Ask HN: How to change jobs with almost no interviewing experience?

interviewing.io comes up on HN fairly often. Does anyone have experience with them? On the surface it looks nice and might be "just the thing" in this situation, but can anyone pitch in with whether or not there is substance to it?

Wow the answers are bad. I can tell you for sure practice does nothing and can actually turn into confidence which can be read as arrogance. Researching the company is also a waste of time, it will maybe give you a 5% boost.

The reality is that people that do the hiring are usually workaholics, so they turned interviews into dating. The only way to get a job is if all the people involved like you outside the job.

So look into networking, nepotism and cronyism.

This is the best advice. Interviewing is not like riding a bike. It’s not something you master and then pass all subsequent interviews.

Go and interview. Most importantly, don’t get discouraged by rejection and ghosting.

One thing you can practice is leetcode if you are applying for programmer jobs. This gets a bad rap in some circles but the reality is that coding exercises often are part of the interview process. It’s hard to pass these without practice for many people.

Ask friends or strangers online to interview you and give feedback. I do this a lot with my team and do mock interviews. I want my team to promote and make more money. Maybe you can ask your boss for a mock interview and show them a position you are interested in. Lot's of resources to leverage. Hell I bet a lot of people here would help you out.

My piece of advice is to remember your star format, and if you don't know exactly how to do something. Tell them, and then walk them through how you would do it based on what you know. tldr; throw a hashmap at it.

The key to interviewing well and confidently is to understand that you are not the only one being interviewed. You are interviewing them! And you want to ask probing questions that reveal the employer's mindset and working conditions.

Many employers go into these discussions thinking that they are going to put you under the microscope. But if you direct hard questions in their direction, the power dynamic changes. Suddenly they are trying to convince you that you should work for them.

One of the best questions to ask early in interviews is "Outside of what's in the job description, what are the qualities that you are looking for in the ideal candidate?" Then you can frame your responses in a manner that aligns with their description.

Another great question to ask: "What are the circumstances that led to the availability of this position?" I asked this question recently and the employer revealed that 1) a former employee in that position had left, and (after further probing) 2) this employer tended to hire inexperienced engineers, who frequently left after a couple years to pursue better jobs. Needless to say, that info prompted me to end the conversation.

Remember: It's far better to be rejected by a good employer than it is to end up working for a shitty one because you didn't ask the right questions.