Hacker Bits, April 2016

ace to answer. Practice writing
the answers on a whiteboard
(not all companies require this,
but it’s the worst case, so you
should practice it). A pen on
paper is a pretty good simulation
of a whiteboard. If you have
friends who can help you prepare,
taking turns interviewing
each other is great. Reading a
lot of interview questions has
the added benefit of providing
you ideas to use when in actual
interviews. A surprising number
of questions are re-used (in full
or in part).
Even experienced (and
stress-free) candidates will
benefit from this. Interviewing
is a fundamentally different skill
from working as a programmer,
and it can atrophy. But experienced
programers often (reasonably)
feel that they should not
have to prepare for interviews.
They study less. This is why
junior candidates often actually
do better on interview questions
than experienced candidates.
Companies know this, and,
paradoxically, some tell us they
set lower bars on the programming
questions for experienced
candidates.
8. Mention credentials
Credentials bias interviewers.
Triplebyte candidates who have
worked at a top company or
studied at a top school go on to
pass interviews at a 30% higher
rate than programmers who
don’t have these credentials (for
a given level of performance on
our credential-blind screen). I
don’t like this. It’s not meritocratic
and it sucks, but if you
have these credentials, it’s in
your interest to make sure that
your interviewers know this. You
can’t trust that they’ll read your
resume.
9. Line up offers
If you’ve ever read fund-raising
advice for founders, you’ll
know that getting the 1st VC to
make an investment offer is the
hardest part. Once you have one
offer, more come pouring in.
The same is true of job offers.
If you already have an offer, be
sure to mention this in interviews.
Mentioning other offers
in an interview heavily biases the
interviewer in your favor.
This brings up the strategy
of making a list of the companies
you’re interested in, and
setting up interviews in reverse
order of interest. Doing well earlier
in the process will increase
your probability of getting an
offer from your number one
choice. You should do this.
Conclusion
Passing interviews is a skill.
Being a great programmer
helps, but it’s only part of the
picture. Everyone fails some of
their interviews, and preparing
properly can help everyone pass
more. Enthusiasm is paramount,
and research helps with this. As
many programmers fail for lacking
enthusiasm as those who
fail for technical reasons. Interviewers
help candidates during
interviews, and if you follow a
good process and communicate
clearly, they will help you. Practice
always helps. Reading lots
of interview questions and inuring
yourself to interview stress
will lead to more offers.
This situation is not ideal.
Preparing for interviews is
work, and forcing programmers
to learn skills other than
building great software wastes
everyone’s time. Companies
should improve their interview
processes to be less biased by
academic CS, memorized facts,
and rehearsed interview processes.
This is what we’re doing
at Triplebyte. We help programmers
get jobs without looking
at resumes. We let programmers
pick one of several areas in
which to be evaluated, and we
study and improve our process
over time. We’d love to help you
get a job at a startup, without
jumping through these hoops.
You can get started here. But the
status quo is what it is. Until this
changes, programmers should
know how to prepare. •
Reprinted with permission of the original author. First appeared at blog.triplebyte.com.
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