95th percentile isn't that hard to reach • Hacker News Board

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#81

Post by eshyong » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

I hope you've found success and happiness in life nowadays! Honestly interviewing is in some ways closer to dating than contests of skill. Sometimes your area of expertise is just not what the team is looking for. Sometimes that company just wouldn't be a good culture fit for you. I've had similar experiences with rejection and I've since learned that interviews are really bad at sorting out good engineers from bad engineers, and that networking goes a lot further than raw coding skill (although you still have to know some leetcode, unfortunately).

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#82

Post by merrywhether » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #16

cdoxsey wrote: post #12

On the flip side. Sometimes you're just not that good at stuff despite your best efforts. In college I really struggled with math. Which was a challenge because computer science has you take a lot of math classes. In my calculus class I studied so hard for the final. Did every problem in the book. And I still just got a B in the class. At the same time my programming classes were really easy. I didn't study at all an…

Comparing you to some geniuses in the field isn't gonna help. Sure Mozart was better that Salieri, but there is just one Mozart. Companies are always talking about how they just take the best, but in the end they have to settle with what the market gives them.

This reminds me of a time when a hiring manager said something along the lines of “We’re trying to find Michael Jordan, not Scottie Pippen.” My colleague and I were pretty shocked by this, since Pippen was also a great Hall of Fame basketball player, just not one of the top 3 players of all time.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#83

Post by SomeGuy789 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:07 PM UTC

olau wrote: post #71

mo1ok wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's important to be passionate about your life's work. However, maintaining "good enough" across all dimensions of particular lifestyle or role is actually incredibly challenging. Even for a standard engineer, think how many you know can code well, be leaders, AND can write good documentation. For most things, it's always a "pick 2 out of 3" situation.

There's a difference between being passionate about your own work, and being passionate about being better than everyone else. I fact, I don't think the two have anything in common?

It seems to me like there's two different things being discussed in this thread. The first one being passion about being better than everyone else as you mentioned and the second one is a desire to work on yourself on different aspects of life, a.k.a. try to be as well-rounded person as possible. When put in action these things are deceptively similar yet the underlying reasons for doing them are very different.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#84

Post by Misdicorl » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

krick wrote: post #57

Yeah, no, that's just about lousy definitions. The premise suggests that it's easy to become 95%-ile in anything, say, deadlifting among men who deadlift and not just entire population of the planet Earth. Before I can suggest author to try, he hastily corrects himself, that it doesn't mean "95%-ile among people who practice regularly", so "men who deadlift" is invalid domain after all. Rather, it should be... "peopl…

On the other hand, I think its absurd to construct your comparison group as

> significant portions of their life time in a dedicated attempt to become better [at X]

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#85

Post by Swizec » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

cdoxsey wrote: post #77

lordleft wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on my interviewing history I'm not in the 95th percentile of programmers - I'm routinely outright rejected and don't even land the on-site interview. And this is basically my best skill for which I've invested an enormous amount of time and energy. You mentioned faring well in programming classes. Interview performance aside, do you feel that you're a good and perhaps exceptional programmer?

I can be very quick and can work diligently (grit my way through a problem) but I struggle with design and some high level concepts. Interviews ask abstract and theoretical computer sciency type questions and in real life I would usually google my way to a solution on those types of questions, so I do very poorly on the spot. (forget everything or say something dumb) But in practice I can usually deliver quicker than…

> Interviews ask abstract and theoretical computer sciency type questions and in real life I would usually google my way to a solution on those types of questions, so I do very poorly on the spot.

Fwiw some of us ask abstract questions with the sole purpose of breaking you out of coding mode and into thinking mode. I wanna see how you break down a problem you haven’t encountered before. Not how you google a solution to a known problem. If you’re talkinng to me, I already trust that you can write code and google solutions.

One of my fav questions to ask is “Design a system to protect a skyscraper from flooding in a scifi Manhattan of 2140”

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#86

Post by WWLink » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:19 PM UTC

merrywhether wrote: post #82

k__ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing you to some geniuses in the field isn't gonna help. Sure Mozart was better that Salieri, but there is just one Mozart. Companies are always talking about how they just take the best, but in the end they have to settle with what the market gives them.

This reminds me of a time when a hiring manager said something along the lines of “We’re trying to find Michael Jordan, not Scottie Pippen.” My colleague and I were pretty shocked by this, since Pippen was also a great Hall of Fame basketball player, just not one of the top 3 players of all time.

