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Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#81

Post by oinfoalgo »

_swfb wrote: post #73
esseph wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they get upset that you either don't have socials (antisocial, don't hire), or hide them (untrustworthy, don't hire). It's awful. I think the best thing is maybe a fake profile you touch once a year.

Outside of some jobs requiring LinkedIn, I've never actually heard of anyone being declined for not having social media. I haven't had a Facebook account since 2015, I don't have an Instagram and I hadn't updated my Twitter for years until I deleted it (about two hours ago). As far as I'm aware, a lack of social media presence hasn't been a factor. Only social media I have now is Hacker News.

I think lack of social media makes me stand out.

I always say I am the type of person who would post too often so instead of having social media I just read non-fiction books.

So far no one has held being well read against me.

Often, it flips to a book recommendation actually. At that point good luck with your social media when I pick a book that fits perfectly in with the marketing of myself getting the job, create a whole interesting conversation in that direction, while they read some inane nonsense from the social media poster.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#82

Post by _lvbh »

nickthegreek wrote: post #69
stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #23

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…

Really appreciate seeing comments like this on HN. You got me thinking about my own presence online. I decided to use gpt-5-thinking and perplexity's deep research with the same prompt to deep dive on my legal name, find aliases, research those aliases, etc. Then report on positive and negatives findings. Both did a good job and helped me feel a bit at ease. They both noticed that I worked at a place that later had a…

How did you manage to get perplexity deep research to do research about yourself? I keep getting denied based on privacy rules and policies

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#83

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

_swfb wrote: post #71
z3ugma wrote: post #11

Is there someone you trust who has been a mentor to you at one of your past jobs? Send them a note and ask them to mock interview you. People love being asked favors and for their opinion. You sound unsure and defeated in your post. Were you feeling confident the day of the interview, or do you think you seemed desperate for the job? I will say that all the best technical interviews I have had are ones where I spoke…

I feel defeated now primarily because I really thought that I was going to get an offer on this job, so it kind of felt like a punch in the stomach when I got rejected this morning. I think I was feeling confident enough during the interview, but it's entirely possible that some of my cynicism bled through in my intonations in the Zoom call. I do tend to be long winded when I speak, so maybe that is working against m…

Speaking as someone who has done a lot of interviewing of candidates - being long winded or an otherwise poor communicator is one of the most common reasons to reject someone.

It's definitely worth practicing to be concise and clear in your responses (and don't waffle on - something I'm guilty of). Learn when to stop talking too.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#84

Post by Terretta »

_swfb wrote: post #73
esseph wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they get upset that you either don't have socials (antisocial, don't hire), or hide them (untrustworthy, don't hire). It's awful. I think the best thing is maybe a fake profile you touch once a year.

Outside of some jobs requiring LinkedIn, I've never actually heard of anyone being declined for not having social media. I haven't had a Facebook account since 2015, I don't have an Instagram and I hadn't updated my Twitter for years until I deleted it (about two hours ago). As far as I'm aware, a lack of social media presence hasn't been a factor. Only social media I have now is Hacker News.

> I've never actually heard of anyone being declined for not having social media

In late June 2025, the US announced that for inbound students from abroad it will be screening socials, and lack of an unlocked social footprint may be a disqualifier.

This brings the gov in line with private industry, as employers that do actual background checks (as opposed to, say, credit checks) are shown flags if socials are all locked or none exist.

This matters most in industries which are required by their regulators to do and/or maintain backgrounds.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#85

Post by _swfb »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #83
_swfb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel defeated now primarily because I really thought that I was going to get an offer on this job, so it kind of felt like a punch in the stomach when I got rejected this morning. I think I was feeling confident enough during the interview, but it's entirely possible that some of my cynicism bled through in my intonations in the Zoom call. I do tend to be long winded when I speak, so maybe that is working against m…

Speaking as someone who has done a lot of interviewing of candidates - being long winded or an otherwise poor communicator is one of the most common reasons to reject someone. It's definitely worth practicing to be concise and clear in your responses (and don't waffle on - something I'm guilty of). Learn when to stop talking too.

