
Ask HN: How do you deal with performance anxiety during interviews? - wavesounds
I&#x27;m not talking about general nervousness. I&#x27;m talking about the kind of anxiety where you can&#x27;t think clearly, where it feels like the part of your brain you use for problem solving has shut down. This is also called &quot;Test Anxiety&quot; but I&#x27;ve never had this problem with paper tests.<p>For an example in an interview today I was writing some code and wrote if (x &gt; 0 || x &lt; 0) instead of if (x !=0) ... I have been programing for over 12 years and I don&#x27;t think I have ever made this mistake in real life.<p>Later on in the interview the interviewer asked a question that made me smile when she asked it because I knew I knew how to do it. Yet half way through after solving the hardest part of it I blanked out and spent the next 15 to 20 minutes going in circles with the interviewer giving me incredibly obvious hints. The answer was on the tip of my tongue but I just couldn&#x27;t get it out.<p>This is not the first time this has happened to me. It happens to a greater or lesser degree every time I have a whiteboard or shared online coding interview.<p>I can do paper or take home tests fine. I can talk about my past experience fine. I can ask good questions. But I never feel like I am able to code to my normal abilities during a whiteboard test.<p>Should I try to get companies to give me a paper test? Or should I keep slogging through these whiteboard ones with the hopes that eventually I&#x27;ll get enough practice that I&#x27;ll get over it? Has anyone else here been able to overcome a similar problem?
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soham
Disclaimer: I run a for-profit in the space of technical interview prep:
[http://InterviewKickstart.com](http://InterviewKickstart.com).

From what I see doing interview training for a living: more practice is the
key. Practice with mock interviews until you reach a point of (almost) de-
sensitization.

But before you take mock interviews, you must prepare. Otherwise the feedback
and the experience is not very useful. Do a number of problems and a variety
of problems from numerous sources available. Only then do mock interviews.
Preferably with experienced engineers. Use pramp.com for free mock interviews.

The process can take months, but you're bound to get better that way. Practice
is the only way anybody gets better at anything, anyway.

Also note, that this interview practice is going to be useful to you in your
daily work also. Training for interviews is that beautiful hack, that has
dividends in a number of different ways.

~~~
FT_intern
That's more of an advertisement than a disclaimer

~~~
mapster
His comment had the most actionable help of thread

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endswapper
I relate to your condition and I have a similar cognitive interruption when
and where severe anxiety kicks in. For me it includes a change of color and I
sweat profusely. There is no hiding it.

I have always just powered through because I have found that once it passes I
return fully. For me it is about some magic comfort level. Once I get there
and it usually takes a little time(weeks not minutes or hours) this isn't an
issue anymore. Interviews are the worst because I don't have that time and
they are usually with people you don't know, which is at least part of the
trigger.

I didn't want to use any medication to treat it, but I have helped to manage
it. For me an exhaustive workout a few hours before the interview helps. The
other thing is diet, in my case, if I focus on high-protein and low carb and
that also seems to help.

These aren't recommendations, but I relate, and I thought it might be helpful
to look at broad approach to managing it on your end.

~~~
J-dawg
I get the sweating thing too. Powering through doesn't always work, it becomes
so obvious that it's awkward not to mention it. It's had a major effect on my
life and career.

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c0110
I found that mock interviews helped me to some degree with this. It's hard for
me to talk and write code simultaneously, so practicing in front of someone
who is an experienced interviewer helped me gain some confidence in whiteboard
coding.

~~~
wavesounds
That makes sense. I think its the talking while thinking/writing part thats
hard. When I'm around strangers I usually want to fill the silence with some
kind of conversation, silence feels awkward, yet I need to allow myself time
to think.

~~~
c0110
This is exactly how I am. It takes a little practice to balance out the
silence with speaking but when you find your comfort level, you'll be ok. :)
I've told interviewers something to the effect of, "Sorry, give me one second
to think -- it's hard to interleave my thoughts and talking aloud" and they
were really ok with it.

Good luck!

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jaytaylor
Practice. I bought a whiteboard, mounted it on the wall, and practice
questions from interviewcake as if I were in front of a live audience. It
feels kind of silly, but definitely helped me improve recall under the
pressure of an interview. Putting yourself in an environment that most closely
resembles the stress of the real thing to induce some or all of the anxiety is
paramount!

Repeating this exercise at least once daily has produced real results for me,
and helped me get comfortable thinking and speaking about algorithms outside
of my normal operating environment (i.e. in front of a keyboard ;).

