[HN Gopher] Interview success can depend on how you schedule int... ___________________________________________________________________ Interview success can depend on how you schedule interviews Author : tanayagrawal19 Score : 101 points Date : 2021-12-07 16:18 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (tanayagrawal.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (tanayagrawal.substack.com) | 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: | The biggest one that I always forget: don't schedule somewhere | you really care about first. I make this mistake when I look | because it's the place i'm really interested in that convinces me | to start looking in the first place. But then I'm super rusty and | do worse than everywhere else. | version_five wrote: | Yes this is very important. If possible (and people have | already said this is hard), having an interview you don't care | about shortly before one you do care about is a great way to | warm up. Especially if it's been a while. Some time ago, I | switched careers and did a bunch of temporally close | interviews. Once I got going, overall I was performing as good | as I could, because I'd lost a lot of the anxiety and was | practiced and comfortable. Now, if I do a one-of, I'm nervous, | and I'm trying to explain myself out loud for the first time, | it comes out much worse. | chiefalchemist wrote: | The #1 Rule of Thumb I've read and used is: try to be as close to | last as possible. The point being, you want to be fresh in their | minds. Going early is not the way to do that. | chrisBob wrote: | Some places are interviewing for a single open role, conduct | all interviews and then make a decision from that candidate | pool. Being towards the end might be an advantage in that case. | | Other places open up several new roles, and conduct rolling | interviews until all are filled. In this case I would rather | get in early and compete for one of N positions instead of | competing for the final one. With several similar roles open | they could also decide which fits you the best and make the | offer based on that. When there is only one junior position | still open, that might be the only option. | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | This! | chiefalchemist wrote: | Well, yeah. It works for A role. It wouldn't make sense to | wait too long if there was a bunch. That said, at some point | there's a decision to be made. The older their memory of you | at that point, the more forgettable you are. | mushufasa wrote: | Batching is especially helpful when raising money from investors, | to put together a competitive deal. | sombremesa wrote: | Just an FYI, this is written by a PM, likely in reference to PM | interviews. | duxup wrote: | The author and others must be much more in demand than I am. | | I don't find that I get to dictate interview scheduling a great | deal. But then again I haven't interviewed in a while. | daxfohl wrote: | I disagree with not scheduling before holidays. If I like a | candidate I'm not going to forget about that just because of a | holiday. | | The first person that makes a good impression almost always has | an advantage IMO. The hiring manager will remember that person, | and human psychology makes your memory of that interview better | than it actually was. So for someone to unseat you they have to | do significantly better. (And obviously the reverse goes if you | are among the last to interview). I think recency bias would only | into play if the first couple successful candidates reject their | offers or something. | | Most important is to get your resume in early though. After | spending that first weekend with the mind-numbing task of sifting | through hundreds of resumes, a hiring manager is only going to | look at new ones if absolutely nothing works out from the first | batch. | lnanek2 wrote: | As an American, I totally feel the same. But working with some | of my European counterparts, they can just totally disappear | for a month or two when they vacation, like into a black hole. | They just take vacations more seriously. If one of them was a | decider for a hiring decision, we definitely wouldn't hear back | from them until after. Not anything good or bad about it, it's | just a different culture. | decebalus1 wrote: | On a tangent, I'm an American and I disappear for a month | when I take vacation. It probably has something to do with | the fact that I was born in Europe or with getting tired of | half-assing vacations and getting burned out. I'd like for | 'black hole' vacations to be normalized in the American | workplace. I'm doing my part! | conductr wrote: | I'm an American and do this too. Also, I don't take work | home. I leave my laptop at work. It's a signal I do on | purpose and I regularly talk about my life balance | priorities. I don't mind working long hours during projects | or busy times but I like to keep it in the office. So long | as it's infrequent, couple times a year, something may | totally blow up and I'll just go into the office on the | weekend. If I'm out of town or not physically able to make | it, well that means I can't physically pull out my laptop | and dive into my work regardless of my location. I consider | that a "not my problem" situation. I've found, if you give | in to the instant responsiveness and availability, it | becomes expectation. I'm mid-career and have done that, but | at this point I go into jobs setting my terms and don't | mind telling a C level or BOD member they can wait until I | get back in the office. I don't even do that usually | because I just don't respond outside of regular hours. It's | not for everyone, and I may someday alter this, but I find | it suites me at the moment. I have a young child and I'm | not jumping on calls/emails/texting during our already | limited time together. It works just fine but if I were to | do this at a junior level it would have been career | suicide. My experience is what has given me the leverage to | demand my work style. | daxfohl