I, and most software engineers, would be interviewing 24/7.

This attitude is a good reason to take the advice.

Honestly it’s not. I would basically be reducing my hourly rate if I _never_ stopped interviewing, because most of those are dreck that can’t meet my current comp in the first place.

Why would you apply to dreck that can’t meet your comp in the first place?

The advice wasn’t apply to jobs. The advice was to take the interview.

I don’t apply. It’s what shows up in my email or LinkedIn inbox. I don’t take the interviews when they are obviously misaligned with my level/skillset/interests because they are a waste of time.

Just take the intro call and tell them your expectations (while being as vague as possible). If they dont bite then you didn’t lose much

Yeah I think a qualification to add would be “Take the qualified interview.” If you apply, that’s your qualification so take the interview. If they contact you and you tell them what you want, that’s your qualification, so if they agree and offer an interview, take it.

Agreed, and I assumed people would apply some common sense to how and when to generalise 4 words.

I still get what is clearly blind spam from recruitment agencies in a country I haven’t lived in for > 15 years (so they CV they have on file would be just as old) offering me entry level positions. Those don’t ever warrant a response. But if someone has gone to the effort to actually look at your work history, see what you’ve done, and reached out… take the interview.

Wow, this one's amazing, and so well argumented that it finally made it click in many respects for me.

Sounds like an amazing CEO

Best job I ever had working with the best people, and I have to think good leadership was a huge part of it. When everything comes together like that you can't imagine ever working anywhere else (hence my initial bewilderment and why he thought I'd take the interview). Eventually leadership changes though...

Truly a privilege to experience it at least once in your career.

I would be very interested in learning what that startup was called.

Heroku

Small company known as General Electric

realistically this just ends up wasting tons of time on both sides of hiring. Interviewing is unpaid labor, do it as little as possible.

As someone who does a ton of interviews, I hope people are wasting tons my time!

I love the opportunity to talk to people about working where I work and if a great person wants to waste my time, I’ll take the chance to sell them on where I work.

As someone else who does a lot of interviews - please god no. There is negative value in every failed interview where I could have instead been contributing to the company’s mission.

I mean I do put a lot of work into getting bad fit candidates out of the pipeline as early as possible (ideally before they speak to me or anyone else).

But the most important thing I can be doing is getting good fit candidates hired — that is how I contribute to the company mission. And I accept that means talking to some number of people who aren’t seriously considering my offer. I take it as an opportunity to change their mind or failing that to experiment with the questions I ask. Over time I become a better interviewer because of those opportunities.

Every interview has the chance to end with me hiring the best person we’ve ever hired. The upside is so high that the downside is worth it.

I can’t get upset at people who interview when they’re not serious about changing jobs. I do it all the time myself and encourage everyone I work with to do it. Can’t hold it against anyone who does the same.

This is why you interview...to waste time on a 1 hour call instead of years of a bad job/candidate.

"Never stop dating"

Even if you are married?

Especially if you are. Date your wife/husband.

I've seen this used with idea being you treat your spouse as if you were still courting them.

I think it's satire

Oh how exhausting. I'd rather just die alone.

I know this statement reflects poorly on me, but I'm barely hanging on to my sanity dealing with my life otherwise and I'm not even that young anymore.

I hear you. It's not about doing that courtship monkey dance forever, just keeping current what made it exciting in the first place.

Corollary: only take the interview if you're possibly open to change. I don't often take interviews and the few times I have, resulted in a change. That's not bad, but sometimes it can be disruptive in itself. Maybe you ace an interview for the best possible job, but can't take it because you're caring for your aging parents and you knew the on-site location before the interview.

This advice is solid gold. I declined many interviews when I was at the top of my game for silly-in-hindsight reasons such as I have just joined, I am happy here etc. Have always regretted it ever since.

Interviewing isn’t free. Let’s say it is $5k of time to prep for it etc. Maybe don’t say yes to all of them!

I know it's good advice to keep interviewing skills fresh, but boy is it a time commitment. I had to study for a few months to prepare for my last round of interviews and as the meme goes, I haven't really used leet code in my job!