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Comment by tmoertel | Hacker News Reader

Can I offer you some advice? An interview is a negotiation. The rules aren't fixed. If you're asked to do something that won't give a reliable measurement of your ability, say so and offer the interviewer a better option. You'll probably get what you want.

In the scenario you described, I might try something like this: "I think I see what you're trying to measure by asking that question, but it assumes a working style that is foreign to me. So that you can get a better reading of what I can really do, would you mind if we used my laptop, with you looking over my shoulder, as I solved a problem of similar difficulty?"

An interview is a negotiation. If you want to change it, just ask. Most interviewers will be happy to agree to any changes that will help them get a better read on your true abilities.

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It may be a negotiation but it is a very asymmetrical one. That by itself might be the root cause of a lot of the anxiety.

True. But it's not nearly so asymmetrical as most people seem to believe. Most interviewers aren't great at interviewing and know it. They're usually open – surprisingly open – to changes that will help them conduct a more reliable interview.

Upvoted for this remark.

If I'm interviewing you, it means that we already think you are worth talking to. I don't want to waste either my time or yours. If what I'm asking you to do makes you uncomfortable, TELL ME! I can think of the last two people I interviewed who gave me a series of immediate "I don't know..." answers to a bunch of questions. They're happily (I hope!) working here now because we changed the interviews to go down productive paths to find out what they do know instead of beating our heads against a wall!

Also in most cases the person interviewing you wants to be able to say yes. They need someone for their team and probably have other things they'd rather be doing than recruitment.

So true! Employers are investing so much time in the preliminary recruiting, filtering, and scheduling- by the time a face-to-face interview comes around you can guarantee they are interested in you. Candidates can make their job much easier (and perhaps land the gig) simply by anticipating their questions and concerns. Come prepared, ready to prove your qualifications and all their questions just might go out the window anyway.

I feel like focusing on the asymmetry of it is a large part of the problem. If you're not walking into the interview prepared to disqualify these people as potential employers, that is doing a disservice to yourself.

I wish I could agree with you.

But the interview process is such a time suck (not to mention that you have to nick out on your regular job which you can only do so many times for a half a day before they get wise) that by the time you are walking into an office for an interview, you've already made a non-trivial commitment. You can only repeat it a handful of times (assuming you have another job or are otherwise professionally engaged) before it becomes a real burden.

Now, if you are unemployed and you have a substantial financial cushion or can pick up enough 'anytime/anyplace' freelance work, sure, interview with 5 companies a week, take your time and be picky. But how many job seekers are in such an ideal position?

Companies are chock full of asymmetric negotiations. Aside from obvious things like discussions with your manager, companies have all sorts of structured and unstructured power asymmetries.

If employees are continuously forced to justify their employment through impractical challenges with failure resulting in summary dismissal, that would be a toxic work environment. The power dynamics are not the same, and it's disingenuous to equate them.

So getting to the first principles of your response, you believe that any interview where someone attempts to ascertain your technical abilities is a series of impractical challenges, regardless of the contents of that interview. That in itself seems a bit absurd, as it implies that a company looking to hire an engineer is being impractical if it any way attempts to learn the knowledge that engineer has by speaking to him or her.

You also believe that the power dynamics of an interview are different than the power dynamics of a company, as in an interview making a mistake can mean the difference between being hired and not. I don't disagree with you here, as ultimately making a mistake in an asymmetric negotiation at a company won't always get you fired. In this case, what I was providing a response to my parent comment, that if asymmetric negotiations are a problem for a person then a company will never work for them. These two things are not exactly the same, though I wouldn't fault someone for taking difficulty handling one to imply difficulty handling the other.

What s funnier is, senior people may exchange roles in interviews asymmetrically where sometime A interviews B and sometimes B, A.

It is asymmetrical in a way that disadvantages both parties. For every candidate thinking "I hope they give me a job" there as an interviewer thinking "I hope we can hire this guy." For every candidate hoping they don't have to dig too deep into why they left their last job, there's a company hoping nobody asks too many questions about why the last guy quit.

I get that interviewers often have anxiety about the process, but your statement isn't really true.

In a given interview, sure, he's hoping that he can hire that person, but how many people get interviewed before the position is filled? I'm certain the average is much higher than one.