wrote: | I'd imagine if a hiring manager is doing that though, they'd | not schedule interviews straddling the gap. | | The whole article is kind of weird though. The interviewee | doesn't really have that much flexibility in scheduling | interviews. Unless it's for a company with centralized | recruiting that's always hiring, in which case when you | schedule makes no difference at all. | darth_avocado wrote: | Great ideas, they don't work. | | 1. Mornings only is impossible because a lot of interviewer | availability is in the afternoon since for a lot of them, it's an | unproductive task | | 2. Batching sounds good, but doesn't work because different | companies move at different paces and you almost always can't | batch them. You'd be lucky if you could batch 2 onsites back to | back. | | 3. You may not be able to batch subsequent rounds together | because you sometimes may not hear back on time | | 4. Most important of all, none of this takes into account that | you already may be working a demanding job that you cant take | time off from that easily | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | It's much more important to learn how to sell yourself with | honesty and integrity than to follow these tips. Nobody else | can do it for you. | [deleted] | ysavir wrote: | What about these tips lack honesty or integrity? | lief79 wrote: | Nothing, he's just suggesting that as a different, higher | priority. | hooloovoo_zoo wrote: | I wouldn't take 1 too seriously anyway. There's some evidence | for instance that judges are harsher before lunch | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungry_judge_effect. | coffee wrote: | Great thinking on this one! | | The problem is...that we _need_ this level of creative thinking | in the first place. | | We need hacks like this so that we can make it through a | completely broken industries interviewing process. | wppick wrote: | An interview is decided in the first several seconds. First | impressions are a real thing. Most interviewers will decide based | on how you look, act, and talk whether you are going to pass the | interview, and they will confirmation bias you into their | predetermined decision. Of course with an amazing interview | performance you can switch a predetermined no into a yes, and | with a very poor interview you can turn a predetermined yes into | a no. Why do you think the first question most interviewers ask | is something vague and useless like "tell me about yourself"? | That question is the real interview. | | There is also the reality that when companies need to fill a | role, and when first start interviewing they will set the bar way | too high and reject some perfectly qualified candidates. After | the interview process has dragged on for some time they will | eventually decide that enough is enough and will hire the next | candidate that shows basic competence (or just hire someone's | friend). | | BTW, one solution to this I recall being suggested by Eric | Schmidt is to use a hiring committee among other things | bawolff wrote: | > Why do you think the first question most interviewers ask is | something vague and useless like "tell me about yourself"? | | Because people are anxious in interviews, and a lot (but not | all) people calm down a bit if you give them a few minutes to | talk about themselves. | | [To be clear: Not disagreeing with your main point] | nemo44x wrote: | > An interview is decided in the first several seconds. | | I've hired hundreds of people and this is just not true. A | first impression matters a bit, sure - but it has hardly any | effect on the decision. | | > There is also the reality that when companies need to fill a | role, and when first start interviewing they will set the bar | way too high and reject some perfectly qualified candidates | | This is a very poor hiring practice. You should what you're | looking for and what you are willing to pay for it. And then | you should recruit a candidate pool that meets this criteria | and go from there. | | Hiring is literally the most important job a manager has in any | fast growing company. It should be taken very seriously and | systematically. | wppick wrote: | > I've hired hundreds of people and this is just not true. A | first impression matters a bit, sure - but it has hardly any | effect on the decision. | | The thing about confirmation biases are that they are at the | subconscious level and you likely wouldn't be able to detect | them. It's possible that you have an impartial and immune to | confirmation bias interview process, but it's also possible | that you are indeed deciding (skewing) most of your | interviews in the first several seconds. | | > Hiring is literally the most important job a manager has in | any fast growing company. It should be taken very seriously | and systematically | | I agree. Which is why, if it is found that hiring committees | are more effective, and your company isn't using them, then | are you taking them seriously? The same with bonuses and | promotions. These should not be decided by a single person | (manager). | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Certainly both phenomena you describe are real, but we do try | to keep them in check, especially because 'first impression' is | heavily influenced by class, sex, race, physical appearance, | nationality, etc. | foobarian wrote: | I don't know what line of work you are in, but this is | decidedly not true in mine. It's skewed toward candidates | making an excellent first impression but then failing, instead | of the other way around. | wppick wrote: | I can't find the original article that discussed the | confirmation bias effect, but this one is close: | https://www.plum.io/blog/the-issue-with-the-interview- | confir... | foobarian wrote: | Gotcha. I think I was mostly objecting to the first several | words of your comment saying an interview is decided in the | first several seconds :-) | | I'm familiar with that feeling though. I've had several | interviews where I