Ask HN: How do you tune your personality to get better at interviews?

Try this

https://www.google.com/search?q=bob+firestone+job+interview+...

I was having trouble with interviews circa 2006 and I bought his course and it was a great investment.

You have no idea what you even did wrong. What you need to do is call up your friends and have them mock interview you, there's even free platforms and exchanges where you can do that. Get some actual feedback, don't act on wild conjectures.

Also keep in mind it could be as simple as that they had a better candidate.

Take theater classes. Or join a (team) sports club. Both teach you skills that you most likely will not acquire elsewhere and that are directly applicable to interviews.

Also, having been on both sides, I can tell you that hiring is just a crap shoot. My (anecdotal!) experience is that a lot of hiring is e8ther 50% gut feelings-based or 50% keyword-based. And in the worse case, both.

The rejection might also be random and out of your control. E.g. if they already filled the position or the higher-ups decided to save costs by taking back open headcount. Frustrating for sure, but not actionable.

From my POV, if you don’t have any strong signals about why you were rejected, I would just move on rather than trying to infer the reason.

My advice is 2 portions of Chivas Regal 4 hours before the interview and then 2 full bottles of The Famous Grouse and Blue Label, 15 minutes before. Then, let it flow. If they don't get that you are a good tech guy, move on, they don't deserve you.

Now, I've had a few strange things myself with interviews. Except for the company I ended work for, all other were a disaster. Everyone from HR knew 0 about Linux or programming. One guy was really dumb. We talked about bash for Linux and at the end he starts reading his notes and says "Sad you did not talk about scripting in Linux..." and I just went "Ok bye bye".

At its core is better "selling skills" In my last job I noticed how much better people that did jobs like waitressing before were more likeable by Clients. Small things like saying at the end "John thanks for your time..." Put the name first, people like that. But in the end you might have done well and failed you on salary requirements...

Is there someone you trust who has been a mentor to you at one of your past jobs? Send them a note and ask them to mock interview you. People love being asked favors and for their opinion.

You sound unsure and defeated in your post. Were you feeling confident the day of the interview, or do you think you seemed desperate for the job?

I will say that all the best technical interviews I have had are ones where I spoke in short sentences, was able to end on a point rather than rambling, and left plenty of time in my answers to ask questions of the reviewer and demonstrate curiosity.

This isn't 2021 anymore. You need to recalibrate your world view.

There are probably 300 people interviewing for the job you interviewed for. So they need to not just pick someone who checks the boxes, but the BEST of all the people who checked the boxes.

Assuming you checked all the boxes, you weren't the best and someone else was chosen. That's all it is. What makes them the best? Who knows. There's likely 50 of them they had to choose from.

Job hunting has always been a numbers game but now it's worse by a factor of 100x. Don't take it personally, and keep going.

Let me say first I understand the frustration you must be feeling right now. It's no fun to be under the gun with bills to pay and think you're getting turned down from jobs because of something that isn't even really the core of the work (at least that's my assumption).

You don't have to be 100% sure about what it is personality-wise that you need to tune up to start making changes. You're an intelligent agent; your intuition is much better than random about things like this. I would say act on your intuitions about what specifically you are going that is rubbing them the wrong way, and be less like that - regress a little to the mean, in other words. This is generally good advice in the business world, even if it isn't good advice for e.g. becoming a celebrity on Twitter.

Take note that most psychological studies suggest that personality is very unlikely to change dramatically in adulthood no matter what you do. It's better to focus on techniques that let you chill out for a few hours/days/weeks than it is to try to actually change who you are at core.

It's natural to feel this way. But the thing that you have to remember about interviews like this where you're doing multiple rounds is that a lot of times they'll have people come to a round table discussion. If one person says something negative, that can often change the course of whether or not you're going to get the job. It depends on how much influence that person typically has. A lot of times people might defer to that person,etc.

Speaking from my experiences in dozens of debriefs: I don't think I can recall a case where an otherwise good candidate was rejected for something like not liking someone's personality.

There might be a middle ground between "technical skills" and "personality", though, which we do take into account, falling under "soft skills", which may be affected by certain personality traits. Things like polling the interviewer for their thoughts, asking thoughtful questions, being curious about the source of disagreement or misunderstanding, not being dogmatic, and so on. I think it can be harder to demonstrate these kinds of skills with certain personality types -- I used to be very nervous in interviews, and it wasn't always easy to have the presence of mind to exercise these soft skills.

But even still, at least in technical interviews like programming or system design (as opposed to cross-functional/manager/tech leadership interviews), I've found it relatively rare for a candidate to be rejected for 'soft skill' failures when the right signals are there for technical strength.

Don't change who you are for an interview. It will just result in a job where you aren't happy being a different version of yourself. I know it is frustrating to not find work, but finding work that isn't right for you brings whole new levels of frustration later.

And, as others have said... this rejection might have nothing to do with you. If they had 1000 applications, and you were their choice above 998 of them, you still get the rejection because they hired the person who was above 999 of them.

There could be a lot of reasons why they may have passed, and it could have absolutely nothing to do with you or your personality.

If it was just one company, I wouldn’t start trying to change who you are. If you make up a new personality for the interview and get the job, then what? How long can you keep the character going? Do you want to work with people you can’t be yourself around?

In terms of what to possibly change, that’s almost impossible to say without seeing what you’re like in an interview.

