My startup failed, then I found out I was unemployable

Re:My startup failed, then I found out I was unemployable by xenocratus on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @12:53PM (#26795265)

When I'll be preparing for the next interview rounds in my career, I'll make note of some problems that are both short/easy to explain, and have really interesting optimisations that are almost impossible to come up with on the spot (unless you've done a lot of similar stuff or that exact problem before). Then, when the interview is (nearly) over and it's my time to ask the interviewers something, I'll drop one of those in their lap to see how they react, and if they can come up with something that's not laughably stupid/inefficient. My point being that, if they're not capable of solving problems like that under intense time pressure, they're not up to the task of interviewing someone else on them. If they do give a good response, kudos to them, I'll be impressed.

Though I think my expectation is that they'll get annoyed and stop the "interview".

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:My startup failed, then I found out I was unemployable by randomswede on Thursday April 15, 2021 @04:47AM (#26817818)

If you did this to me during an interview, I would try as best as I could to give you an answer in the 5 or so minutes left of the interview. Then, in my feedback, I would strongly recommend not hiring you as a bad personality fit.

I also don't really ask "trick" questions (I try to select questions based on what the CV indicates would be a strong area for the specific candidate), the closest I get to that is probably when it comes to service monitoring (where the exact final answer is less interesting than the process of getting there).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:My startup failed, then I found out I was unemployable by xenocratus on Thursday April 15, 2021 @09:04AM (#26819953)

> I also don't really ask "trick" questions

My reply was only intended for "trick" questions that have absolutely no relevance for the day to day job of 99% of Software Engineers. And that's exactly because those trick questions tend to be more about the "exact final answer" than about the process, so my point was about figuring out if the interviewer actually has a grasp of those sort of problems in general or if they memorised a good solution and are milking that for all it's worth.

And I do know that almost any interviewer would reject me based on that, but I think it's worth letting them feel the burn they try to inflict themselves.

[ Parent | on HN ]