really (subjectively) liked the | candidate, and really wanted them to succeed - but having a | prepared interview plan ended up doing its job and helped | determine that the candidate was not a good match for the | role. | roland35 wrote: | I am pretty heavily involved with interviewing and here is my | take for what it's worth: | | - Yes try to schedule ASAP, although it gets so complicated | lining up availability I don't think it is possible to aim for | mornings vs afternoons. | | - Try to read between the lines in the job listing. How does it | align with the company's goals/growth? What aspects seem | important? Try to focus on that. Example: I noticed company ABC | is hiring a few hardware engineers for the first time. I would | highlight how I can work independantly and my skills in building | a new hardware team | | - Be enthusiastic about things besides the tech stack. I am | surprised how many people I interview who don't seem to care much | about the job beyond if we use Java vs Python. | | - Just be yourself... | elevanation wrote: | While this is an interesting optimization strategy, getting and | applying professional feedback for one's interview skills has a | better ROI in my opinion. | | If you're amazing at interviews, the interviewer will remember | you and want to hire you. They will even rave about you to their | colleagues... "Hey, this person was awesome, we need to hire | them." | | Accomplish that special human ability, and you don't have to | worry about such micro-optimisations. | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | Absolutely agree! | lijogdfljk wrote: | Can you recommend how to go about this? It's the first i've | heard of this strategy, and interviews are a big fear of mine. | I would have assumed most of these "pay for feedback" things to | be scams in one way or another. Thoughts? | mitchdoogle wrote: | Don't pay for feedback. Do some mock interviews with friend | and family and ask them for feedback | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | I have a side-business providing mock tech interviews with | unlimited time for feedback. Contact me if you are interested | (including "why is this random guy on HN qualified to provide | this kind of service") | UncleOxidant wrote: | > If you're amazing at interviews... Accomplish that special | human ability | | "It's easy, you just..." | | Most of us are not amazing at interviews so telling people to | be amazing at interviews isn't too helpful. Interview feedback | tends to be pretty sparse. Often you don't hear anything back | unless you got the job. Even if you do get a "no" response it | will be light on details (and it's usually this way due to | legal concerns). It's difficult to improve a skill when there's | little or no feedback and what feedback you do get is vague. | wpietri wrote: | For sure. | | And I also am not sure I want to work at a place where being | really good at interview skills is what gets people jobs. The | correlation between "interviews well" and "collaborative, | productive coworker" isn't very strong. | Kranar wrote: | Definitely has not been my experience. People who interview | well are generally excellent communicators and | communication is of utmost importance when working with a | team. | Zancarius wrote: | This was my thought as well. | | Also, generally being likeable makes a positive impact on | people. Teams would much rather someone they feel they | can work well with than someone who is going to be a | total stick in the mud and drag everyone down. | wbsss4412 wrote: | Are you implying there is a negative correlation or no | correlation? | | Unfortunately "being good at interviews" is generally what | gets people jobs everywhere, so I'm not sure what point | you're making to begin with. | mitchdoogle wrote: | How are you determining your lack of correlation ? Is there | data on this somewhere? | | Because I would assume that people who study and prepare | for the interview are more likely to be studious and | prepared in other aspects of life, including their | workplace. | wpietri wrote: | I have worked with a number of people who are really good | at interviewing and then continue to focus on impressing | important people and climbing ladders, but without being | particularly skilled and/or particularly collaborative. | | I have also worked with a number of people who are quite | bad at interviewing but were excellent colleagues: highly | collaborative and technically excellent. | | When I create hiring processes, it's the latter people I | try to select for. So assorted coworkers aside, the data | I have come from those hiring processes. The glibbest and | most charming people often do poorly in the pair | programming portion; the most awkward often settle down | into doing excellent work once you get them in a familiar | context. | | Some people are great at both, of course, and some people | are bad at both. Which should be unsurprising given the | number of people recommending a focus on developing | interview skills. The whole idea requires that job skill | and interview skill are not well correlated. | mitchdoogle wrote: | If you wanted to learn to play the piano, how would you do | it? You'd get lessons, or watch videos, or read a book. You'd | definitely practice. Treat interviewing the same way. | lazyasciiart wrote: | Millions of people do exactly that and are not 'amazing' at | playing the piano. | UncleOxidant wrote: | So put a lot of effort into something that you hopefully | won't have to do very often. I think that's the objection | that a lot of us have and why there's a feeling that | there's too much emphasis on the interview. I can practice | interviewing or I can spend that time learning more about | algorithms, math, programming languages, machine learning, | etc. It seems like the latter is ultimately time better | spent. | adamredwoods wrote: | I agree, practice is key. Interviewing is a skill, sure | some people are good at it, and that's great for them. | | I am not good at