Ask HN: Failed interview, feeling unemployable and depressed – what do I do?
I've been feeling extremely anxious about work. I don't feel well in my current team because everyone is smarter than me and I think no one likes me (people forget to invite me to meetings, I'm not invited to outside events, etc.). Every pull request I submit gets a load of criticism. I don't feel valuable to the team.
The first thing I thought is that my attitude is bad. But this can't be - I've heard from multiple people that I'm the nicest and most patient person they've ever met. In fact, my manager has criticized me more than once for being "too nice" i.e. that I should stand my ground more, or push people for things I depend on from them.
I wanted to jump ship and find an opportunity I might feel more passionate about. Found said opportunity but failed hard in most of the interview puzzles.
I'm feeling lost. I feel that 1) I'll be forever with the current company and 2) if I'm ever laid off, I'll never get a job again because I can't solve the puzzles.
Interview puzzles are so hit-or-miss. No matter how many of them I solve, I always stutter when I'm faced with a new one. If the problem is new, it either "clicks" right away or I bomb the interview. No middle ground.
My thoughts are descending into the darkest reaches. Death doesn't seem so bad anymore. Then I don't have to think about all this.
I don't know where I went wrong. I used to be intelligent. I used to be liked by my teams. I used to be good at puzzles.
Now I'm dumb and worthless.
I don't have the option to stop working for a while. I have the savings for it, but it's unacceptable to my wife.
I don't know what to do.
247 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 302 ms ] threadYou might be in the wrong industry after all.
I do no soldiering. When I feel mistreated, I quit.
So far I have been rewarded with nontrivial bumps in income for doing so.
(edit: to not tangle this subthread, moved my reply to the OP to a top-level post!)
Find someone that knows you to talk about this. It's very hard to give specific advice with out knowing your personality or the full story.
Try and remember that your life is much more than your work. There are so many other things worth living for.
When was the last time you had holiday? This might include days away from your family to get in an extra calm environment. I'm asking because I had US-collegues who didn't take a day of holiday in 5 years. And collegues who quit because they were burned out. All in the name of meeting deadlines or pleasing the next manager. Time off is important.
Check out the book Counterfeit Gods by Timothy Keller, it helped me out and put the importance of my day job into perspective, in the big picture of life. There are so many reasons besides work to be alive.
You may face the same doubts in your new job. You may be on a toxic team, or your judgement may be clouded by depression. If it is really a toxic team, keep interviewing quietly, you will get better each time. Interviewing is a skill and like any other you can get better at it. Be realistic though that the new job may not immediately fix your problems, but still some change might help you get you out of your rut.
This will pass. You are worthy of all the goodness that life has to offer.
You are not dumb or worthless for being unable to snap solve BS programming or algorithm puzzles.
Find a place, a team and role that is deserving of you.
Keep in mind too, that despite the propaganda, none of the "Big 4" does anything really to better the world.
Maybe what you most need is a divorce.
@Mz: Divorce is no joke, maybe he hasn't communicated properly with his wife yet.
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/08/that-no-joke...
One of the things that helped me get through a pretty dark rough patch was just time away from responsibility. Then, when I jumped back in, being in a supporting/safe environment.
Plan B? Go to India, take off a few weeks. Your mind will be blown.
Then come back to planet earth. The internet thing is getting a bit old, farming is hot, maybe a career change is due.
Tell me about something you intend to accomplish next month.
Give us a view of your world from a positive perspective. In doing so, you'll find not everything is bad. This is the first step in the right direction.
Read over this paragraph:
My thoughts are descending into the darkest reaches. Death doesn't seem so bad anymore. Then I don't have to think about all this.
When a person is in a state like this, his/her brain has difficulty processing things in his/her usual way. Consequently, he/she could easily read your questions and conclude, "I haven't accomplished anything today. I'm an idiot and a complete failure."
If you have to preach the positive, try to frame it in terms of gratitude. Accomplishments are very dangerous, particularly if you're dealing with someone who could be in the throes of a major depression.
