Ask HN: How to lead a stable, happy career as a bad interviewee?

A few blunt options:

1. Ask your friends for referrals or to hire you.

2. Go balls to the walls studying and cut your expenses then don't screw up. probably not the one you want to do but crashing on a friend's couch and studying does work.

3. Get a government job. They take a long time but your employment is definitely on auto after that.

The best way to get a job, without needing to do well at all on the interview, is to have someone already on the inside who can say "they interview very badly, but I've worked with them, and they are very good to work with". Doing temp contract jobs sometimes (not always) leads to exactly this. Even if the actual gig in question is not at such an organization, sometimes a person who worked with you on that will later on be working at a place you want to work at.

HOWEVER...while I sympathize with your distaste at interviewing, don't get too attached to the idea of not having to interview in the future. The labor market has, for almost half a century now, been moving in the direction of more fluidity, not less. Some people find a spot that allows them to avoid that trend, but don't count on it.

But, if that's what you're after, then doing as well as possible (including on the "easy to work with" aspect) in the temp jobs you get now, is the best way to compensate for being bad at interviewing.

In one of the tightest markets for software devs (and labor in general) of all time you can’t land a full time job? And you are refusing to date and get into relationships because you can’t pass an interview?

1) Maybe software isn’t the right career for you, and 2) Don’t let being unable to land a software development job prevent you from saving money and getting a girlfriend / boyfriend.

There are many other careers out there.

If you come off in your interviews like you do in this post it’s no surprise. All you’re doing is saying what you want and virtually nothing about what you have to offer.

You will get there. Keep interviewing and learn what companies look for in a candidate. It's a bit of a numbers game to land a full time job and it can take some perseverance.

If you have trouble finding full time SWE roles after all your numerous jobs, maybe you are lacking critical skills employees want to see, or don't have personal projects that showcase technical depth.

Are you applying for junior dev roles? Maybe finding a career counselor of some sort can help. Reach out to your friends and ask for their honest advice of what they think you should do/add. Leverage your personal connections to get your first first full time job!

Ultimately, you have to persevere and be scrappy to find your first job. IMO the hardest part in your career is when you first enter the workforce. Always try to stand out and market yourself on how you would be a huge asset to the employer.

Last thought, if you are looking to join a great school/community of aspiring junior engineers and web developers, apply to Lambda School. I recommended my own brother and friends, and I have seen huge growth in their dev skills and abilities. I hope this helps!

> The more time I spend looking for jobs and practicing interviews, the more I see them as a distraction, because I don't see them paying off.

I'm wondering why this is. As a programmer, presumably you are good at learning. Also, it's generally accepted that getting good at interviewing provides a high return on investment. Are you confident that you've been focused on the right aspects of interview skill improvement?

My solution to being a bad interviewer was to be a company cofounder -- an option available to me due to the confluence of

- having a reasonable network from college of entrepreneurial folks who trusted in my abilities and wanted to start something new

- confidence in working quite well with people (can be reasonably replaced with a confidence in being driven and getting things done by yourself)

- confidence in learning what i need to do get things done

- low stress coefficient: i tend to work well under pressure

- a good appetite for risk: i don't balk at the instability and existential risks of building a company from the ground up.

Doesn't necessarily work for everyone, but I also think being a founder is not often considered as an option when the interview/job landscape is looking bleak (it was a last resort for me too, after struggling for too long trying to get a cubicle somewhere).

You don't say where you are located, or why interviewing is a distraction. Without these bits of information, it's hard to give you specific advice.

I'd say that avoiding interviewing entirely is unrealistic. You will always be required to do an interview, even if you go through referrals.

I'd suggest reframing your CV to match the kind of job you want, and starting from there. You'd be surprised how the same experience can be written in vastly different ways.

From there, what helped me with interviewing is thinking of it as me trying to help the interviewer get to a good answer, rather than me trying to impress them. It suddenly became more natural and wasn't so challenging from then on.

Interviewing is a skill in of itself. Practice. Grind Leetcode, HackerRank, and interviewing.io.

It's not the best answer because institutionally we are incentivizing the wrong behavior. But unfortunately until we make that change your best bet is to continue to practice, practice, practice until your skills at interviewing are refined.

You need to build a network of people who will support you. The only way I know to do that if you don't already have one is by doing outstanding work. You need to squeeze some time out and do something great. It is harder to find that time if you're taking care of a family, but a lot of people do it. Elon Musk is a good example.

Assemble a portfolio. Show people what you can do. And then network.

"How do I get into a stable career track like this?"

You need to get a stable job and you get a stable job by interviewing.

"And not through these distractions of job searches and interviews."

Your goals are in conflict. Interpersonal communication is a big part of a programming job. The interview is part of that. You need to learn how to interview in a way that lets you show off your skills.

Your ability to solve leetcode problems fundamentally determines your job prospects, just as being attractive/rich/famous fundamentally determines your dating prospects. Whether or not this is a fact to be lamented, it's still a fact. Trying to get a job without doing leetcode is like trying to get more dates without being more attractive. Doing leetcode is how you get a job.

Here's a formula for stable job prospects: walk into the interview, in 30 minutes solve the challenge that most candidates can't finish in an hour, spend 15 minutes talking knowledgeably about your solution, then spend 15 minutes shooting the shit and building rapport with the interviewer. Your pass rate will exceed 95%.

To consistently pull that off, you have to do leetcode.

Where are you located? Maybe open up the job search wider and be prepared to move to a place where devs are desperately needed and your chances are better.

Also get your CV looked at by people who know what to look for. It might need a spruce up. Make sure it sells you well.

Get a good cv, get to a good city and apply for every good job you can see. You need a good system then of qualification, deciding which leads to prioritise, bullshit detection, dealing with recruiters etc, so come up with one and continually improve it. Use any waiting time to learn standard interview answers both technical and behaviourial and coding puzzles.

In your situation you must be seen as super keen on every job regardless of what you feel. Get offers. If they say is it ok that you work 60h a week the answer is yes. You can reject them later but get offers. Really think of it as a sales job to get the coding job.

For reference, whiteboarding in Europe is rather uncommon and, if it is done, it's more common for entry-level jobs. In my experience, the highest paying jobs pretty much don't do it at all.

> The more time I spend looking for jobs and practicing interviews

Maybe you should stop practicing interviews, and start practicing being better at your job?