interviewing. I have very little | confidence when interviewing, and I get super nervous. I | get better when I warm up, towards the end of the | interview. The only way I do better is when I practice a | lot, keep a schedule, exercise before the interview, and | usually I need a job-support group to help. It's an effort. | JamesBarney wrote: | You might have missed him starting off his comment with | actionable advice. | | > getting and applying professional feedback for one's | interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion | andrewflnr wrote: | Their actionable advice is in the sentence before that. | You're quoting a supporting motivation and treating it like | the thesis. | UncleOxidant wrote: | They're actionable advice was: | | "getting and applying professional feedback for one's | interview skills has a better ROI in my opinion." | | And I specifically addressed that: it's difficult to get | any actionable interview feedback because companies tend | not to supply much (if any) useful interview feedback | probably due to legal concerns. | JamesBarney wrote: | I don't think he was suggesting getting professional | feedback from the place that just rejected you. | | I think he was suggesting getting feedback from doing | mock interviews with friends or interview specialists. | strikelaserclaw wrote: | The whole point of micro optimizations is to show interviewers | your "best", if i did leetcode type problems after i eat lunch, | i'm slow and my brain is foggy. | mojuba wrote: | Came to say the same thing. As a candidate you really don't | control internal processes and I don't believe you can | influence the scheduling much. If they like you (and you like | them), everything will happen fast. | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | I so wish this to be true! But it is not always the case. You | as a candidate can power through the interviews(scheduling), | get ahead of the line, and indeed influence decision making. | bgibbons wrote: | I think this is true to a certain point as it provides | signal for high enthusiasm for a given role - huge plus if | you meet all the other weightier requirements. | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | Agreed | zebnyc wrote: | I have a few as well: | | - You will face rejection (likely a lot). Don't take this | personally and don't let it affect your confidence. | | - Unless you are an outstanding interviewee, this is like a | skill/muscle which you need to develop and practice. Hence ensure | that you don't schedule your "dream job/company" early in the | process. Keep practicing. | | - Always have a beginner / practice mindset. Otherwise, you will | accept the first (suboptimal) offer that you get as you will hate | the interview rigmarole. Interviewing is annoying / painful. | Accept it and work through it. | | - Keep applying and talking to companies even after you have | started negotiations. There have been companies which have told | me that another candidate accepted before me( and hence the | position is no longer available) even when they have "granted me | time" to make my decision. Similarly companies rescind offers. | | - Blowing hot(too many interviews in a short while) and cold (no | interviews / interviews for a while) can be debilitating to your | confidence. Hence ensure that you have a pipeline of interviews | so you are talking to at least 1 company a week. | | - Take notes and reflect on your performance in each interview | and how you can do better. | jbluepolarbear wrote: | I've interviewed many candidates and I've interviewed many | times myself. Having good conversation skills is the single | biggest influence on whether a candidate proceeds or not. | | Talking is a skill and that really stands out against other | candidates. | | When I'm interviewing, I'll usually choose a stronger | communicator over a stronger engineer. | colmvp wrote: | Isn't that kind of odd? I've worked with software engineers | who are good talkers but their code and problem solving | skills leave something to be desired. Meanwhile, I've worked | with guys who took a while to get comfortable with in terms | of having conversations and yet they were some of the most | productive members of the team both in code output and skill. | | Ultimately, most of the time I 'talk' with my team members, | we're actually writing which is very different from talking | due to the async nature of the former. | misterbwong wrote: | You're right to point out the difference between | conversational and writing skills. However, generally | engineers tend to overvalue technical skills and undervalue | soft skills. | | IMO engineering orgs tend to set the bar really high for | tech skills and really low for communication skills. Tech | skills are easier to test and they feel more "objective" so | they get more focus. | google234123 wrote: | It might be reflecting the fact that it's easier to talk | about something if you know it well. | nemo44x wrote: | > You will face rejection (likely a lot). | | It's very important to realize this. Maybe you feel you nailed | it and everyone really liked you but you still didn't get the | job. Well, there's other candidates in the pool too and there's | a chance one of them was amazing too and you lost the | proverbial "coin toss". | | There's also a chance you were always the backup option - it | happens. | | Lastly, don't give up on the role. I've seen numerous instances | where an offer went out and was accepted and then a week later | the person backed out because their existing employer gave them | a huge package to stay on. It happens. You might get the call | then after being rejected. | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | This is super valuable! Thank you for sharing :) | xivzgrev wrote: | "Keep applying and talking to companies even after you have | started negotiations" | | YES. Do not stop until your first day (half kidding). One time | I stopped interviewing after accepting an offer...only to find | out there were rounds