The company has to settle for the fact that they're not the top 3 companies of all time, too. XD

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#87

Post by SkyBelow » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:21 PM UTC

eshyong wrote: post #76

SkyBelow wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Based on my interviewing history I'm not in the 95th percentile of programmers - I'm routinely outright rejected and don't even land the on-site interview. And this is basically my best skill for which I've invested an enormous amount of time and energy. This means you aren't high in the 'programming interview' skill set. While related, I consider it distinctly different than the 'programming' skill set. I think it…

Agreed with your points, although I wouldn't use the word "lie". "Marketing yourself" would be a better way to put it. It's not about falsely representing your experience; it's about knowing and emphasizing your strengths, and aligning that with the needs of the team.

I'm talking things like "what is your biggest weakness". You don't answer that honestly, you come up with a 'nice to have' weakness but that still seems enough of a weakness to not appear to be holding the question in contempt.

If it comes to why you are leaving your current job, depending upon why you actually left you could be able to give honest answers, half truths than hide the major reason, and twist the facts enough that it would be best described as a lie.

When asked what you are looking for in a new company, rarely will it be perceived positive to give any importance to money at that stage of the interview. Benefits can be mentioned, but you will have a better interview if you can give an answer closer aligned to the business you are interviewing at.

A major one is when you are asked what your current salary is, lying can be more beneficial than either not answering or telling the truth. You can stretch the truth a bit, say "A little under $130,000" when it is actually "101,000 plus a bonus that the company didn't give out last year". Is 101 a little under 130? It is subjective, and in some cases that wouldn't be a lie, but in this case it definitely stretches the truth.

Now, I'm not advocating lying about stuff on the technical side. Well, not by much. If someone in HR is asking if you have 15+ years experience in Rust (to those not familiar, it has only been about about 10 years), responding with an affirmative style answer is probably reasonable if you are experienced in the language. Don't do something like saying "Yes". More "I am very experienced in Rust and have had 3 large scale Rust products deployed with numerous smaller ones." This ends up being much better than trying to correct the HR rep that the language hasn't been out long enough for someone to have 15 years experience and better than answering no.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#88

Post by tyingq » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:22 PM UTC

bagacrap wrote: post #58

tyingq wrote: post #9

95th percentile for an SAT score is something like 1450. That's fairly impressive to me. Feels like scoring higher might often have more to do with effort than ability. Is that excluded from the line of thought in the blog post because it's among "people who regularly practice?" Or is it that effort vs ability thing? Not impressive because you were born smart? In a totally "no effort" arena, 95th percentile height fo…

First, no, it's not that amazing if it's something every 20th person has. Second, height is not something you should fixate on. The benefits of being tall are generally over reported. In certain arenas like basketball it helps. In others, like running, pants shopping or air travel, it hurts. I think it's probably about the 12th most important factor in person to person interactions, after eye contact, body language,…

"Second, height is not something you should fixate on."

I'm not convinced. Many studies illustrate the correlation to success. We are still animals and not-merit factors still matter. Good looks, height, gender, race, symmetry, smell, whatever, etc, are a real "thing". You can overcome it all with mitigation, but it isn't imaginary. That stuff drives real outcomes.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#89

Post by mint2 » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:26 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #9

95th percentile for an SAT score is something like 1450. That's fairly impressive to me. Feels like scoring higher might often have more to do with effort than ability. Is that excluded from the line of thought in the blog post because it's among "people who regularly practice?" Or is it that effort vs ability thing? Not impressive because you were born smart? In a totally "no effort" arena, 95th percentile height fo…

I’m Recalling whether it was 96% or 94%, but I got a perfect on my math sat II. And yet the perfect score was only ~95%.

Top 1/20 Can be impressive or unimpressive depending on context.

Top 1/20 is impressive if everyone in the group is competitive. It’s not impressive if it’s 1/20 out of a bunch of randoms who’ve never tried to be good at it.

Re: 95th percentile isn't that hard to reach

#90

Post by avip » Fri, Feb 07, 2020, 4:27 PM UTC

merrywhether wrote: post #82

k__ wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing you to some geniuses in the field isn't gonna help. Sure Mozart was better that Salieri, but there is just one Mozart. Companies are always talking about how they just take the best, but in the end they have to settle with what the market gives them.

This reminds me of a time when a hiring manager said something along the lines of “We’re trying to find Michael Jordan, not Scottie Pippen.” My colleague and I were pretty shocked by this, since Pippen was also a great Hall of Fame basketball player, just not one of the top 3 players of all time.

As an nba fan I find that qoute really misplaced. It's not like you "settle" for a Pippen? He's probably a top 50 player ever.