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Flunking my Anthropic interview again

taylor.town

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Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#281

Post by mac-mc »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #235
roadside_picnic wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the coding assistant interview focused on writing (what I felt was) an insane volume of code in a short period of time. I had a bunch of these my last round of interviews, and am not convinced most companies even know what they want from these or how to assess. In the majority of cases it was clear to me the interviewers never even read the code I had submitted. As an example, one company wanted a full AI Question/…

Did you get offended when they rejected your day of work without even commenting? I guess they could've at least flattered you a bit saying it was impressive, but they had to go with another candidate for reasons. I know I'd be pissed if the work did go uncommented.

I tend to reject full on large homework assignments like that unless I get a guarantee of feedback.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#282

Post by com2kid »

corytheboyd wrote: post #17
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…

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.”

As a hiring manager, I've read blogs. Heck when reviewing a stack of resumes, "has a technical blog" almost certainly moves a candidate to a consider pile and they are probably getting a callback in the very least.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#283

Post by shepherdjerred »

Last year I applied to Anthropic. I did one of those HackerRank assessments and scored 49/50 on my implementation of a K/V store with TTL, get/put/append, and some other operations I can't remember.

Right after that, they said there were no positions available. It was pretty disappointing.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#284

Post by com2kid »

joshdavham wrote: post #62
amarcheschi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have to meet a person in computer science who isn't weird

Most CS people I know aren’t weird and are actually pretty corporate and conformist. But at the same time, the people I know who do open source are some of the weirdest people I know haha

The ratio changed after software engineering became a way to make a lot of money. It used to be there were a handful of well paying gigs and a bunch of "pretty good" jobs, but SE wasn't a huge outlier.

Once people flooded the field to make money, things changed. Used to be if I met another software engineer they'd 100% geek out over technology, CPU architectures, programming languages, etc. It wasn't ever just a job.

Or to put it another way, Microsoft used to be filled with people rocking back and forth in their chairs avoiding eye contact discussing cool tech things. When I went on my interview loop at MSFT I discussed the mornings Slashdot headlines with every person who interviewed me.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#285

Post by iamcreasy »

commandersaki wrote: post #233
PNewling wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me more about this privacy request you submitted. I wasn’t aware this was a thing.

Not much to it really; took about a month round trip time to get the data; I had to authenticate myself but that was relatively straightforward since I could use my account with the organisation which I used to submit the job application to also perform the authentication (though the actual process is a bit bizarre). Take Amazon for example that has a privacy query page: https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/request-d…

Thanks for sharing. I wonder if it is possible to do in the US.

Also, can you kindly elaborate on what you meant by 'bad read of the situation'?

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#286

Post by com2kid »

KerryJones wrote: post #100

I recently interviewed for Anthropic, 6 rounds, recruiter was great, said they were putting together an offer letter. I met one of the managers, then another came back from vacation... and then they decided not to give me an offer. I asked for feedback, and the recruiter sounded frustrated (about the internal process), because they had a moving bar on what was wanted from the hiring managers. I know I hadn't complete…

I had an interview at a big tech company last year where I had a verbal offer letter which then got rescinded when a VP went over my interview feedback and decided I didn't come across as enough of a team player!

That feedback occurred immediately after another interview where I failed because I didn't show enough individual drive, I had talked too much about working in my team.

The irony was a bit too much.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#287

Post by benregenspan »

SoftTalker wrote: post #258
swat535 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you but the older I get, the less I take anything in life personal. I've come to realize that there are so many aspects of life that are not under one's control and shaking your fist gravity doesn't accomplish anything; even more so when it comes to business and professional relationships. One of my favorite quotes is from "Deuteronomy 18:13", or as the The Coen Brothers aptly put it: - "Receive wi…

Not that I’m religious but I looked up that verse and don’t see how the Coen Brothers got that message from it.

It's the Coen Brothers quoting rabbinical commentary on the verse, not interpreting the verse themselves.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#288

Post by eszed »

ip26 wrote: post #192
eszed wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I've hired in a number of roles, in several industries, and what they've all had in common is that rejection is never personal. My first career was in theatre, which a) is (or at least was, back in the day?) much more competitive than tech - par was one callback (ie, second screening) per 100 auditions, and one casting per 10 callbacks; and b) is genuinely, deeply vulnerable - you have to bring your whole self…

It's never personal You never screened candidates who couldn’t act their way out of a wet paper bag?

Of course I have. I'm thinking of a couple of them right now, and I admire the hell out of them: it took courage to get up there and do what they did. I wasn't going to cast them in that show, right then, but within the limits of the time available I did my best to help them improve. I hoped they did, and I wished them nothing but the best.

I'm glad you brought that up, because it might be the exception that proves the rule. Those auditions did feel more personal, but it was entirely benign: I was rooting for them to succeed, and really felt for them when it became obvious (especially to them) that they had not.

Maybe it's not like that with other fields, or other companies, or other people - but if not, then that's not somewhere anyone should have to work. There's no incompatibility between high standards and human decency.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#289

Post by benregenspan »

iamcreasy wrote: post #285
commandersaki wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much to it really; took about a month round trip time to get the data; I had to authenticate myself but that was relatively straightforward since I could use my account with the organisation which I used to submit the job application to also perform the authentication (though the actual process is a bit bizarre). Take Amazon for example that has a privacy query page: https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/request-d…

Thanks for sharing. I wonder if it is possible to do in the US. Also, can you kindly elaborate on what you meant by 'bad read of the situation'?

It's at a state level in the US, so it's necessary to look up your state's privacy laws (California was the first to adopt comprehensive privacy legislation but others have followed). TBH I had never thought about its applicability to hiring process information, since the laws are framed more as a "consumer" right, but it seems possible it's covered under some of these laws.

Re: Flunking my Anthropic interview again

#290

Post by vicnov »

JimmyBuckets wrote: post #203
anigbrowl wrote: post #155

Dear Author, the internet is not your friend, but a kind of alien intelligence - vast, cool, and unsympathetic, in HG Wells' formulation. Publicly melting down (even anonymously) is not going to help you; if anything, you'll just end up feeling more isolated. You need to work out your self-image issues with a person instead of projecting them onto your environment. That person might be a friend of therapist, or sever…

This makes me sad. Please don't speak to people like this. The small pieces of humanity that people sincerely share are about the only thing that it is worth living for. What a dark world we would live in when our public sphere is filled with insincerity. I can't infer anything about you from a single comment but it must be incredibly isolating and lonely to talk to you when you are in this mindset. I can see your go…

They spoke with respect and pointed out that, from the point of career growth, they may need to talk to someone. They pointed out that there might be more effective ways of dealing with what the blog post author is going through. This comment didn't make me sad at all, if anything I appreciated it.
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