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Comment by incision | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth...

I'm no rockstar, but I can honestly claim to be pretty comfortable in technical interviews. I chalk that comfort up to two main things.

1) A mentality that says something like...

"I'm good, I'm solid. Fuck this guy."

The point isn't the specific words, or expressing this outwardly, it's about getting into a mental state of calm confidence, pushing out the anxiety and concerning yourself only with the moment.

2) Talking with and being challenged by smart people on a regular basis. Ideally people who are smarter and/or more knowledgeable than yourself. I expect being the big fish in a small pond generally works against this.

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I don't usually think of it as "Fuck this guy", but rather, "I can help this company." There's a lot implicit in that statement - that I want to help this company, that this company can be helped, etc. But fundamentally, it's that I am offering more to my employer than they are offering to me. If they choose not to take me, that is their loss.

Actually, that seems to be a good mentality to build confidence in general. I've heard (I haven't managed it yet) that the secret to getting girls is to think of offering them the chance to be with you - you aren't trying to "get" the girl, but rather offering your companionship and emotional investment to a suitable girl who's willing to take it. The secret to networking is to offer favors to people in need of them. The secret to negotiation is to offer something of value to the other side and ask for something that they value less in return.

Bingo. Treat the interviewer like an intelligent student in a class you are teaching => win.

This is my secret to interviewing and speaking as well. On the inside I repeat, "Fuck this guy" or "I could beat the shit out of everyone in this audience" even though I don't truthfully want to cause harm to anybody. It helps surpress the deer-in-highlights fear resulting from being in the spotlight.

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