
Ask HN: How to defeat interview anxiety? - iamanet
HNers, I have attended 2 interviews so far in the past 4 years &#38; I have failed to get the job on both the interviews. I just get very anxious during in person interviews &#38; I am not able to think straight at all. I could only give out answers to questions for which I knew the answers before hand. I am not good at deducing answers logically during interviews. For instance on my last interview, I was given a problem &#38; I fumbled a lot &#38; gave convoluted answers but when the interviewers left, I was able to think straight &#38; arrived at a very simple solution to the problem. My success rate is 0% so far &#38; I am worried that it is going to take some time before I could get a job. As of now, my strategy has been to prepare as well as possible before hand for the interview and for some reason this strategy does not seem to work. Any suggestions? Thanks.
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patio11
1) Practice doing job interviews. Your campus career center probably offers
this. In the alternative, find an employed buddy to do it with you.

2) Have five good lines polished and ready to go prior to going into an
interview. Attempt to steer the conversation such that you get to use at least
three of them. For example, I always made it a point to research the company I
was applying for, get one factoid into the interview, and say "I made it my
business to know your business." (That line gets better reactions than almost
any I've ever delivered.)

------
frossie
If you have real trouble in interviews and you think this is a long-term issue
that you can't address, you need to make your paperwork so strong that it is
obvious to the interviewers that you are a poor interview performer rather
than an ignoramus. I keep harping on about this, but one way of doing this is
strengthening your open source or other easily verifiable credentials.

Secondly, try and apply for jobs (if you have this choice) to places that
don't do "monkey trick" interviews but screen using other techniques, like
code submissions. (This is one of the many reasons I prefer the latter to the
former)

The point about power dynamics in the link below might also be helpful:

[http://askamanager.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-can-i-stop-
being...](http://askamanager.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-can-i-stop-being-so-
nervous-in-job.html)

[Later edit: Since you said elsewhere that this is a problem only during
interviews, make sure your reference letters mention you are a good
communicator or problem solver or whatever, to indicate that anything the
interviewers see is not typical]

~~~
iamanet
Thank you for your suggestions. Top companies are always looking to see how
well potential employees perform under crunch situations. My gut feeling is
that they expect to see employees perform calmly even under pressure. They
would like to see employee solve problems logically, quickly and deliver the
solution in a more coherent manner. I would expect the same if I am at the
other end of the table. I would like to be able to be that kind of a
performer.

------
hippich
Just do not care. Or start to believe you do not care. It's more about
psychology.

Or... Try do not think about how it will go and do not do any preparation for
it. You afraid about something COULD happen. So just do not think about what
COULD happen. If it will ever happen, then be afraid =)

~~~
iamanet
I have decided to stop preparation at the least 1-2 days before the interview.
However, I have attended only 2 interviews & I cannot say for sure that this
did not help. Probably, I might do better in my next interview. Will have to
just wait and watch.

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michael_dorfman
Do you have more general problems with anxiety, or just during interviews?

There are a lot of techniques (meditation, cognitive therapy, etc.) that can
help with anxiety, but which one is most appropriate is going to depend on the
details of your situation.

~~~
iamanet
Just during interviews

~~~
michael_dorfman
If that's the case, some simple relaxation exercises, and a lot of practice
(fake interviews with friends, etc.) ought to do the trick.

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mansilla
1\. Practice interview with others. Even if they don't know what the hell
you're talking about, rehearsing in front of live person will help you become
more comfortable.

2\. Xanax, or some other anti-anxiety med.

~~~
variety
Ugh. No. Don't start doing meds just to get through job interviews. Better
yet, don't do them at all (if you can possibly avoid it).

The fact is nobody really knows how they work, and they all have rafts of side
effects which their makers are _loathe_ to discuss with you in an upfront and
intellectually honest manner. (How do I know this? I worked for one of the
larger makers of such drugs).

In any case it's unlikely that you'll be able to predict how they'll affect
_you_ on the day of the interview (if they have any affect above placebo at
all), and might even make you have greater feelings of anxiety and low self-
esteem (as in "I'm so messed up I need pillz just to hack these job
interviews).

~~~
mansilla
I agree that popping pills isn't always the best answer; however, if the
anxiety is dysfunctional and causing problems (possibly far beyond the scope
of a job interview), it may be worth consulting a therapist and psychiatrist.

------
variety
The single most useful thing I've found is to find a way to get past the very
idea that this is a one-way process, whereby it's supposedly just you who has
to prove their (intellectual, economic) worthiness to others (whose own
credentials completely beyond question).