Impostor syndrome sucks. Everyone has it. This industry is a bunch of nerds (and this part is not pejorative, I am one) who spent most of their lives being identified by how smart they were and they are culturally incentivized (and this one is pejorative, because tech culture is trash, but it's not your fault unless you perpetuate it, so don't!) to be desperate to win the approval of their peers by how bulging their foreheads are. You will not, statistically, win enough of these nerd fights to be Lord High Nerd Of All You Survey. You will feel dumb, you will feel clueless. And so does every person around you, including the prick who's sneering so you feel worse than he does. I am not intending to be dismissive of how you feel, because I've been there. But I have learned that there are much more important things to worry about than "oh noes, not all of the biggest tech companies don't think I'm A-1 and the stunted people around me kinda suck." You will, I promise, be fine.
You can change the game. I embrace not knowing stuff, and I'm a consultant so I'm supposed to be all-knowing. Clients blink in surprise (and appreciate) when I say "I have no idea about that." I just go find the answer. Because I'm not dumb. Neither are you.
I have a 33% offer rate (3 for 9) when talking to GooAppFaceTwitrosoft. I rejected those three offers. And it's funny, right? When I wanted them, they didn't want me. When they wanted me, I realized I didn't want them. But you're inside, at one of the big companies, right? I would hope that you know the game: if you keep applying to these places, if you keep trying, you will eventually get an offer. And if you know the game, you should be able to find the perspective to laugh it off. But I'd bet money you probably don't really want one, at least for the reasons you state.
(edit: So I skated over the "death doesn't seem so bad" thing on first read, and that's red-flaggish. I am not going to flap my hands about depression, because I not a head doctor and don't even pretend to be one. But you should talk to someone, 'cause if your brain chemistry tends toward dark places it's worth getting checked out, and the advice regarding the Suicide Prevention Lifeline if you're feeling really bad is great advice. But, for serious: you will be okay if you give yourself a chance to be. Nothing in tech is worth breaking yourself over.)
While I largely agree with your main thrust, I must take issue with this. Many of us (older generation perhaps?) were culturally incentivized to not exhibit any of our nerdiness, and were ostracized or worse for doing so. Many of us developed a "dumber" external persona and explicitly avoided demonstrating cognitive excellence specifically because of negative social incentives regarding being a nerd.
Maybe you don't personally, but I'm positive this sentiment exists from others in your generation.
I'll fight hard for my ideas, but not at the cost of missing what other people have to say. I'm reasonably old (nearing 50), I've been coding professionally since before college, and have a reasonably good head on my shoulders.
But so do other people, and ignoring what they're saying, or dismissing it because I'm not saying it, is a lost opportunity. Even if that opportunity ends up cementing my owb belief. I owe it to them, and more selfishly, to myself, to consider the possibility I'm wrong.
(A verrrrrrry remote possibility, but ya' never know ;)
Me, I'd think we would be better than moose, butting heads to prove our dominance, but...not always?
This shape can work well if you have a good alpha. It provides direction and confidence in the team. It can be a great antidote to team staffed entirely with prima donnas. When done well, it actually provides a safe place for people to learn and experiment because the alpha is the only one that takes political risks. On more democratic teams I've seen many junior/intermediate developers absolutely melt down when they suddenly discover that they aren't as good as they thought they were.
I thought this was an interesting set of anecdotes about dog roles: http://www.massachusettsdogtrainer.com/page11.php
The basis for the negativity here is a "score" which you, the OP, have scored in a way that makes you feel like a loser. Try not to get suckered into that. It is really hard to do but write down all of the things you aspire to. It can be trivia knowledge it can be computer languages known, it can be chemical constants memorized it can be states capitals. Doesn't matter what but it has to be honest and come from inside you.
You might say, "I want to be a valued employee." (a bit self serving but its an example). Now you need want to find out an objective way to evaluate your value. Talk to your boss, talk to your peers, talk to others. Ask them what do they consider valuable in employees. Collect all of that data and write it down, now rank it based on your internal values. What do you consider makes you a valuable employee. If there are things that aren't on the list write those down. Do one last checked with your boss and peers about what you think the top 10 things are that make someone valuable to see how close you are to consensus. Now for each of the things on your list, write down three things; first a way that value is demonstrated, second a way that value is diminished, and third an activity that you can practice that will contribute positively to that value.
