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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?

#91

Post by no-dr-onboard »

It helps to have a pause before you begin to speak. Think of what you're going to say before you say it. When you're done, you're done. Don't feel pressured to say anything more than what the answer is.

Additionally, it helps to have a framework. The STAR method[1] is pretty appropriate for interview responses and is pushed pretty heavily by FAANG. When I worked at Amazon, I was told that my adherence to the method really helped me stand out (for what its worth).

Finally, its worth reaching out to the employee working/resource groups at the place you're trying to apply for. Let them know you're an English as a Second Language (ESL) candidate and see if there can be any accommodations. My org allows you to interview in your native tongue and provides accommodations.

[1] https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-the-star-interview...

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

#92

Post by eanc »

I still suck at being verbally coherent, as my brain isn’t quick in the right way, but my guess is that it’s good to have "talking points" that you’re trying to work toward from wherever the question actually started, and an outline to make sure to hit points A, B, C, and D about matter E...

I always went in as a naive kid "they will ask a question and I will say the answer; repeat" because I was brought up to be so passive. And still am so passive. And I naively thought they’d recognize there must be something there if I could get that GPA.

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

#93

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

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.

The "best answers" are always extremely simple to understand. But often a lot more work than you want to do.

This is a "best answer".

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

#94

Post by gopher_space »

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.

I use external recruiters for practice. They don't mind. They're either on their way up and are practicing too or good at their job and able to give you serious feedback.

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

#95

Post by scrozier »

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #63
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…

> If you answer immediately, you will "ummmm uhhh" a lot. Learn to take a breather and buy time. Not just in interviews (I don't interview that often), but just in general, I've trained myself to smile and say, "That is an interesting question!" (and subtle variants so I'm not a robot). It buys me a second or two if it's not that hard, and even more if it is a hard question because now they know I'm thinking about th…

Seems like a good technique, but boy, is that overused these days. Let's face it, not all questions are that interesting. Seems that a lot of people start with that, robotically.

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

#96

Post by jacobr1 »

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?

There are tons of blogs out there with example interview questions. If you review a few dozen, you start to pick up some commonalities.

Another approach that has worked for in the past is a mock interview. Ask a fried or college to interview you and give some feedback.

Look at job descriptions for role you are interested in. For each bullet point, you should able able to speak to why you are qualified, probably via an anecdote of a prior experience.

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

#97

Post by jvanderbot »

klenwell wrote: post #37
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…

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.

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

#98

Post by powersnail »

Also a second-language speaker here.

It's fine to "hmm". Many highly regarded public speakers "hmm" a lot. If the rest of the sentence makes sense, most listeners will ignore the interruption.

The best way to practice is to make conversation with people, but try to use full sentences and complete thoughts, instead of shortened, colloquial expressions.

It was very easy to fall into the trap of colloquialism as a second-language speaker, because it's way easier to learn to "Awesome", "Nice, "oh yeah" your way through conversations with friends, which doesn't your spoken English when you need to actually convey something.

Another tip is preparation. Prepare full sentences that reflect your current state of mind. "Let me think this through for a second." "I'm going to store the data into a 2D array." "I'm going to loop through this array and do xxx with each item."

And also, don't fret too much about it. Interviewers in tech industries are familiar with language barriers. If you feel like you're lost in the middle of a sentence, give a pause and start over. Not a big deal.

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

#99

Post by jvanderbot »

jrh206 wrote: post #61
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…

Those clips are painful. DeGrasse Tyson interrupts Rogan right before important words - punchlines. For instance, in the first clip, Rogan begins “what’s interesting is that the town is -”, and DeGrasse Tyson takes that moment to pattern break: “wait, wait, wait, have you seen that they did Starry Night in bacon?!”. Rogan blinks, stunned. His point about the town lost forever. Regardless, it’s possible to be well pre…

DeGrasse Tyson is insufferable anyway. He takes every chance to pontificate and play the skewering science expert, even when it's not necessary. His generation / audience just wants a scientist to slam dunk on everyone all the time and "Science the shit out of it", and he's responding perfectly.

And I work in space exploration! I've seen 100s of better voices for science than him fist hand.

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

#100

Post by CoffeeOnWrite »

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 great and I lean on it heavily when explaining technical stuff to a non-technical audience or low level stuff to an executive audience. This looks like a decent dive into this tactic sometimes called “headline style”: https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2017/05/03/conscious...
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