No matter how much anxiety he might have, he's doesn't have to worry about stuff like paying rent, keeping his car in working order, or feeding his family, because he already has a job.

> It may be a negotiation but it is a very asymmetrical one

Not really - some interviewers may not get that an interview goes both ways, but it really is very much symmetrical. For me at least an interview is the perfect chance to evaluate a company and until now I've declined about 3 job offers simply because I didn't like the conversations I've had with the people doing the interviewing.

The view of (a)symmetry in an interview is very generational. Those who turned 20 in the 90s or earlier are more likely to feel the bottom side of asymmetry, while "Gen Y" or "Millennials" (for lack of better terms) are more likely to simultaneously be interviewing the company for fit with their ideals.

New (inexperienced) hires are also more likely to feel the bottom side of asymmetry, which can counteract the effect for the youngest.

So yes it is, and no it isn't, depending on the candidate and on the company.

And the field. My programming interviews felt surprisingly symmetrical. Every one of my friends who is in another field has far more asymmetry, just due to supply and demand.

I've tried that. The response is always, "This is how we do our interviews. If we changed it for you, it would be hard to compare you to our other applicants".

That's likely to be someone you do not want to work for...

That certainly begs the question about which aspects of the process are even quantifiable.

"Then don't. Toss out this experience if I'm not clearly better."

it appears that the maxim is, Always Be Cocky

No, if you're going to fail at the stupid test some random person dug up, you have nothing to lose by renegotiating.

2 months later: "Gary can do his mockups just fine in MS Paint. We're gonna have to deny that request for a Balsamiq license... mmmkay?"

Yup.

Business theater continues despite evidence it doesn't work. [1] Consider this a signal everything else is broken too. Notice their signals to show you are more than a technical automata to "fill a process void in the value chain".

The best interviews are as casual as possible, and not called interviews.

Good interview process looks like:

- 2 phone screens (recruiter||hr and then hiring manager && closest cowoker, if any)

- webcam screen

- a couple on-sites that may lead to:

- questions about what they've been working on, what's important to them, their career development goals and eventual desired package (that's basically it)

- take someone out to lunch

- play a sport with them [2]

- work on a current problem

- have an adventure

(very important for hiring manager and coworkers to have a say; placing staff under a manager is fail.)

Skip the:

- behavioral questions

Before hiring someone on a temporary project basis. Full time in a reasonable amount of time (average 6 months), or part time if that works better for them. This way, it's cool to feel each other out in the non-creepy professional way and there's no hurt feelings.

[1] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/career/google-admits-bizarr...

[2] I hate all sports, except Scrumball and World Cup.

Surely you don't mean do all those steps? That's an incredibly long process that I definitely wouldn't put up with. If I want to check out 10 companies, I simply can't scale with this unless I'm unemployed.

Wow, it sounds like you're interviewing for a best friend there not a work colleague. I seriously doubt you've ever recruited more than a handful of people using this criteria.

Things have been a little weird at work with how interviews are going so I haven't done this in the last few interviews, but usually I tell the interviewee that I am just trying to figure out their skills, that I want to hire somebody, and if you don't like a question, or have a different way to present your skills to me, please change the course of the interview. Unfortunately it is somewhat rare for people to do so - usually senior people are far more likely to turn it into a conversation and demonstration than a junior person.

I also like the idea of asking the person to give a presentation. Give them an amount of time, to include questions, and they choose the topic. I don't think that works with everybody, so I'd never mandate it, but a lot of people really thrive in that situation. You get to talk about something you know, demonstrate your passion, and so on. The down side is that it can entail a big time commitment from the person.

If an interview is a negotiation, then why interview somewhere that I'm going to have to start off at a weak negotiating standpoint?

Obviously this is predicated on the dev job market being as good as it is, but still. I can just go elsewhere.

You're missing the point. Regardless of the circumstances in which an interview takes place, you can ask for changes. And usually get them. The only way to be guaranteed not to get the changes you want is not to ask.

So, if you ever find yourself in an interview about to go the wrong way, ask.

Sure, but it's still an indicator. If I have to negotiate to get an interview on terms I think are acceptable, how much am I going to have to negotiate every day if I work there?

It's a weakly predictive indicator. Yes, it tells you something, but not much. Extrapolate at your peril.

