[devonkim]

A recruiter I respect said that the interview process is the most egotistical, selfish thing we do as professionals and it does the process a disservice if you do not follow it as such. Selling yourself to your peers and to those that want to hire you is important for the accuracy and precision of the hiring process if your contributions are not self-evident.

Getting good feedback is definitely one of the hardest parts though and thus makes getting better at interviews tough without good mentorship / network. Heard of a guy that was one of the top n TopCoder engineers and was having trouble landing a solid gig. Turns out he’d just zoom through the whiteboard problems, hardly talk, and interviewers were just weirded out. When he started slowing down and explaining his thoughts better to the panels he finally got the offers he deserved.