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Comment by kinai | Hacker News Reader

"I could feel my frustration rise as I am struggling to come up with a solution on a whiteboard....yep, I am definitely not going to pass this interview. I ran out of time before coming up with a working solution."

Instead of standing there with nothing its better to be straight up and just say "No idea mate" and then name reasons why that is but how you'd solve it in a normal situation. It is a lot about human psychology, showing them that they want/need you, not vice versa.

Sometimes all it takes is balls and a good amount of "I don't give a fuck" attitude.

I wouldn't let anyone treat me like Sahat got treated.

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Funny. I'm like that too, if the interviewer isn't focused on the actual position and what I'd be doing in it and the problem solving and knowledge surrounding the actual work I'd be doing on a day to day basis, I bail because it's a bad sign to me that I'm talking to people who are way too comfortable wasting time.

But luckily I'm usually in the hiring manager's chair these days and my interviews aren't easy but they're not a stupid game.

Yea I once left during an interview when I realized that I don't want to work there anyway (the atmosphere told me).

Incidentally, I interviewed a guy yesterday and we whiteboarded a real problem we had encountered last week. He couldn't solve the problem we presented and really didn't even try to dig in much. I was surprised how unwilling he was to dig in so I started asking him about his own environment and tried to get him to describe other problems he's solved and how they might relate. He couldn't really do it even with that being so open ended. At the end of the interview I came away with the impression he was just turning knobs at his other jobs and didn't have much of a chance to think for himself. In this case more enthusiasm would have gone a long way for him because if he could have shown me mastery over the things he did know I would have been willing to teach/train him on the many things he didn't know yet.

Obviously one has to be smart about this attitude :) I am not saying acting arrogant/Idontcare will always be a good thing. Just the right amount of it so you don't come across as a scared little applicant.

But as I said earlier its usually bad to stand in silence with no answer and let time run out. Better to admit whats going on and try to explain what the issue is.

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