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Comment by mcluck | Hacker News Reader

> If you’re unsure, think about the last job interview you did, and remember how there was no computer around in the interview room — just your interviewers, a blank sheet of paper, and a blue ball-point pen.

I haven't had an interview like this in about 10 years

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I'm trying to think... I've had about 30 contracts and a lot more interviews than that.

The only one I remember that involved a sheet of paper was 20 printed pages of code which I had to find the bugs in. And that was actually quite a fun exercise. (I did apparently find more bugs than most, I also subsequently found some bugs in their contract and NDA.)

I had one a few weeks back like this.

It was a strong signal I didn't want to work there.

There were even stronger signals that followed. It was by far my worst interview ever, I haven't really gotten over it yet.

It even caused me to sign up to glassdoor just so I could leave a negative review.

Had a couple like that, the relief from not ever having to work with those people lasted longer than the trauma from the interview. Look on the bright side, at least you didn't get the job!

5 years for me, but yeah live coding is always done on a screen these days. I mean

- whiteboard / paper is just so slow

- extremely poor editing functionality on whiteboard / paper

- some people's handwriting is not legible

Yeah, I struggle to read my own handwriting sometimes. If an interviewer would require len and paper it would be ... interesting.

Also unrealistic and non sensical exercise. Feels like it would be much easier to bs as well. When you have actual compiler and tests, try to bs that.

Yeah the last job interview I did was me and two other developers on a zoom meeting, with me sharing my screen while I typed out puzzle solutions in codepen.io

I can’t even think of the last time I did an interview without a computer in the room.

Really not sure this is relevant to me.

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