Ask HN: Retaking Failed Technical Interviews | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Retaking Failed Technical Interviews

4 pointsdlivingston5 comments

About a month ago, I went through a round of interviews at both Apple and Microsoft. I received very positive feedback on my background and experience, but ultimately failed the technical interviews.

Since then, I’ve studied and “grinded” LeetCode obsessively and feel confident that I would pass most technical interviews.

Can I email the recruiters from those failed interviews, asking to be reinterviewed for similar positions now that I’m more prepared?

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If you want to apply through the standard recruiting process, it might be better if you waited 3 to 12 months after your previous interview before reapplying. Most Big Tech companies have a waiting period--either informal or formal--before top-of-the-funnel job applicants can apply again.

However, if there is a specific engineering manager at the company who has open headcount and is excited about hiring you, then they might be able to convince the company to waive the waiting period and treat your previous failed interview like it did not happen. I've seen this happen at a few companies, but not specifically Microsoft or Apple.

Usually, there is a cool off period of 6 months up to a year. I would suggest you to keep practicing and apply to more companies in 6 months.

FAANGs don't typically block you from retrying again later, but I'm not aware of them allowing you to do it right away.

If they haven't specified when you can try again already, you could ping the recruiter and ask. I'm guessing it wouldn't be anything less than 6 months, though, judging by what I've seen by my own failed attempts :).

Of course! Never hurts to ask. I wouldn't assume they'll say yes but you never know, I bet it's pretty rare for people to ask that so it may even stand out as a positive.

Yes but they may rate-limit you on getting more interviews (like they may tell you that you can try again next year).

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