Bill Gates Gives Brilliant 30s Answers to Common Job Interview Questions | Hacker News Reader

Bill Gates Gives Brilliant 30s Answers to Common Job Interview Questions

forbes.com

25 pointsevo_98 comments

I don't know if these answers are brilliant or not, but if you're reading this and are an entry level software engineer trying to get a job at Microsoft, don't take this advice, it's terrible.

But I don't think you'll be asked these questions. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Why should we hire you? Come on, that's ridiculous. All the interviews I've been in were trying to get answers to those questions, of course, but I've never seen them posed directly. Focus first on algorithms, leetcode, etc.

As for salary: if you approach Microsoft and talk about options you will sound uniformed, because equity at companies like MSFT is in the form of RSUs. You should say something vague about how you expect an overall compensation package in line with the market, and let it be known that you are comparing various options. Once they make the offer, you will counter by telling them that company X offered you such and such, and they will raise their offer. Sometimes markedly.

Not everyone has multiple offers to pit companies against each other.

you don't have to tell the truth. it's a job, not the supreme court.

I agree. An interview is a like a date, both parties have to be happy with the other and these questions are impossible to answer except from a positon of weakness. I thought we'd consigned this nonsense to the bin ages ago. And people wonder at the lack of diversity in hires and pay diffences by personal characteristic.

You have to ask yourself, how many job interviews has Bill had and when was the last one ?

Zero and never.

Unfortunately, in my experience, I've always had to back up responses like these with concrete examples which turn long winded and awkward (as I am a poor speaker and don't have any elevator speeches prepared).

> Ambition and passion

I have to detail specific contributions or projects that I work on when this could be gleaned from looking at my Github.

> Strengths and weakness

I have to talk about specific scenarios where my strengths come into play or scenarios where I overcome or work around a weakness. I can't just claim I'm good/bad at things.

As Bruce Lee famously said, "Boards don't hit back"

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