It may seem like a crazy thing to spend your time on but the key is that you will have turned a fuzzy thing into something that can guide your actions. And if you ever want to know if you're valuable you can go through the list and see the things you've done to contribute to your value. And when you're thinking about what to get done you can prioritize by your value structure. This is basically a away for you to convert an implicit (and ever changing) score, into an explicit and measurable thing.
Thanks!
What they will answer though is likely not going to be what they respond to - the answer might be 'diligent and focused' (which is already completely hollow and ambiguous to begin with) while the truth is 'similarity to myself'.
With a side project you'll:
1. Create something other people will hopefully enjoy to use. 2. Have an opportunity to flex your skills. 3. Gain feedback from users who want you to improve (much more valuable than feedback from ego-driven team mates!) 4. Show others (users, the community, team mates and companies) how badass you are.
The worst part of depression is that it clouds normal thought processes. That's probably why you can't perform as you once did.
Find a way to see a psychiatrist you feel comfortable around. Go with a family or friend if that helps get you over the hump.
So many high achievers I know go through this. You're not alone, and with proper help you'll get through it, and be stronger too.
Can attest. Can absolutely attest to this.
For some reason there can be a stigma around that profession but PLEASE don't let that deter you, as it will be tremendously helpful. They can help you see your true self when things seem cloudy.
And a note to deathbysw123: I too really recommend finding a therapist. I used to think that if I was smart enough I could figure this stuff out on my own, and that pride kept me from getting help. But a therapist has two advantages: they have seen a zillion people, and so have raw data for pattern-finding that you don't, and they are outside your skull, giving them a perspective you can't have.
Get the meds. Take them, if prescribed. They won't fix the problem, but they can help you thru the worst of it until things become a bit easier to deal with. I wound up weaning myself off of them (I don't recommend that, btw). For some people, they are long-term, but personally, I found it to be a bit too long-term.
The biggest thing, and the hardest, is to be honest with your friends about it. I've told friends I have problems with depression. Turns out, another friend of mine does, too, and we try to help keep the other on an even-er keel. I told my boss and my relatives. They know that if they don't hear from me in a while, to come over and kick in the door or do what's necessary to drag me out into the light.
Know this: you're going to have bad days and worse days and some good days. Pay attention and you'll be able to recognize them for what they are and when you need help.
But get help. I've had to deal with everything from being unable to leave the house or turn on a light to irrational exuberance, on top of a couple of other medical issues. I'm nowhere near cured, but I'm not down in a hole anymore.
It's survivable and your life doesn't have to suck.
The author must have forwarded my email to a colleague (who may have, in turn, forwarded it to further links in a chain - all the intermediary addresses were duly absent from the final referral I got, as should be expected from professionals), because soon after, I got a response from a new contact, referring me to a therapist who turned out to be a good fit.
Looking for a therapist can really suck (I'd had somewhere around eight months of trying at least five different bad-fit therapists before I tried the random-midnight-email approach above), so I figured I'd mention the approach that actually ended up working for me.
https://www.castleconnolly.com/
There is a small fee, although you can still see the doctor's name and location without joining.
You deserve happiness and to be around those that appreciate you. Don't give up the fight.
Keep looking. Seriously. There are a LOT of jobs out there for technical people. You found -one- opportunity; maybe it would have panned out, maybe it wouldn't have. But it sounds like you're limiting where you look, if you were going to go from one Big 4 company to another. Talk with your wife; maybe you want to go to another state? Maybe take something remote? There are a lot of possibilities to explore. Many interviews may lead to failure, but others may lead to an offer.
Talk to your wife about how you're feeling, too.
...really? I've heard of people failing interviews at the Big4 because they solved the problem, but did it sub optimally.
This isn't good or anything (though, sometimes there's the really obvious super slow way, and its appropriate to ask for something better), its just the way it is.
This is especially pronounced with junior interviewers, I've gotten dinged for missing capitalization on one variable in an otherwise flawless exercise.
Most interviewers at these company, especially those with little empathy or training, are looking to rule you out, and are looking to find a problem with whatever it is you do. Sometimes they tell themselves that its because they want to keep a high bar, but its usually just so they can feel better than someone else, they aren't good at judging problem solving ability, only that you arrived at the solution that they had in mind.
