Hacker News Reader

Comment by gleenn | Hacker News Reader

The very last bit of the article interestingly stated that they author wouldn't spend time doing prep again, they would only make sure they applied with a referral. I definitely agree, it's kind of a blight on our industry that the interview process is so contorted compared to the actual work we're supposed to do.

View on HN

I think it's because he's on the eng management track. I don't think they're asking hard leetcode questions.

Then why is he making ~$500k/yr?

I thought maybe the author meant that they'd retain enough of the months of prep that they'd already done.

Generally, once you've practiced enough to clear most tech rounds once - it's not too difficult to do it again. If I'm going in for an interview then I might still need to spend ~1-2 weeks practicing again to do well. Earlier in my career I spent months practicing LC.

Eh, I'm 8 years into the same company now, have been shipping the entire time across multiple teams, wearing multiple hats, etc., and am 15 years into my career. I'd have to put some non-trivial effort into refreshing my memory of a great deal of the sorts of things that are (anecdotally) commonplace in interview settings today. And with a full-time job and 3 young kids, time is hard to come by.

8 years ago, I spent time with CtcI, etc., and was immensely prepared to interview but, for me, that's all largely lost to the ages now.

> they would only make sure they applied with a referral.

How is referral useful in general. You still have to go through the whole song and dance anyways?

Depends, if you have a specific enough referral to a particular hiring manager they could decide to stack the interview loop towards easy success

Some companies never respond so it could help get the first call. Maybe if two candidates are otherwise equal but one has a great referral it might help. At smaller companies it definitely helps, I definitely remember calling referrals to get eh scoop on people but that might not be as true at the mega corps.

Until the recent two years, no referral means no response whatsoever, for me anyway... referral usually guarantees I will hear back, even if it is rejection, all else equal, including the exact same resume of mine.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I work for a bigg-ish Tech, and the bulk of the new hires are referrals. Very very few candidates get hired without referral. The referral fee is so high, the hiring manager is usually inundated with candidates the moment a role is available. Very seldom do we need to seriously consider non-referred candidates.

At the very least referrals almost always bump you up the list. At best they can put you on the fast track for a position. IMO they are worth more than anything else you can do to get a job, so long as they are genuine.

He's a manager.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com