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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?

#91

Post by _swfb »

pir8life4me wrote: post #77

Using a 3 pt impromptu speaking style of responding can help a lot. Many people ramble and aren't concise which can appear evasive. Practicing public speaking can make you aware of your verbal tics - uhms ahs or saying "stuff" you use which can make you sound like you don't know what you're talking about. Aggressively apply to jobs you don't want just for the interview practice. And study "good answers" to common que…

I do a fair amount of public speaking (I've spoken at Lambda Days six times, the Clojure Conj once), and I was a university lecturer, so that stuff isn't too hard for me.

I'm definitely guilty of rambling though; it's pretty hard for me to do say concisely. I'm not 100% sure of the best way to get better at that.

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

#92

Post by _swfb »

ativzzz wrote: post #89
loa_in_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

I understand this, but we can agree that this kind of sucks, doesn't it? Everyone has bad days where they're frustrated about something and could write something a bit cynical in the process. I don't think that's reflective of their entire personality. From Ted Lasso:

> I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments… but rather by the strength we show when, and if we’re ever given a second chance

Dunno, obviously you don't want someone who's a downer all the time, but I feel like the permanence of the internet can skew perspectives.

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

#93

Post by _swfb »

ativzzz wrote: post #90
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

I actually more or less did air all my dirty laundry on my first date with my wife, and we've been together since 2013, so at least that worked out ok.

Still overall I think I agree with you. I think most techy people tend to like me if they talk to me for awhile, but I can be kind of abrasive with initial impressions.

I'm just psychoanalyzing myself at this point; overall good advice...thanks!

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

#94

Post by _swfb »

Terretta wrote: post #84
_swfb wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 loc…

Oh my.

I'm not sure why that would be suspicious. If I were planning nefarious stuff, it's not like it would be hard for me to make have a social media presence to fly under the radar.

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

#95

Post by ivape »

blindriver wrote: post #12

This isn't 2021 anymore. You need to recalibrate your world view. There are probably 300 people interviewing for the job you interviewed for. So they need to not just pick someone who checks the boxes, but the BEST of all the people who checked the boxes. Assuming you checked all the boxes, you weren't the best and someone else was chosen. That's all it is. What makes them the best? Who knows. There's likely 50 of th…

There are probably 300

This isn't really true. There are 300 people that might apply but only a few that ever get interviewed. If they are interviewing 300 people then the company doesn't even know what it wants.

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

#96

Post by [deleted] »

merth wrote: post #37
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…

Because of these "digital footprint checks" now nobody can truly say what they want online. Either you have to put on a fake persona or just go completely silent. It’s self-censorship in disguise. Dead Internet Theory confirmed.

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by _swfb »

yieldcrv wrote: post #53

I’ve had many interview loops like this I stay interviewing while I have a job so the consequences aren’t as large but over on cscareers and blind, many people have the same experience I wouldn’t over think this from one employer

It's not just this one employer. It's been months and I've had pretty limited success. This has happened with dozens of employers and after a certain point I have to assume I'm doing something wrong.

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

#98

Post by david38 »

_swfb wrote: post #35
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…

I actually do appreciate the advice and blunt feedback, because you're right, I'm a little tired of affirmations. I honestly forgot about the tweets from years ago where I was pretty burnt out. I will be deleting those shortly. The posts on LinkedIn should probably go too.

LinkedIn is not a place to air grievances. It’s a place to post your job history, post jobs, and “like” when others have been promoted

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

#99

Post by _swfb »

joshka wrote: post #74

> It has really annoyed me; I ended up doing three interviews over the course of four weeks, and I'm pretty confident that I got the technical questions right. It could be that my resume is too "jumpy", which is fair, but they could have read my resume before they wasted my time and theirs with three multi-hour interviews. If they're interviewing you, then it's likely that at least someone read your resume and decide…

I gotta admit that it saddens me a little to think that calling myself a "wannabe-intellectual" or "eccentric" would have any connotation other than very mild self-deprecation, but I suppose it won't hurt to make it simpler in the shorter term.

> This really actually doesn't matter in many cases. These moments are perfect place for you to demonstrate humility and how you deal with feedback.

That's decent enough advice, but when people confidently "correct" me with something that's actively wrong, it's always a bit jarring to me. It takes me a like thirty seconds to parse their feedback, read to make sure that my code isn't wrong, and then process that I need to somehow respond to it. It's difficult to know what to say at that point.

I dunno. This post has given me a lot to think about.

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