I've had offers from the Big 4, and I've totally bombed interviews with them too. I prepared a lot before hand, and its mostly just luck of the draw, if I get a set of coding questions I've seen before, or is similar to what I've seen, I pass, if I don't, I don't. I'm the same engineer either way.
I wish a lot of people in our industry would quit with the alpha nerd crap, you aren't that important, and you're pissing on people that could help you build your project. I think its egged on by the "A players all the time" mantra at large tech organizations, so when you take insecure nerds, and puff their egos up, this is what you get.
Gold right there.
I disagree with this. Although technically there is an infinite list of wrong moves, interviewers have a list of "right" moves that people do that they keep track of that demonstrate the interviewee's abilitie
poor communication, not making sure they understand the problem, not testing their solution, not being willing or able to explain their thought process, being unable to answer "I don't know" when pressed.
Occasionally there's someone who claims to know something and very clearly doesn't.
Phone screens generally filter out most of the people who know no data structures or algorithms.
Of course, every hiring process is different, so there's some variation within and across companies, but I think a lot of geeks think they screwed up the tech when they really screwed up the communication.
And I'm not bitter honest! I just resent having to communicate with idiots.
What time is there to "understand the problem" when someone (or perhaps a group of people) you've never met are starting you, and expecting nothing short of a lightening-quick flash of brilliance?
As much as people say they don't care about the answer and suboptimal is okay, generally it isn't, there's very often a very specific answer they want you to arrive at or you are some version of wrong; so the interview is either failed or succeeds on whether or not the interviewee has seen this problem (or one close enough to be virtually indistinguishable from it) before and can remember how to monkey dance through the steps of it again. So a suboptimal answer ends up being approximately the same as a wrong answer which fits into lostcolony's narrative perfectly well.
So basically you have a few different types of possible interview outcomes with these puzzle-interviews:
#1 Candidate who isn't a good fit (lacks experience, maybe just plain not that bright) fails because he or she is just not a good logical thinker and thus not a very good programmer.
#2 Candidate who is a good fit (has plenty of experience and practical programming knowledge) fails because social anxiety kicks in when confronted with a puzzle they don't recognize at first glance, making it difficult to figure out a solution that they may very well be able to knock out in 15 minutes if they were sitting at home with Google, some books, and nobody (who has important fate deciding power over them) looking over their shoulder.
#3 Candidate who is a good fit who recognizes the problem from having seen it and worked through it before, "solves" it, maybe even solves it in a suboptimal way at first in order to avoid looking like they knew the solution all along because they saw it yesterday on some interview quiz website, then busts out the optimal solution as if it came fully formed from their glorious brain box.
I've been both #2 and #3 plenty of times each and know lots of others in the field who will admit to being both of those people at different times and different places in different interviews. Occasionally you can be a partial #2 and still make it through and get an offer because you already had a bias working in your favor (recommended by someone the interviewer trusts), so the interviewer can start to believe the claptrap that the process is important and not the answer. But with no such bias working in your favor, you're done for!
I'll accept there may be a #4, super genius who can really figure all of these puzzles out on the fly from first principles, but that's like a 0.001%er and even if they exist, it is ridiculous that people are looking for that person to write code for their relatively straightforward CRUD app or social media webwhozit thing.
Ultimately, IMO, the whole system is fucking stupid and everyone who isn't a complete jackass realizes it but nothing ever really gets done to fix it on a systemic level.
Which is ironic, because most (if not nearly all) real-world problems are never solved optimally on the first go -- but rather via a succession of approximations (many of them wrong, and requiring partial or full retreats).
Isn't the point of those questions more to evaluate your problem solving skills (coming from someone who has never been up against those questions), and not to determine if you can actually solve the problem, but how you're able to justify your answer?
First of all, get some help if you need it. Your number one priority is your mental health. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Therapists can help with depression, as can medication. I've had chronic issues with depression and the number one thing that helps me is making sure I walk 2 miles a day on the treadmill. Makes a world of difference.
Secondly, and I can say this because I've been on both sides of the interview process many times - interviews are a crapshoot to a large degree. If you take enough of them, then you will definitely get a job. If you take just one, any number of insane reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with you could have prevented them from giving you an offer.