Will be blunt since I imagine you're fed up and don't want affirmations.

In the most common case where I see engineers who say they struggle with the soft skills parts of interviewing, the underlying issue is a lack of skill in communication - working out what's important, stating it clearly and concisely, and in a way appropriate to the audience. I read some of your blog and found it pleasantly chatty, well structured, and obviously technical. If you communicate like you do in writing, there is obviously no problem there. I have no doubt that your account of performing well on technical questions is correct. However...

After some quick google searches, what I did find in your digital footprint is:

- A relatively high number of online posts complaining about employers in general across several years

- A tweet from a few years ago where you say you're fed up of software engineering but are forced to stick with it

- (as you stated) a jumpy work history

My best guess is that you're failing the digital footprint check. If I was hiring and post interview was doing a little more digging on candidates to help do a final pick, I would look at the short tenures, the outwardly directed frustration at employers, the stated lack of desire to be a software engineer at all, and pass on you.

As for why this is happening after several technical interviews? Most likely that's when you undergo final background checks and get cut out of the process. If you are burned out, sick of workplace social narratives, and don't want to work as a software engineer, I sincerely empathise for you. However: don't let me, a random hacker news commenter, find that out in under 2 minutes of time spent on Google.

I've rounded lots of sharp edges off my personality over the years, having been rejected a lot and having made unforced errors.

The problem with advice here is that, if you're right and there's something personality-related and it's not just fierce competition or tiny sample size, we can't really tell through a post. I'm talking about the je ne sais quoi of you, the body language, the attitude, the unwritten vibe you give off, and posting videos here is uh, well, yeah, unlikely.

So, I'd echo the advice of others to talk to your friends and ask them to give you feedback. Hopefully they're observant and willing to be blunt.

I'll opine, though - have you tried a little masking and humility? I ask because if I had to guess based on probability, the archetype of the highly intelligent, technically excellent nerd tends to also run adjacent to underdeveloped social skills, or at least indifference to using them. Arrogance, defensiveness, ego abound. That's what I coach my team and friends on who have cracked this type of discussion open.

If you were going to mask for an interview, coming across humble/hungry/smart (smart is probably not a problem for most here, but humble?...). Consider mirroring with the interviewer. Stay detached and practice this, especially when a finger is pointed at you or you don't ace a question, or they disagree.

In all, it's probably the stuff you can't describe easily without being next to you. You may not even realize the signals you're putting off, if that is even what's going on.

I know the struggle - my wife has been turned down over and over and over, and she takes it personally, but she's also going for jobs that clearly have tons of great applicants. Is it her attitude? Did she make a mistake bringing up that experience? Or maybe...or maybe it's just out of our control, and we have to stick to the plan and stay in the market. The losing move is not to play.

When you find the right employer, your personality won't be a barrier, it'll be an asset. Wait for the right fit.

Do you. You're the only one who can do it as well as you do.

Have you tried asking them whey they didn't select you? If you express genuine disappointment and ask what it was about you that didn't fit what they were looking for, there's a reasonable chance they'll give you feedback on the interview.

>Under the advisement of my lawyer (ChatGPT)

Well I see the problem already.

On topic: this job market is a complete circus and I wouldn't gleam any rejections as it having anything to do with any factor you can control. So many jobs just disappeared for me mid-interview, with a few ending up as ghosts after 4-5 rounds. There's interviews where I do well but it's clear they had someone else in the pipeline with double my experience. Recruiter disrespect is also at very high levels and you'll be rejected for reasons they cannot legally disclose. Then there's the whole outsourcing issue and how the interview never intended to hire you, even if you were the perfect candidate.

Maybe one day we'll have a sane market again thst hires on the quality of the candidate. But that's not 2025.

There's no tricks, some people just won't like you unfortunately. If you are doing your best to be friendly and helpful, those people can F off basically. Many people get off on the power trip of you being in weaker position, and show their true colors as well. Just move on, though I know everyone needs a job.

As consultant I have learnt to answer what others are looking for, instead of what I actually think.

Maybe you need to work on soft skills, learn on how to read other's expectations, so that you can dynamically adapt your strategy to meet their expectations.

I recently started a new job (big upgrade from my last gig), and after onboarding, one of my interviewers told me that a major factor in him recommending me for hiring is that I "looked bored and ready to move on" during the technical interview. I'm not sure if trying to look bored is a winning strategy in general, but there is my personal anecdote.

Sometimes, being declined based on personality is a good thing. Unless you are too confrontational or burnt out, in my experience, places that reject technically competent people based on the perceived lack of soft skills tend to be a mess, dominated by corridor politics and shenanigans.

I never do this. If I am hired then my personality comes along as part of the package. If the potential employer and coworkers reject my personality then the position is not a good match.

For what it is worth in my recent experience most interviewers have commented about how pleasant and likable I am before they reject me, usually for some perceived technical flaw such as not realizing the essence of software quality is embracing their favorite fuzzing solution.

As an technical interviewer in a startup (50 people with like 20 devs), I think the culture fit and communication skills are more important than the pure technical skills.

Multiple times we rejected strong senior devs because of that. It could be things like: - language issues eg. we have to repeat questions multiple times - bad team players eg. they feel close minded, they seem judgemental

On the other hand, we recruited juniors who were not great technically but who had a positive mindset and the potential to grow. And I think they were the best people we hired.