Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interview advice that got me offers

zainrizvi.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 372 posts

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#331

Post by maire »

chollida1 wrote: post #32
maire wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most engineers are introverts and relatively humble - so interviewing is difficult. We have to remind ourselves that we are pretty good. I always went on 2 practice interviews before the real interview and it worked.

> Most engineers are introverts is this a defensible statement? I haven't seen any research that would lead me to believe that most engineers are introverts.

My apologies. Congratulations on being a successful extrovert engineer.

I am also a unicorn - but a different kind. I used to always have to defend being a statical outlier so I know where you are coming from.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#332

Post by biotinker »

uh_uh wrote: post #326
RogerL wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it matters. Who doesn't do well due to stress? I think you'll find women, minorities and basically a lot of people outside of the cultural norm/majority do poorly. That's not an argument that you can eliminate test anxiety, but certainly if we can reduce it without destructively eliminating the high value candidate pool we should do so.

What you are saying is an ethical/moral consideration and it is a valid one. When I said it doesn't matter, I meant that FAANG is commercially not incentivised to account for the anxiety factor. Even if they miss out on good candidates due to their anxiety, they can still choose from plenty of good candidates who don't suffer from anxiety. Given how many people are aspiring to join FAANG, I'd assume it's a buyer's ma…

I'm not sure that's true. What you describe is the case for any individual candidate, but doesn't account for how those candidates interact with one another. Specifically, it has repeatedly been shown that more diverse teams will consistently outperform more homogeneous ones.

If your company only hires above the 95th percentile but their method for finding that quality cutoff is heavily skewed towards a certain demographic, in the long run that company may well perform worse than a company that hires at the 80th percentile but without the demographic skew.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#333

Post by 908B64B197 »

Cd00d wrote: post #289
908B64B197 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some cases you are effectively screening out senior engineers that have pretty much reached their plateau. They won't learn anything new and they don't want to learn anything new. There's a difference between 10 years of experience and 10x one year of experience.

I'm honestly unsure if you're advocating for ageism or for people with many short-stint positions.

Neither.

What I meant is that I've met senior engineers who were senior by virtue of having spent a long time in the industry but not because they were any better than a fresh grad.

Also that some seniors simply stopped learning at some point, which is pretty bad for the majority of dev roles. They won't learn for the new role and push whatever they used at last N roles because that's all they know.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#334

Post by [deleted] »

saberdancer wrote: post #298
munchbunny wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m surprised that’s happening to you. I’ve never gotten pushback when I ask them to give the first number. Usually that comes with the offer letter, or comes with the numbers that the recruiter reads to you before the offer letter.

Usually they ask me first. I give them the answer of wanting to know more about the position and the company. They push back and I throw in a number I am comfortable with. But this is usually much before offer letter.

[deleted]

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#335

Post by savorypiano »

jcrites wrote: post #276

I've found that if you are transparent as recruiters and treat them as partners , sharing the offers you've gotten at other companies, they will reciprocate. At one of the Big Tech companies where I interviewed and they ultimately decided not to give me an offer (it was a near thing and I had other offers), the recruiter gave me tips about what other companies she was aware of that were paying well in my area (that I…

I've had it happen multiple times where I tell a recruiter I'm looking for X but will go as low as Y, they simply told the company Y so it'd be easier to close the deal. Even if I specifically ask them not to say Y.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#336

Post by hnrodey »

pbrb wrote: post #323
xyzelement wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closest I have come is managing a lot of recruiting (but still from the engineering side) and I know a few very senior folks who started their own headhunting firms - it's an obvious move given their vast network. I don't know for sure but I suspect most recruiters make a LOT less than the roles they are recruiting for, since generally the skills to make a good recruiter are easier available than those that make an e…

I personally know an engineer who started his own recruiting firm and is making much, much more money than he did as an IC engineer. He also has built a business that he can sell one day.

Pretty much what I was thinking on why this would be a worthwhile opportunity to investigate.

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#338

Post by 908B64B197 »

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #188
908B64B197 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 es…

Now I get it. Thanks

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#339

Post by mkane848 »

Answerawake wrote: post #244
908B64B197 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The serious ones do. There are a lot of recruiters on the market. But it's really no different than the market for lawyers; the median lawyer is a very poor man but the average lawyer is rich. If they can't put a number on the table, they are probably one of those that tries to run a volume game, which I think is a bad approach for engineering. Basically spamming and not giving any info until they get their quotas. T…

How do you end up with a network of the good ones? I have gotten my last job through a recruiter but the process sucked. He took me and my boss for a ride financially. This was in part me not getting many callbacks from any decent companies(Im in the NJ/NYC area) so I was desperate to accept and part my current manager not knowing what he should be paying for this and that type of developer. While I love my job and m…

Fellow NJ programmer here - have you had much luck finding stuff in Central Jersey? Red Bank to Toms River sorta area.

I'm currently working in Red Bank and have been having a hell of a time finding places that don't seem miserable or just short contract work that I'm not interested in lol

Re: Interview advice that got me offers

#340

Post by mkane848 »

chestervonwinch wrote: post #190
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.

Apparently if you spend all your time either working or interviewing, even at places you don't want to wind up, it'll all just come together perfectly because that's all your schedule is.

These threads get depressing real fast.

Post reply on HN