In fact you might want to start practicing the complete opposite of this
mindset -- just walk in there as if it's _you_ who is contemplating whether to
hire _them_ (which in essence is true anyway -- as all truly desirable working
situations are two-way streets), and has plenty of other options available if
this particular situation doesn't work out. (Paul Graham has a few good
paragraphs about this).

Another key conceptual point to keep in mind the fact that while many of these
tests are presented as being nominally objective, when in fact their bigger
purpose is really psychological -- the interviewer really is just trying to
see whether they can "vibe" with you in this interaction as much as whether
you are coming up with the right answers. So another thing you want to try
priming yourself with (rather than meds) is an an air of simple humility,
rather than defensiveness, or again, a need to be seen as always "right" or
"worthy" of their assessments.

Some more mundane tips: concentrate on listening(!), maintaining eye contact,
and (very important) speaking _slowly_ (because one of the outward signs of
anxiety is the tendency to bulldoze past others). Ditto for written Q&A tests,
and especially for coding tasks at the whiteboard -- even if you don't
normally do so in your own personal habits, find a way to force yourself to
write neatly (evenly spaced, properly alignment horizontal / vertical). And
when you think it's done, check it again for failure modes and possible
optimizations (before the interviewer has a chance to give you that annoying
"that's nice. but aren't you missing something?" line).

Basically, it's better to answer fewer questions in more thorough detail than
to get through every question the interviewer may have had on his list to ask
you. And it's _much_ more important to be neat, cogent and presentable than to
be superfast when writing code. And which again, all gets down to basic
psychology -- showing the interviewer that you are capable of seeing things
from their perspective -- which in essence is what these "tests" are really
about, anyway.

Also: as others have said, do develop your portfolio and code samples -- which
by all rights ought to speak volumes more than those stupid puzzle sessions).

But as to those puzzles: accept that they are represent a deeply flawed and
simple-minded (when you think about it, almost zombie-like) approach to the
task of assessing human potential -- but due to a lack of imagination, or
simply a follow-the-herd mentality, your interviewers just don't have any
better tools to whip out for the occasion -- so you'll just have to "embrace
the suck" and find a way to social-engineer your way through them.

By now most of those famous, occasionally interesting (but sometimes also
incredibly asinine) puzzle questions have been "leaked" to various places --
dig up as many of those as you can, and spend a few afternoons convincing
yourself of your ability to answer each and every one of them. (In particular:
techinterview.org, wu riddles, steve yegge's questions, etc).

Even if you miss a few, you can at least be confident that your probability of
failure is acceptably low -- and (for the logic puzzles) most of those you do
miss probably have some "aha!" flavor to them that doesn't have any functional
relation to real-world problem solving anyway. Or you've simply gotten rusty
(like many of these interviewers do themselves, particularly in areas that
weren't their major focus in school).

Finally, "chill." Don't spend the morning before the interview cramming.
Better to lounge around a bit, make sure you've eaten well (but not just
before the interview), scoped out the route to get there, etc.

And when it does come to rejection (which is inevitable): keep in mind that it
is the very nature of the hiring process, particularly at some of the better
places to work, that they have an almost annoyingly high "false negative" rate
-- it really is MUCH better on their part to no-hire a good candidate than to
hire a bad or insidiously second-rate one (the consequences of which can by
very, very expensive). So you're just bound to get rejected from places where
you didn't really deserve it.

But sometimes it just so happens that you _do_ deserve it -- because you
weren't prepared, or you left some interviewer the impression you were
bulldozing past their questions, whatever. Either way, the Zen of dealing with
it is NOT to question the rejection; but rather to consider it as a data
point: a kind of a failed trade, or a missed sale -- something to learn from,
definitely but not (intrinsically) as a sign that your "product" is (ie, you
are) damaged goods, per se. And so to the see the rejection as being something
fundamentally _good_ (despite the near-term financial and other costs),
insofar as it at least teaches you something.

And that of course, every door that closes opens another.

~~~
iamanet
Thanks. It was very inspiring to read your entire text. I will definitely try
answering fewer questions more thoroughly & practice being cogent, neat and
presentable. I have been playing back my last interview repeatedly on my mind
to figure out all places where I might have not come out very presentable to
the interviewers. Hopefully these course corrections will get me a new
opportunity. I am in total agreement with the 'false negative' comment. Thanks
again.

