. Some people are lucky, many are not. It's totally normal to prepare for that sort of thing from what I've read. I'm just lucky

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

#56

Post by why-el »

There is a lot of advice here, all good, but also I wonder if you yourself were given this feedback by someone else or this is your own somewhat subjective opinion. I am a non-native English speaker myself and 6-8 years ago I've mistaken my slower recall of words and linguistic structure for incoherence and lack of "logical flow", but this is not true at all. Your language will get better and so is your confidence, and a qualified interview should (must?) not confuse the two situations.

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

#57

Post by corrral »

mat0 wrote: post #30
whacim wrote: post #23

One approach I used when I first started interviewing was to apply to a few jobs I wasn't really interested in pursuing to use as an opportunity to practice interviewing.

Please don't do this. I get it's "good practice", but you are essentially wasting interviewing time -> company money for your little practice. Terrible advice.

I think it's fine as long as you make sure the company in question is one of the many that post fake job openings. Then it's simply justice.

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

#58

Post by SenHeng »

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…

NDGT had an interview or youtube once about public speaking, I couldn't find the video anymore so paraphrasing.

> Not anyone can become great at something, but everyone can become better. So you don't have to learn to speak like all those famous people out there, just practise so that you can be better than you were.

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

#60

Post by corrral »

idoh wrote: post #51
corrral wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fluid Fluent?

Fluid as in able to easily apply MECE to conversations. I guess being fluid with the application of MECE will lead to more fluent conversations. They both have the same latin root. edit - updated the GP to make it clear that I was talking about being fluid in applying MECE to a given domain, which could be written or oral.

OK, cool, thanks—I wasn't asking to nitpick, but because I really wasn't sure whether it was a mistake, or a neologistic/jargon usage I was unfamiliar with.
Post reply on HN