~~~
jnbiche
> Practice. I bought a whiteboard, mounted it on the wall, and practice
> questions from interviewcake as if I were in front of a live audience.

Do you think going through all the questions on Interviewcake prepared you
well for interviews?

I've been going through them and I either find them to be very easy, or very
hard. Not much in between. Actually, come to think of it, that's usually how
interview questions go for me, too.

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imauld
You might want to check to see if you have a local Whiteboarding Meetup. We
have one here in Seattle where people can practice interviewing. If you don't
have one you could probably set one up.

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MalcolmDiggs
The more you do it, the less nervous you'll feel. I'd suggest lining up a
series of low-stakes 'practice' interviews (10 or more of them). Real jobs at
real companies, but the kind of jobs you don't particularly want, and the kind
of companies you wouldn't normally apply to. That way you won't feel any
pressure to perform well; and you'll get practice interviewing. And who knows,
you might luck into the perfect position just by chance.

~~~
wavesounds
Thanks. I think this seems to be the general consensus. Just do more
interviews. Luckily the job market allows for us to do that now. I just wonder
if I can push back the other interviews for jobs I care about that I have
scheduled already.

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p333347
This might be a tangent. I attribute my bombing a big4 interview in 2014 to
restless and sleepless night the day before the interview (it was a very
senior dev position and the role and responsibility described by the recruiter
made me super excited. Actually, the whole week had been pretty much sleepless
nights) which 'disabled' my hunger, and the lethal combination of sleep
deprivation and overnight fasting manifested itself and I literally saw myself
failing at things I shouldn't have but I could do nothing about it. It was a 9
am meeting and I was in a cold hall which added to the misery. I was groggy,
about as articulate as a drunken child and utterly failed to benefit from the
generous hints the interviewer was giving me. I felt sorry for _him_ TBH. It
was the company that had contacted me and I felt pretty bad for the recruiter
as well for having fared so miserably. The biggest takeaway from this
experience was to get sufficient sleep the night before important events. And
to bloody eat breakfast.

So, are you sure your failure is not due to external elements like mine (which
was one off fyi)?

~~~
stevenwiles
Would you say all of your shortcomings are due to external factors beyond your
control?

~~~
p333347
In this specific case, yes.

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pkinsky
I try to center myself. For example, I focus fully on breath for a few
breaths, think 'I am breathing in, I am breathing out'. Focus on how your
feet/bum/spine are supporting your weight, readjust slightly if your posture
is awful. Get whatever problem you're working on out of your head.

After a few seconds of this, I come back to the problem and usually am able to
do at least slightly better. It's like power cycling your brain after it gets
stuck.

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yolesaber
Smoke a big fat fattie before rolling into the interview. Eat three pages out
of Cracking the Coding Interview for breakfast. This is how I got my jobs at
Google, Facebook, and now currently a senior research fellow at MSFT.

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itamarst
One technique I've found helpful is starting by writing tests for the
interview puzzle (on the whiteboard), and then explaining that I will check
these tests once I have a solution. That means if I get stuck or just have a
bug I'm not immediately interrupted by interviewer, and the tests provide a
way of debugging stuff in a structured way.

For more details: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-
puzzles/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-puzzles/)

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wavesounds
I just found this other Ask HN thread on the topic that has some good thoughts
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1618500](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1618500)

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chrisked
I'd say practice practice practice. Try to create a testing environment which
is close to reality. Also if you currently applying and interviewing for jobs,
I'd prioritize then and start with the ones I find less interesting.

Another idea: Find a local meetup group or something similar where you can
_give a talk about performance anxiety during interviews_.

Just tell your story to others and you'll get invaluable feedback. That said I
know you asked here for advice, but discussing on a forum is too asynchronous.
More like a take home test as you already described.

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EnderMB
It sounds like a really shitty thing to do, but one thing that really helped
me in interviews is basically going to more of them. If a company sounds you
out, and you're not entirely sure that you want to join them, why not go to
the interview anyway?

Obviously, don't go to an interview every month, but don't wait until you
absolutely must have a new job. Get the feel of a few places, and if you turn
them down then there's no harm done.

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shivakaush
Happened to me couple days back during a 3hr technical trial project /
interview..

Was presented with a simple recursion problem but I completely blanked out
even with the interviewer nudging me all along.

I was able to write it on my half hour bus ride home...

