I used to care much more. I used to try to help them. Try
to make them feel good. But I can talk and talk, explain
and explain, in the end we won’t hire you if you can’t
reverse a linked list, or do a case-insensitive string
comparison. I have done this so many times, I'm terribly
frustrated about this. So now if you fuck up here, I’ll
just let you talk for 20 minutes, say “uh huh” once in a
while and review code in the meantime. And then I’ll ask
you about “your most interesting project so far” or some
bullshit like that.
Bah ha ha ha! This has totally happened to me on a number of interviews, but I've never interviewed for Google.
...you will have 3 interviews of 45 minutes, lunch, and 2
more interviews. These are basically the same as phone
screens, but you get to see the interviewers face to face.
If you totally suck, they sometimes walk you out after
lunch, and skip the last two interviews.
Oh my lol! I have also been hurriedly walked out of interviews! I cannot stop laughing while reading this.
...the interviewer would rather stab himself than hear you
fail again. So he lets you tell a story while he zones
out. In his rating, he will give you the lowest possible
score, and this will end the interview process for you.
Oh man, so good. This made my day, because I've been on both sides of this animosity, and honesty about the realities of interviewing is refreshing. Grueling, tedious, tiresome processes make such animals of us all.
Interviewing sucks. The reason interviewing sucks is the exact same reason why direct sales and cold calls sucks. It's painful for everyone involved.
I go into every interview assuming that the interviewer just hates my guts, and have learned to pretty much laugh off failure, because fuck it. Also, when I get a sense that I'm very obviously failing, I've taken to deliberately failing spectacularly, at least to the amusement (or shocked dismay) of everyone in the room. When you know you're bombing, that's when bombing spectacularly can become the most fun.
All my worst interviews have taught me to go home and do some research on the glaring holes in my knowledge that I was just tested on. The more you interview, the more you'll tighten up for your next shot. Just keep interviewing. Something will stick eventually.
Comments
Interviewing sucks. The reason interviewing sucks is the exact same reason why direct sales and cold calls sucks. It's painful for everyone involved.
I go into every interview assuming that the interviewer just hates my guts, and have learned to pretty much laugh off failure, because fuck it. Also, when I get a sense that I'm very obviously failing, I've taken to deliberately failing spectacularly, at least to the amusement (or shocked dismay) of everyone in the room. When you know you're bombing, that's when bombing spectacularly can become the most fun.
All my worst interviews have taught me to go home and do some research on the glaring holes in my knowledge that I was just tested on. The more you interview, the more you'll tighten up for your next shot. Just keep interviewing. Something will stick eventually.