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Comment by nilawafer | Hacker News Reader

In my experience, it doesn't matter what skills or experience you have in tech, it is only your interviewing skills that count in the getting-a-new-gig game. Start doing interviews anywhere you don't want to work, just for practice, then after your have done 10-20 of those, move on to the places you actually want to work for. YMMV

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"In my experience, it doesn't matter what skills or experience you have in tech, it is only your interviewing skills that count in the getting-a-new-gig game."

This has been the opposite of my experience.

I tend to interview very well... at least in the past. My confidence is shit now. I had mediocre skills then (deteriorated now). But I had a wealth of situations to pull from when they wanted me to tell them about certain times in my career. The code screens always killed me because I bounced between tech and teams too much to become a true expert. Now, this was at midlevel positions, not the higher level stuff the OP is looking at. I would hope the code screens are less of an issue for them. I'm fucked though.

Ironic to give this advice with so many people on HN and elsewhere bitter about companies ghosting them after interviews. I wonder how employers might adapt their recruitment processes if practice interviews become a thing.

Not saying it’s a bad idea but it does seem a little bad faith.

This is kind of why I haven't replied directly to this one yet. I don't know how I feel, ethically, about wasting interviewers time. I've been on the hiring side of the table a ton in the last 13 years (just not on the other side of the table) and I'm not sureI'd be trilled if I found out candidates were doing this to me.

With that said, ethics aside, it does seem like a solid way to get practice.

I suppose you've fundraised at some point in the past 13 years. If you have, the advice you probably received was to start with the tier 3 VCs, hone your pitch, and move on to the VCs you really wanted to work with once you had your pitch nailed.

The same principle applies here. The more interviews you do, the more comfortable you'll get, the better it'll go. And who knows, it might work out with one of the first companies you interview at!

That sounds like a good idea but oddly enough the first startup (the one I was at 10 years) only raised a friend and family and we were able to land customers and bootstrap from that and the second one I bootstrapped out of a little cash I got from the first one so no investors to go to per say.

Thanks for the advice, though!

> if practice interviews become a thing

They've always been a thing; at least in SV.

No, not always. I have worked in the software business too long to buy the “always” line. Even if true that doesn’t make it OK to waste the time of multiple people who go through an interview in good faith.

People who need to practice tech interviews, while probably optimizing for the wrong thing, have plenty of resources available to do that.

It's important to practice story telling in an interview. And the best way to practice is to do actual interviews at place you don't want to work. It also boosts moral to get offers from these places knowing you have a backup plan.

Practice interviews only makes you skilled at interviewing for places that you don't want to work.

yeah, the thing is tech interviewing skill don't compound or accumulate. you can get a job today, work for a year or two. it doesn't mean you've become good at interviewing. you will just be back where you started.

yeah, it sucks OP couldn't make his startups work. but if there's anything with a negative ROI in terms of learning it's interviews. you can do leetcode / behavioural etc, after 2/3 years it doesn't mean you're now a pro - if you stopped doing it

find places that appreciate builders OP. and that have less than 3 interview rounds.

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