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Interview advice that got me offers

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Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#181

Post by TinyBig »

dcolkitt wrote: post #159
MattGaiser wrote: post #28

> Keeping those skills sharp even when you’re not job hunting. Can I just add "Leetcoder" as a part time job on my resume? It is amusing how in this industry, your ability to interview will not at all be improved by spending time doing your job unless it is algo heavy. It is a separate job entirely.

The reality is that industrial psychology has consistently found that fluid intelligence is the best predictor of job performance. Even more so than experience.[0] Whiteboard interviews are used, not because they have a lot of relevance to the job, but because they're a hard-to-fake indicator of high intelligence. Somebody who shows a lot of mental fluidity with complex data structures, almost assuredly can quickly m…

In what universe are whiteboard interviews used this way, as opposed to the interviewer expecting an exact answer regurgitated instantly?

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#182

Post by st1x7 »

speedgoose wrote: post #180
st1x7 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being directly relevant to the role also has its benefits. It means that you can interview for a job without necessarily having experience in the company's exact problem domain or with the framework that they happen to be using this quarter.

True, but the algorithms challenges are not very representative of the actual work we do in our industry. They are a nice way to filter people who are not willing to spend a lot of time studying challenges to have job interviews though.

> They are a nice way to filter people who are not willing to spend a lot of time studying challenges to have job interviews though.

They filter for general problem solving skills. Whether you acquired those skills through a degree, self-study, a week of leetcode or 3 months of leetcode will be up to your individual background and aptitude. It's a hiring process - filtering for something is the whole point. Personally, I prefer being tested on more general stuff (like algorithm problems) over most of the alternatives.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#183

Post by bird_monster »

hnrodey wrote: post #136
bird_monster wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most scarring interview experience I've ever had was with Amazon, when I was very young, where they exhibited a similar amount of not listening to me at all and evaluating skills that I never claimed to have. Ultimately Amazon is too big and too popular to listen or care to candidates. They're going to do whatever they're going to do, regardless of what you say, and that'll naturally filter out a ton of candidate…

>evaluating skills that I never claimed to have Interesting thought. I had an interview experience a few months ago that went fairly poorly and it was in large part because the interviewer pressed me on topics that I forwardly stated I was not well versed on (microservices). I ejected from the interview process afterwards because of my displeasure with the interviewer. He was not someone I wanted to work with in the…

It happens all the time. The last time I was looking for a new job, I interviewed at a bigger tech company in my area (SF based though). In the first screen I was open about not having recent JVM experience and 0 experience with JVM optimization/tuning. The hiring manager said it was no big deal and they hire and train people that are new to that space all the time. I was then given a take home challenge that required Java. Then, during the technical assessment, all of the questions were around JVM optimization. I just kind of laughed and skipped a lot of questions until the interview ended, where I emailed the hiring manager withdrawing from further interviews.

Interviewing suck. Sometimes it to them, not you.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#184

Post by uh_uh »

dcolkitt wrote: post #159
MattGaiser wrote: post #28

> Keeping those skills sharp even when you’re not job hunting. Can I just add "Leetcoder" as a part time job on my resume? It is amusing how in this industry, your ability to interview will not at all be improved by spending time doing your job unless it is algo heavy. It is a separate job entirely.

The reality is that industrial psychology has consistently found that fluid intelligence is the best predictor of job performance. Even more so than experience.[0] Whiteboard interviews are used, not because they have a lot of relevance to the job, but because they're a hard-to-fake indicator of high intelligence. Somebody who shows a lot of mental fluidity with complex data structures, almost assuredly can quickly m…

Doing well on whiteboard interviews can be a sign of high intelligence (a true positive result). But what signal does doing poorly on them give? Did you measure the candidate's intelligence (true negative), or preparedness maybe anxiety levels (false negative)? I guess the answer is that it does not matter as long as you have a large enough true positive candidate pool. And FAANG has this.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#185

Post by xtracto »

_qulr wrote: post #43
nobodyandproud wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advice of going on interviews semi-regularly is one that I tell everyone soliciting advice (even my direct reports, though only once and only if conversation veers that way!). I don’t mean the leetcode hoops (etc, though that is part of the game) but once you’re in the door. It’s a unique skillset that degrades fast, not unlike dating skills.