It's just tough for me, because I kind of take pride in being accurate and technical questions often have a lot of edge cases and caveats that I feel compelled to point out because I don't want to say inaccurate stuff.

But of course that can go onto infinity; at some point you need to summarize and accept you can't be 100% accurate. I guess I need to figure out how to strike a balance between "blathering on" and "hand-waving away details". I have no idea how to do that but that might be a good thing to get out of mock interviews.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#86

Post by marak830 »

It was for a different field, but I realised once I had run the interview process from the other side, I had a much better vocabulary and confidence answering related questions.

Perhaps setup a fake interview with a friend, really think about what you would ask from that position and dry run it a bit?

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#87

Post by nickthegreek »

_lvbh wrote: post #82
nickthegreek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really appreciate seeing comments like this on HN. You got me thinking about my own presence online. I decided to use gpt-5-thinking and perplexity's deep research with the same prompt to deep dive on my legal name, find aliases, research those aliases, etc. Then report on positive and negatives findings. Both did a good job and helped me feel a bit at ease. They both noticed that I worked at a place that later had a…

How did you manage to get perplexity deep research to do research about yourself? I keep getting denied based on privacy rules and policies

i’m using perplexity pro set to deep research with this prompt:

read the hackernews comments on this link to understand how someone's digital footprint might affect their ability to get hired. Then do that research against me, , to help me understand what is available about me out there that could help or harm my ability to compete. See if there are any internet handles that you can associate with me, if so, research them too.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#88

Post by _swfb »

blindriver wrote: post #27
_swfb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, at some level I know this; I've given interviews before and seen people get declined for the dumbest reasons, or no reason at all, and I usually give people this same advice when they're down. Dunno, it's just hard not to take this a bit personally sometimes. As I said, if I felt like I knew what I was screwing up, then that would be something I could work on. It's not hard to buy textbooks and learn more about…

If you don't keep a stiff upper lip and be emotionally and mentally resilient about this, then someone who is exactly like you but has the resilience to keep going on will take your job. This is the worst job market I've seen since the dot com bust. It's much worse than the Financial Crisis. There are tens of thousands of out of work programmers, and in the next few years more and more new grads are joining the mix.…

Oh I know, I will keep applying and hoping for the best, obviously. I don't really have the privilege of being able to give up, as I need to pay my mortgage.

It's just a bit discouraging sometimes. I don't really think I'd be a worse engineer than most people they end up hiring, so it's hard to not take this personally sometimes.

99% of the time, when I'm rejected I just roll my eyes and move on, but every now and then (and it appears to be kind of stochastic), one rejection will just get a bit more under my skin than others. I've been rejected for thousands of jobs and I don't have a crisis for each one.

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#89

Post by ativzzz »

loa_in_ wrote: post #36
stuartjohnson12 wrote: post #23

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…

A good reason to not have social media. Thinking if my vent post will upset a future employer on a Saturday afternoon is not the future I want.

A good reason to have an anonymous account to post negative things on. Never post honest negativity under your real name. Unless you work for yourself or your vulnerability is a sort of marketing, you're only hurting yourself. Make an anon account, vent as much as you want.

If I'm hiring someone, I want to like working with them, and if I find them ranting online, I just mark them as negative and pessimistic. I can't help it - that's human nature

Re: Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

#90

Post by ativzzz »

codingdave wrote: post #19

Don't change who you are for an interview. It will just result in a job where you aren't happy being a different version of yourself. I know it is frustrating to not find work, but finding work that isn't right for you brings whole new levels of frustration later. And, as others have said... this rejection might have nothing to do with you. If they had 1000 applications, and you were their choice above 998 of them, y…

100% untrue. Hiring is a social game. You want to put your best foot forward, and then slowly let out your truer self over time. Much like dating - you don't want to air all your dirty laundry on the first date. Don't lie about who you are but at the same time people are more tolerant of your quirks once they get to know you better
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