of reference checks (and one of them | didn't go well). It was 2-3 weeks of anxious bullshit, but only | because I already turned down everything else that was in | motion. | | Who knows maybe a second company will come through with a | better offer. | neosat wrote: | While interview success "can" depend on these, along with 100s of | other factors, these are most likely _not_ the principal | contributing factors to interview success on average. So, sure, | if you 've got the principal factors figured out, optimize to | this level, but if not, your energy will be far better spent | elsewhere (e.g. understanding the most likely asked questions for | a company, and the framework they evaluate on, ensuring you're | communicating well (verbal & non-verbal) ) | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | 100% | hdesh wrote: | > Schedule subsequent interview rounds close to each other | | Pre-covid, if you were not from the bay area, this happened | naturally. You just tell the companies that you are traveling in | the bay area in a given time frame and would like to schedule | your interviews in that period. Not sure if post-covid it has | become simpler. | tanayagrawal19 wrote: | Ah, I see! I guess this is more relevant to covid/post-covid | times then due to the virtual nature of interviews. I did all | my interviewing in the second half of 2020, and I had majority | of interviews taking 3-4 weeks, which was a lot! I was even | rejected a couple of times as the company just hired someone | else and I hadn't even finished my interviews :/ | slg wrote: | Doesn't the first rule conflict with all the other rules? | | Rule 1: get through the process as quickly as possible. | | Rule 2-5: slow down the process by putting these specific | restrictions on when to schedule your interviews. | lordnacho wrote: | It's pretty tough to follow these rules. Mornings only gives you | half the time. All rounds at once and as soon as possible would | also mean you got in touch with all the recruiters at once and | they got back to you promptly. | | In practice you more likely to see a steady drip as you ramp up | your search. Some recruiters get back fast, some slowly. There's | no real way you can control this other than giving some feedback | as you progress so that firms that you like will hurry up a bit | and firms that are your backup can be held a bit. | jacurtis wrote: | Yes these ideas are all certainly valid concepts about | interviewing. But it would be nearly impossible to optimize for | all of them. | | Furthermore, some really are impossible. For example #2 is to | schedule interviews in cohorts. I tried to follow this in my | most recent job hunt and it is truly impossible. The problem is | that some jobs I would go through a phone screen and hear back | later that day or the next morning in order to schedule another | interview. Some companies will wait a week to get back to you. | Others are 3-4 days. As just one example, I interviewed with a | large tech company and they were the first ones to actually | offer me an initial interview. I went through 3 stages of | interviews with them and had the 4th stage scheduled when I | canceled because i had already received multiple job offers | from other companies, which I had applied to several weeks | after them. | | In tech a lot of these are easier because you have a lot more | power over the interview process if your job skill is one of | the in-demand ones. In my interview process I really could bend | most of the companies to meet my needs and to move faster than | they planned for. But that is a fortunate position to be in. I | am watching my sister go through job interviews right now for | HR related jobs and the process is completely different. I was | going through a 3-4 stage interview process in 1.5-2 weeks. My | sister was waiting 2-3 weeks between individual interview | stages. In my interviews I could tell people that I want to | accept an offer in 2 weeks, so they need to speed up and they | would do it for me. If my sister said that in her HR | interviews, they would simply disqualify her. | | So count your blessings if you are in tech. Sure, we get to | complain about take-home interview projects and technical | interviews. But we can get jobs within weeks (or even a week) | that pay 2-4 times what other people are getting after months- | long interview processes. So consider ourselves fortunate. | MarketingJason wrote: | > You should avoid scheduling interviews post-lunch | | Interesting opinion when weighed against studies like PNAS' | famous parole decision study that found morning and right after | lunch were the most favorable rulings: | https://www.pnas.org/content/108/17/6889 | hyperpape wrote: | It seems unlikely that this study reflects the effects of | hunger: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14701328. | thaumasiotes wrote: | No, hunger is an important cause of the result. The | anticipated effects of hunger are the reason that open-and- | shut cases are scheduled right before lunch. | | The problem is that the researchers were eager to conclude | that hunger can influence case outcomes, and unable to | consider the possibility that hunger can influence case | scheduling. | wppick wrote: | Schedule it right before lunch and finish early. The | interviewer will have a positive imprint of you in their lizard | brain since you gave them earlier access to their food. Plus | your interview will be followed up with the dopamine and please | of their meal/break, which might boost their memory of you as | well. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | this is exactly opposite of what you should do, if the study | is to be believed: | | "They found that the likelihood of a favourable ruling peaked | at the beginning of the day, steadily declining over time | from a probability of about 65% to nearly zero, before | spiking back up to about 65% after a break for a meal or | snack." ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-12-07 23:01 UTC)