I see alot of posts about how quickly or slowly a company moves after an interview, so just curious what are the extremes you've experienced? And how did it work out? Could give some insight and hope for many in the process rn!
we talk about red flags constantly but what's something an interviewer did that made you think "ok I actually want to work here"?
could’ve saved a lot of us a lot of cringe- drop yours below 👇
sometimes the interview is less about whether they want you and more about whether you want them. what was your red flag moment??
sometimes the interview is less about whether they want you and more about whether you want them. what was your red flag moment??
not the hard ones you expected, the ones that came out of left field and made your brain go completely blank 🫠 and how you replied if you want to share
you prep for weeks and then show up and they haven't even looked at your resume. tell me your worst one
Before my current role I got so nervous for interviews, even if they were just video calls. What’s something you’ve done to calm your nerves and lock in?
Before my current role I got so nervous for interviews, even if they were just video calls. What’s something you’ve done to calm your nerves and lock in?
I've been around hiring enough to notice a pattern and it's kind of frustrating to watch honestly.
The people who don't make it past interviews usually aren't worse than the people who do. They just.. haven't practiced talking about themselves under pressure. Like actually talking, out loud, to another human, in real time.
And I get it truly. The natural way to prep is to read stuff. Go over common questions, think through your answers, maybe write some bullet points. Feels productive so you feel better. But then you sit in the actual interview and your well-organized thoughts come out in the completely wrong order and you spend 3 minutes on context that didn't matter and 10 seconds on the part that would've actually impressed them.
Verbal fluency is just a different skill than knowing your stuff. You can be completely solid on paper and then fumble it because talking confidently about yourself on demand is genuinely hard, and takes reps to get comfortable with.
A few things that helped me or people I know:
Record yourself answering a question. Not to study it obsessively, just watch it once or twice.. Most people are shocked by what they actually sound like when they're a little nervous. You'll immediately find your thing- filler words, trailing off, starting every answer with "so basically what happened was"
Stop prepping questions, start prepping stories. The better frame is: what are like 6-8 experiences that show competency, how you handle conflict, a failure, working with others etc? Once those are tight you can fit them to almost any question they throw at you.
Get reps out loud. This is the one everyone skips- Saying your answers in your head is not the same thing. Even the mirror feels dumb but it works. Anyway. The job market is kind of brutal right now and I think a lot of people are responding by applying to more places instead of getting better at the part that's actually costing them. Just my two cents
Got laid off in January. By March I had done first rounds at 15 companies, final rounds at 4, and accepted one offer. I kept notes on everything because I needed to feel like I had some control over what was happening to me. Figured I'd share what I found..
Some of this is stuff you've heard, some of it genuinely surprised me.
The résumé stuff matters less than you think. The story stuff matters more.
I spent the first two weeks obsessing over my résumé. Rewrote it four times. Paid for one of those "ATS optimization" tools.. Got pretty much the same callback rate before and after.
What actually moved my numbers: getting better at talking about what I did. Not the bullet points, but the narrative. "Led a migration that reduced latency by 40%" is a bullet point. Being able to walk someone through what broke first, why you made the call you made, what you'd do differently- that's what made interviewers lean forward.
My résumé didn't get better. My ability to explain the résumé did- that's what changed.
Every company thinks their interview process is special. Most of them are running the same 6 questions.
Across 15 first rounds, I heard some version of these constantly:
The framing changed. The costume changed. A fintech company asked the "conflict" question as "tell me about a time you had to push back on a stakeholder." A startup asked it as "tell me about a time your team disagreed about direction." It's the same question. I stopped treating each interview as a new exam and started treating it as a chance to get better at delivering the same 8 stories I'd identified from my experience.
Once I had those 8 stories in tight shape, my performance became a lot more consistent. Before that, I was improvising every time, which meant I was good when the question fit my memory and bad when it didn't.
The "why did you leave" question is a trap and most people step in it.
I got laid off. I didn't quit. But I still fumbled this for the first 5 or 6 interviews.
The trap isn't lying, the trap is tone. The first few times I answered this, I sounded fine on paper but I could tell something was landing wrong. I was a little defensive. A little "well, it was a tough macro environment" in a way that probably read as bitter or evasive.
What worked eventually: short, factual, pivoting fast. "Our team was part of a broader restructuring in Q4- about 200 people across the org. It was disappointing but honestly it gave me the push to be intentional about where I went next, which is why I'm excited about this role." That's it. Fifteen seconds, no emotion, pivot to forward motion.
The interviewers who pushed past that answer were testing to see if I'd spiral, so I learned not to spiral.
Preparing for a company's interview style is a real thing and almost nobody does it.
I didn't figure this out until interview #8 or so, but different companies genuinely run different kinds of interviews. Not just different questions- different textures.
Some companies want you to think out loud constantly. If you go quiet for 20 seconds to formulate an answer, they interpret it as you being stuck. Other companies want you to take a beat and give a coherent answer; thinking out loud reads as scattered to them.
Some companies (especially post-Series B startups) want you to demonstrate opinions. They're not looking for "it depends", they want to see if you've actually thought about the space. Big enterprise companies often want the opposite: nuanced, "here are the tradeoffs," don't get too spicy.
I started researching this before interviews. Glassdoor reviews, asking people in my network who'd interviewed there, sometimes just paying attention to how the recruiter communicated with me (the email tone is often a signal). It felt like extra work but it meaningfully changed how I showed up.
The companies that moved fastest were usually the ones that respected my time most overall.
This isn't a scientific finding. But I noticed a pattern: the companies that confirmed interviews promptly, gave feedback quickly, and didn't ghost me after stages were also the ones with the most compressed hiring timelines.
The companies where I was waiting a week to hear back after a final round were also the ones where I eventually got a form rejection with no detail, or just never heard back at all.
I'm not sure if this is a culture signal or just a process signal but I started treating "how do they communicate with me as a candidate" as a real data point about whether I'd want to work there.
I was terrible at negotiating and I should have pushed harder.
Got my offer, was relieved, accepted within 24 hours. Later found out two other people at the same level negotiated up. I had completely checked out of negotiating mode because I was just so glad it was over.
The relief of getting an offer after months of rejections does something to your brain. I became a completely different person the moment the number hit my inbox. All the negotiation advice I'd read went out the window because my nervous system just wanted to say yes and stop the suffering.
I'd do it differently. I'd write myself a note in advance: "When you get an offer, you are going to want to say yes immediately. You must say thank you, that you're very excited, and that you'll get back to them in 48 hours." That's it. Just buying 48 hours would have given me time to come back to earth.
The stuff that actually helped me prepare:
The honest part:
It was a rough few months. There's a specific kind of demoralization that comes from doing everything right and still getting a form rejection. I had weeks where I applied, heard nothing, and felt invisible.
What kept me functional: treating the job search like a skill I was improving rather than a verdict on my worth. Every bad interview was data. Every rejection was practice. It sounds like cope and some days it felt like cope, but it was also just true- I was measurably better at interviewing in March than I was in January, and that eventually mattered.
Good luck out there. Feel free to ask questions! I'll answer what I can.
Entering the job market can be scary, I’d love to know what advice you’d give on how to make it less stressful.