Hacker News Reader

Comment by deeptote | Hacker News Reader

The lesson here is to be overemployed, do at least one interview process a quarter, and understand that companies don't give AF about you.

View on HN

That is a big lesson I learned. I worked at a job for 8 years without looking elsewhere and when I got laid off I was really stuck because the market and interviewing circuit had completely changed.

I'm not sure it's a good trade-off to interview constantly even when you have a job just to remove a bit of the learning curve if you lose your job unexpectedly.

I recommend it. For me, unused skills will become inaccessible relatively quickly, and interviews require a specific set that aren't used at all in any of my jobs over the years.

Once, I did heavy interview prep because I was bored with my job at the time, I got good at it, and landed another better job.

A year later my company deleted entire orgs of people, and I quickly realized that I was in bad shape when my third rejection rolled in.

Interviews are high pressure situations. Better to be used to the flow, coding, and conversation style (again, think "sales") than to be caught off guard, worrying about whether you've solved a Leetcode question fast enough to satisfy another human with their own grading quirks.

Oh, and that person is standing between you and a steady paycheck. That's the part I have to practice anyway, solving stupid university final problems when my livelihood is on the line.

It's a good idea to practice if you're trying to get up the nerve to make the jump to a better job. But during a job search, you'll either get so many rejections that you'll get back up to speed quickly enough without needing to also obsess about it while you're employed, or you're hireable enough that you didn't need to worry about it either way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com