HN Explorer

Ask HN: Should I cancel my interview?

3 points by burner5834 ↗ HN
I have an interview with a company where I would very much like to work. I was planning on taking a month or two to prepare (while having a full time job), but a recruiter happened to contact me before I started prep. I scheduled the interview out two weeks, but I do not feel well prepared. There are algorithms and design sessions during this interview.

If I pass the interview, I feel it will be by sheer luck. (getting problems I'm familiar with)

This is a medium to large sized start-up.

If I go through with the interview and do poorly, I have no way of knowing when or if I would be given the chance again.

I don't believe another week of prep would have me in a much better position, so postponing probably wouldn't help that much.

If I cancel the interview entirely, I'm not sure how that will come across and if I will be able to try again at another point.

Today is Friday, the interview is this coming Tuesday.

Long time lurker. Happy to receive feedback from the community.

15 comments

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PaulHoule
If you're not ready with two weeks of prep, when would you be ready?
zekrioca
As he pointed out, after 1 or 2 months
burner5834
Good point. Unfortunately, I've had some personal stuff come up, and I have not been able to put as much time into prep over the last two weeks as I thought I would.
raincom
There are people, who spend 6 to 12 months to prepare for FANG interviews. Even kickstart programs for interviews last two months. There is a huge group of people who spend at least 6 months for top pay, etc.
[dead] CozyBearNotSoy
There are lots of people working in tech without formal CS education who will do poorly if quizzed on asymptotics, graph algorithms, dynamic programming etc without considerable preparation.
[deleted]
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vaillancourtmax
> If I go through with the interview and do poorly, I have no way of knowing when or if I would be given the chance again.

If the organization you're looking to join is minimally humane, they'll be open to giving you another chance later down the line. In the event of a rejection, ask whoever's communicating with you for feedback, and mention that you'd like to try again later.

Worst case scenario, it doesn't work out and you discover that this organization is not willing to help people grow and give them a second chance, which could be a sign of other cultural problems below the surface, and you dodge a bullet in the process.

Best case scenario, you're in.

The middle ground is that you know you can prepare a bit more and try again later.

I feel like there's little downside to doing right away. I'd say do it.

burner5834
Thanks for the feedback. I had good rapport with the people I've spoke to thus far, so I'm hoping this is the case.
Jemaclus
As a hiring manager, it wouldn't bother me if you told me that you aren't quite ready to interview just yet and that you would reach back out in a month or two. I would say OK, no problem.

The big risk is that the position might not be open in a month or two. That said, fast-growing startups and large startups often have evergreen positions, so that might be a small risk rather than a big one.

My advice: tell the recruiter straight up that you're interested but that for several reasons you won't be available to interview until October. You don't need to go into those reasons.

11235813213455
What you could do is a fast-learning process, of learning what are the different algorithm families, and when they're relevant, this alone is already super valuable even if you don't know how to use those techniques yet
MattGaiser
Just ask for more time. I just postposed an interview for two months with a large tech firm. They didn't seem phased at all.
filoleg
Yeah, i found that big tech companies have absolutely zero issues with letting you postpone the interview by however many weeks or months you want.

The only downside is that if you were planning to interview for a specific team, they might have no more spots by that time. But every time it came up, the recruiters assured me it wont be an issue and that there will be a team for me, even if it wasn’t that specific one. And for those where you just apply for a general position and get team-matched later (like in most cases with google or fb), this wont even come up at any point.

In fact, the recruiters themselves mentioned to me many times (when i entered those interview processes) to take my time with preparing and schedule for whenever i feel comfortable, explicitly stating not to rush, because they want to see you perform at your best, not to see how quickly you can cram the material. And they didnt bluff or just tried to be nice. Same with rescheduling, unless you do it like the night before (which would still be fine, but imo it is inconsiderate to the recruiter, barring some emergency or unexpected situations).

MattGaiser
In many ways they invert the entire recruitment process. Difficult interview on the skills, but everything else is far more relaxed.

Wish I had known I could do this the first time I interviewed for big tech.

speedgoose
I personally wouldn't memorize algorithms and designs for weeks on my free time for an interview. It's different if you enjoy that of course, or you think it is worth it.

I would learn the maximum I can before the interview on Tuesday and hope for the best.