Look at it this way: Most of the people interviewing you are other programmers – the exact opposite of skilled interviewers. Predicting the day-to-day reality of working with them based on their default interviewing style is just as unreliable as them judging you based on your performance at solving silly brain teasers under stress.

Despite how screwed up this all is, most people are going to end up in many interviews throughout their lives, probably on both sides of the table. So it's best to realize up front that the situation is screwed up but changeable so that when you end up in an interview you'll know to ask for changes.

It would be another indicator for you to suggest change and them either accept it or deny it. You could see how they deal when a curve ball is thrown their way and it gives you some great insight into if you would like to work in the type of environment put forward.

Yes, it's still an indicator. But so is your performance in the interview, correct? But your argument is that your performance in that style of interview is a weak indicator of your actual performance. Then I think it's also fair to grant that a company starting out with the standard interview style is a weak indicator of what it's like to worth there.

If your desirability as an employee is roughly constant, then if you start at a weak negotiating standpoint it's usually because the company's desirability as an employer is high.

Now, it could be that the employer is desirable because they provide a lot of perks that you don't really care about, in which case it's perfectly legit to eschew those perks and interview elsewhere. But oftentimes it's because they provide a bunch of tangible benefits that you do care about. Interesting work. Lots of money. Professional reputation that you can then use to increase your desirability to other employers.

It's usually a good career move to take a job at a place where you have a weak negotiating standpoint, work like hell to learn all the skills you can there, and then use professional reputation gained there to increase your negotiating position with other employers. That requires taking a "one-down" position sometimes and hoping that you get lucky and they like you.

Or, as some folks here are fond of saying, "If you're the smartest person in the room, it's time to find a new room."

I recently went through that process.

Given two options, one out of my comfort zone and one in my comfort zone, I chose to be comfortable.

I realized that the value I add is not being able to complete tasks. The true value I add comes in looking beyond the task and figuring out how to address larger problems.

I've noticed in the past that when I continually don't know what I'm doing, I miss out on opportunities to really add value. While I'm able to figure stuff out and get the assigned task done, at best I come across as competent.

It was a great choice. There are still ample opportunities to learn. At the same time, I feel like I have time and mental capacity (freed up by not continually playing catch up with the team) to find and explore new ideas and improvement.

So when people say "Don't be the smartest person in the room" I would say it is also important to not put yourself in a situation you can barely handle. Having some breathing room will make you better at your job and make you far less stressed out.

>> Can I offer you some advice? An interview is a negotiation.

Probably good advice but most programmers I know including me are terrible negotiators which is why at least I work for the man instead of being a rich entrepreneur with that house at 3000 Ft overlooking the ocean with an unobstructed view.

This is what I do/have done and it has worked well for me. I always bring my laptop and if they ask me to write code (as they invariably do) I pull it out and use it.

That said, whiteboards are still usually better for conveying ideas. If you don't understand the problem you're trying to solve or the data structures you need, you might want to start on the board before sitting down to code.

I've tried something similar once. I got asked about the binary search algorithm. After some high level discussion on the idea behind it, I told the interviewer I hope I won't have to implement it. The algorithm is known for being easy to get wrong [1].

Nevertheless the interviewer asked me to write it down on paper (using python). I've done so, but made a few mistakes. I still got the job offer, so the mistakes weren't a factor. I just wanted to point out that some interviewers are really set in their ways and don't change their minds.

[1] http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2006/06/extra-extra-read-...

>Nevertheless the interviewer asked me to write it down on paper (using python). I've done so, but made a few mistakes. I still got the job offer, so the mistakes weren't a factor

I think this is an important consideration. I do interviews quite often at my current company. And two steps of the interview process is a technical phone interview and a technical on-site interview.

I always ask coding questions, but before I start, I clearly tell the guys that they can use any language they want, and that I do not expect the program to "compile" or parse (in case of interpreted languages). What I always try to read is 1) that the person is not completely lost about programming, 2) What is his approach to solving the problem, and that he can explain it to me.

The problem I have with technical interviews (I also have always hated them when I've been in the interviewee sit), is when interviewers setup an "all or nothing" style. Usually it is because they were told to interview you, but they really don't know to do an interview, so they just read a bunch of problems to you and wait for you to solve them... without trying to read anything from the process.

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