> It’s a unique skillset that degrades fast, not unlike dating skills. It's crucial to continue dating while you're in a relationship. Especially a long-term relationship, which can cause your dating skills to become very rusty.

Haha, the similarities are more than I thought at first: That's a thought process that you would think when you are young and naïve. Playing the "dating" game. But as time passes, you just stop bothering and the "dating game" becomes just natural interactions.

Same with job-seeking, as time passes by I find myself more and more reluctant to "play the game". To the point that I won't proceed with a job process if it requires me to jump those stupid hoops (my 2 last jobs, 3 and 7 years ago I got without a real technical interview, and they were both highly technical). This means that right now jobs that I get will be "limited" to people I know and people who knows me.

As a head of engineering, right now I am trying to convince a good friend of mine (and amazing technologist) to join my team. I wouldn't dream of putting him through the "normal" that other general candidates go through.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#186

Post by deathanatos »

vsareto wrote: post #113
hoka-one-one wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Job Title and Salary "Compensation will depend on your experience"

Can be bypassed by changing that to "Salary Range for this position"

"Highly-competitive within the market"

I have had very little luck getting a recruiter to supply a range. I've had a few, but they are few and far between. I've also had a few that I've gotten to name a range by first naming something comfortably above where I suspect their range is — to which the reply is then to talk me down to that number.

(And, in the cases where I've done this, I've found out the recruiter's range was well below my own BATNA…)

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#187

Post by deathanatos »

xondono wrote: post #155
saagarjha wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It limits your options down . If you say you're looking for $100/hour, and the recruiter was planning on giving you $150/hour…guess what offer you're going to get?

That’s why you never say “you are looking for $100/hour”, you say “I’m making $100/hour but conditions here are nice”.

I'd actually recommend the opposite. I want them to come in above my current salary — simply hitting my salary means their deal is basically the same as my current deal, plus a bunch of unknowns around the work, the environment, the company. If I'm going to switch companies, it should advantage me to do so. (And IME, if you give exactly the salary, they'll come in as little above it as possible. I am naming what I want, not what I already have.)

(I also agree with many of the parents: you don't really want to be the first mover — it isn't advantageous — but recruiters are very rarely going to give you that, and will force your hand in naming a number first.)

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#188

Post by a_wild_dandan »

908B64B197 wrote: post #158
a_wild_dandan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain why it scales worse than current typical interview sessions?

Couple of hours vs 30-40 minutes. I prefer to have multiple short interviews with different engineers rather than a single multi-hour long one with only one engineer. You get better feedback and it helps against bias. Not only that but a "toy JS app" implies the candidate knows JS at all. If it's college recruiting, you are better sticking with algorithms since you know that they know it.

To be clear, the goal is to watch the candidate build something using the prerequisite skills expected for the position. I'm not prescribing 3 hour sessions, or JavaScript. Target a 45 minute session. Target whatever tools, languages, etc are expected for the role. Maybe that means being language agnostic. Whatever is appropriate.

Watching folks make something -- for any significant duration -- is perhaps a better estimator of a candidate's genuine job ability than testing how well they approximate an algorithm textbook. Well...that's the assumption, anyway.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#190

Post by chestervonwinch »

caffeine wrote: post #142

I think the most valuable thing to know about interviewing is: go in to interviews already holding a job offer. So to be clear I'm saying: interview at companies you don't like until you get an offer. THEN rush the recruiters at companies you do like to get you scheduled quickly, because you are holding an offer and they don't want to miss out. This lights recruiters and hiring managers on fire. It makes sure you hav…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like there would a substantial amount of luck involved in getting schedules and offers to line up just right like this.
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