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Flunking my Anthropic interview again

taylor.town

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Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#31

Post by postalcoder »

kashunstva wrote: post #12

I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities. Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) va…

It's a personal blog. I didn't read this as an employer. Someone greener may read this and think "this guy is really hard on himself but, unlike me, he's done so much more! Maybe we'll always feel this way so I should just be kinder to myself."

The modern internet is stuffed to the gills with branding and bravado. Some vulnerability is fine.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#32

Post by iLoveOncall »

whatamidoingyo wrote: post #9
iLoveOncall wrote: post #4

> take-home assignment That's the point at which I would have stopped the process personally.

> That's the point at which I would have stopped the process personally. Why is that? I love take-home assignments. At least, if it's just an initial get-to-know-you interview, and then the assignment. What I utterly despise is the get-to-know-you interview, then a tech interview with the entire dev team, then a take-home, then a meeting with the CTO. I will never, ever, ever go through with any job that has an inter…

Because it's time theft?

Why would I spend 4 hours (in the best case scenario, otherwise days) on the very first step of the application process, where, regardless of my resume, I have an extremely high chance to be rejected, while the company puts literally no time in?

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#33

Post by julianeon »

kashunstva wrote: post #12

I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities. Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) va…

This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill.

At this point, having proved that can do something commercially valuable a couple times now, I think they should run with it. Start a YouTube channel. Keep racking up views. Then, eventually, do partnerships and sponsorships, in addition to collecting AdSense money.

If you like to write or perform for other people, you can monetize that now. This person is good at it. They should continue.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#34

Post by surprisetalk »

postalcoder wrote: post #31
kashunstva wrote: post #12

I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities. Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) va…

It's a personal blog. I didn't read this as an employer. Someone greener may read this and think "this guy is really hard on himself but, unlike me, he's done so much more! Maybe we'll always feel this way so I should just be kinder to myself." The modern internet is stuffed to the gills with branding and bravado. Some vulnerability is fine.

Author here! Thanks for this. This is exactly what I want people to feel :) I'm willing to hurt my chances if it helps others

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#35

Post by almostgotcaught »

julianeon wrote: post #33
kashunstva wrote: post #12

I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities. Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) va…

This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill. At this point, having proved that can do something commercially valuable a couple times now, I think they should run with it. Start a YouTube channel. Keep racking up views. Then, eventually, do partnerships and sponsorships, in addition to collecting AdSense money. If you like to write or perfor…

> This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill.

In general yes, wrt HN it's not; literally in this second post he bemoans that the first one didn't pay off for him.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#37

Post by corytheboyd »

busterarm wrote: post #26
corytheboyd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe a good point, but honestly, interviewers barely read resumes, they’re very, very likely not going to read your blog, or remember “hey it’s the person from that blog post I ready 7 weeks ago.”

> interviewers barely read resumes I feel like this is the biggest lie ever told in this industry. Do you, as an interviewer, not read resumes? I read loads of resumes and the truth is more like everyone are terrible communicators. Especially software engineers. Most resumes are badly formatted, badly typeset, full of errors and give me confusing/contradictory details about what your job responsibilities were rather…

I’m a little confused, because first you challenge me, but then come to the exact conclusion that resumes are largely unreadable. I’ll look for something they claim to have done to dig deep on, see if it’s BS or not, but I’m not reading every X by Y% with my jaw on the floor. FWIW I’m generally on the back side of the process, where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#38

Post by dakiol »

julianeon wrote: post #33
kashunstva wrote: post #12

I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities. Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) va…

This is the age of social media. This person has hit the front page of HN twice now. That's a commercially valuable skill. At this point, having proved that can do something commercially valuable a couple times now, I think they should run with it. Start a YouTube channel. Keep racking up views. Then, eventually, do partnerships and sponsorships, in addition to collecting AdSense money. If you like to write or perfor…

You think too much of HN.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#39

Post by whatamidoingyo »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #32
whatamidoingyo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the point at which I would have stopped the process personally. Why is that? I love take-home assignments. At least, if it's just an initial get-to-know-you interview, and then the assignment. What I utterly despise is the get-to-know-you interview, then a tech interview with the entire dev team, then a take-home, then a meeting with the CTO. I will never, ever, ever go through with any job that has an inter…

Because it's time theft? Why would I spend 4 hours (in the best case scenario, otherwise days) on the very first step of the application process, where, regardless of my resume, I have an extremely high chance to be rejected, while the company puts literally no time in?

Well, that's different. If it's a super challenging take-home, with requirements that exceed 1 page, then yeah, I'd agree. Most take-homes that I've received have been super simple, though. And they're usually not the first step, but the final step, in my experience.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#40

Post by busterarm »

corytheboyd wrote: post #37
busterarm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> interviewers barely read resumes I feel like this is the biggest lie ever told in this industry. Do you, as an interviewer, not read resumes? I read loads of resumes and the truth is more like everyone are terrible communicators. Especially software engineers. Most resumes are badly formatted, badly typeset, full of errors and give me confusing/contradictory details about what your job responsibilities were rather…

I’m a little confused, because first you challenge me, but then come to the exact conclusion that resumes are largely unreadable. I’ll look for something they claim to have done to dig deep on, see if it’s BS or not, but I’m not reading every X by Y% with my jaw on the floor. FWIW I’m generally on the back side of the process, where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.

> where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.

I think that's a mistake, personally. Each interviewer needs to make an independent decision and relying on the judgement of a screener early in the process is giving that person disproportionate weight towards hiring for your team. Usually that resume screener is someone in HR. Would you trust them to decide who your team hires?

Your posts do indicate that maybe there is a larger segment of folks who don't read resumes than I realize...My amount of rigor may only come after being involved in some catastrophically bad hiring decisions. Like someone I made the deciding vote to hire was stalking multiple employees, was a heavy drug user, did zero work of value and ultimately crashed and burned by getting arrested for coming at someone with a knife. For years HR wouldn't let us fire that person because of their protected class and multiple false claims they made against a large number of employees.

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