I've never worked at a "Big 4" company but if your expectation is that you will pass every interview you ever take for one of these companies, then you definitely have extremely high(unrealistic? maybe impossible?) standards for yourself.
Please be safe, take a little time off, do some exercise, talk to a professional, and try to reset. hugs
But know also that you're far from alone in how you feel. I've worked at two of the big 4 and still occasionally feel this way. The problem for people such as myself, a lot of others in the HN community, and perhaps even you is that we have a flawed perception of what it means to create value.
You have to expand your thinking. Who you are and what you're worth goes well beyond what you do for a living. Do you make people laugh? Smile? Do you do kind things for others? Do you contribute valuable ideas and thoughts? Do you maybe even have a creative hobby? Are you a good husband? A good friend? It's great (and important too) to be an economically productive agent in society, but that's only a statistic that's as truly bland as it sounds.
We have so much opportunity to add value to this world that feeling miserable about it is silly. Get out there and be a better you. Focus on impacting the lives of others (doesn't even have to be a lot of people or 'scale up') in as positive a way as you can and you'll discover existential clarity, as opposed to the myopia in which you presently find yourself mired.
I know you meant well by this, but you might want to consider how the wording can be received. Someone feeling vulnerable might perceive this as suggesting that their feelings are invalid, and may respond by retreating from seeking help for fear of judgment.
I think you will really appreciate this blog post http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog... by Steve Yegge about getting a job at Google.
> I used to be liked by my teams.
How is your personal social life outside of your marriage? At least for me, my darkest times were the times when I didn't have close friends to spend time with on the weekends and after work, where I truly felt safe to "be myself" without worrying about my every word and action being judged.
Who said being "nice" and having a good attitude where the same thing? Sounds like you do have a bad attitude not in the Hell's Angels way but in the "I don't actually give a shit any more so lets do whatever" sort of way. An engineer with a good attitude will actually give a shit about the quality and type work they do.
>Death doesn't seem so bad anymore.
Sounds like the start of a bout of burn out or depression, you should look into that.
For things to do:
Get a non-technical hobby that can take your mind of work Judo, Yoga, Meditation anything that takes a lot of focus to do right but won't kill you if you do it wrong aka no chainsaw juggling.
Exercise more try to hit an hour a day, it will help calm your mind and improve your mood. Swing by /r/bodyweightfitness learn how to do cool gymnastics stuff.
See a shrink. Even if you aren't crazy it can help to have a neutral third party to talk to especially one with skills.
-Consider that you might be experiencing the early symptoms of burnout, depression, some form of anxiety disorder, etc. Checklists of symptoms are available on the internet; if you feel you match those symptoms, consider professional help. As as aside, the stigma is not as great as it used to be and, being employed by the Big 5, you should have access to relatively generous medical benefits and a HR department that is conscientious about giving accommodations for health issues (if for no other reason than avoiding bad publicity and an aversion to lawsuits). If you do go this route, I recommend seeking out a teaching hospital, if there's one nearby; you have an improved chance of getting good care there.
-It's time to start leaning on your professional network. Start contacting past co-workers and friends outside your current employer and get advice, do practice sessions, and job leads.
-Technical interviewing is a learnable skill and, as often noted on HN, often has little to do with your day-to-day job, even if you're at a top company. There are books and sites for both the behavorial side and the technical side of interviews. Start drilling an hour every other day until you have your behavioral answers and your techniques down pat.
-Lastly, remember that passing an interview is mostly a matter of luck. Sometimes you just get some git whose favorite interview question happens to be something you didn't study (see Yegge's description of the interview anti-loop [1]). Sometimes you get someone who got up on the wrong side of the bed. Keep trying, learn from your mistakes, and you're bound to find a position.
Good luck!
[1] http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-goog...
Go for a free Vipassana meditation course: https://www.dhamma.org/en/locations/directory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTwaTk26qbE
Take your wife partner dancing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9xxeWRxSbA
Good Luck!
Go for a free Vipassana meditation course: https://www.dhamma.org/en/locations/directory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTwaTk26qbE
Take your wife partner dancing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9xxeWRxSbA
Good Luck!
I was pretty discouraged after that, but all you can do is go on to the next one with an open mind. There are lots of great opportunities out there. A lot of interviewers understand nerves and will take that into account