

Ask HN: How do you deal with repeated failure at interviews? - sidcool

I have failed in interviews at two of my dream companies over the last two months.  I always clear the coding round and preliminary technical rounds. But I always flunk the last architecture round where there are many open ended questions.  I never seem to understand the questions clearly.<p>How do you deal with this setback?  I am very low at confidence and need some advice.
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fataliss
I have similar issues but with the coding part, usually my brain stops working
for the time of an interview and then makes me hate myself for the rest of the
week. The only advice people gave me, that made sense, was: training. Go do
all the possible questions you can find to the point you could do it in your
sleep. For your issue, since it's open ended, it's not "as easy", but you can
still read and think about as many of those questions you can find, open forum
posts and debate what other people would have answered and why, to see better
where your reasoning is lacking/failing something.

~~~
sidcool
Thanks for the advice. Once this shitty feeling of self hatred passes away, I
plan on doing exactly that.

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towndrunk
What works for me is to ask questions. Don't think of the interview as one
sided. When they ask an open ended question start firing questions back. This
allows better understanding of what they are really looking for in an answer
and gives you time to think about possible solutions.

~~~
sidcool
I agree with you, but asking too many questions might come as a defensive
approach. I did that once and the interview panelists were not particularly
impressed, so I try to balance the questions and assumptions.

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xpto123
Could you give examples of some of the open ended questions that you mention?
Like that we can have a better idea and mention maybe some books to help with
that.

For which technologies is it?

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sidcool
One questions which was asked me in similar flavors was:

How would you design an online shopping application like Amazon?

I get stumped with such questions because I don't understand where to start
and which direction to take. In the previous interview I started with a high
level technology stack I would use and then how the front end, middleware and
database would be organized. They happened to be more interested in the Object
modelling. I missed that.

In the recent interview I started with Object modelling, but they said they
were interested in a high level tech stack I would go for and the reasons for
each.

This makes me go a bit blank during interviews and I panic, blurting out
'Sorries' and 'I can't recollect it at this moment'.

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xpto123
The solution is going to more interviews until you nail it, practice makes
perfect. Next time ask if they want a high level architecture or oo
design,etc. the thing about interviews is that every interviewer asks the same
questions, use the same tricks etc that they read on linkedin.

By going to more interviews you will get much better at it. Try to go to the
next one as soon as possible. Remember that for each person hired there where
maybe 3 othercandidates that didnt make it so its normal.

Remember that there are many factors completely out of your control, but if
you insist and lesrn from mistakes you will go through in the end.

~~~
sidcool
That's the plan. I have another one tomorrow, at a company I am not very keen
to join. But I am attending it for practice.

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xpto123
Based on my own personal experience, you are in the right path. Good Luck!

~~~
sidcool
Update : I failed today's interview as well. But I am not much concerned
because the questions were quite silly. But a feeling of sadness is there.

