[muzani]

Preparation. Anyone who has done public speaking knows that it's a lot of work to be a good speaker.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson says you have to be 10x more prepared than you need to be. He calls it his Batman utility belt. You anticipate every question you'll get and do your research.

One interviewer asked Neil whether it was worth the $3B mission to Saturn. He brought up that it's $3B over 12 years and that it's how much Americans spend on lip balm. He researched the reporters, anticipated 10 different questions, and prepared to answer a question on cost.

For example, a very common question to rehearse is "tell me about yourself" or "tell me about your biggest or latest major project." A big company might ask your experience with processes - CI/CD, how you work with a team, when you've let the team down. A smaller company might ask about what you think about their product.

Don't memorize a speech or answer though.

A more advanced trick I learned from public speaking class is to get a topic, draft bullet points in my head within 5 minutes, then speak from those points. An example I love is "Do you think a sewer system or waste disposal system is more essential to a city?"

If you answer immediately, you will "ummmm uhhh" a lot. Learn to take a breather and buy time.

[klenwell]

On this point, there was some good practical advice in this HN comment that I've adopted and applied successfully:

What I did is I prepared 10 different stories about my career experience and then tagged them with a bunch of prompts. For example I have a story about one project that had dual PMs that experienced a lot of scope creep and eventually fizzled on release. I can now use that story to answer a broad range of questions from failure to various project management approaches. Overall I now have prepared stories to answer probably 50-75 different questions immediately.

Another benefit is that I have also told these stories multiple times in interviews now and I get better telling them each time. Even if the answer isn't 100% relevant, I feel more confident and likely come off better launching immediately into a detailed story about my experience rather than trying to awkwardly come up with an answer on the fly. It is also easy to drop irrelevant parts or expand on specific details when the basic framework of the story is already something that feels natural.

I will even have the document with all the prompts and story bullet points open whenever I am doing phone or remote interviews.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25519718

I also keep a document where I'll record new or challenging questions after I do an interview and outline a response so I'm better prepared next time.

[jvanderbot]

One step further: Choose characteristics about yourself that you want to emphasize. Perhaps you want to be know as dilligent and detail oriented, or a fast mover, or a creative person. Then craft many stories about those points and have them in reserve. Chances are someone will ask a question that lets you bring up those qualities.

[muzani]

I try to mention that I started by making games as a kid. That seems to resonate with a large number of interviewers. Then we can talk about something fun like Monte Carlo effect for calculating which part of a grid has civilization, or procedural story generation.

[MrWiffles]

One thing I’m having trouble with is anticipating the questions themselves. Not the technology specific ones, but also the generic stuff and the things that are still generic (tell me about yourself) but also more relevant to our industry and software eng roles. Any resources you could suggest that have worked well for you or anyone you know?

[muzani]

If you interview often enough, you'll see a similar pattern. Here's my list:

"What's your product development attitude?"

"How did you know about this position?"

"How did you learn about Technology X?"

"Tell me about your latest role"

"Why are you switching jobs?"

"What would you change at current role?"

"Tell me about another project, it can be a side project."

"What do you plan on being in 5 years?"

"Why aren't you at senior/manager level yet?"

"I see you did tech X here, and then Y. Why the career shift?"

"What excites you?" (This is a surprisingly common question that throws me off. The first one I got it, I answered "productivity". Which was true, but it sounded like a bullshit answer and lost me that interview. I've learned to talk about AI or cooking or exponential growth and relate that to incremental games. This question is often a bullshit detector)

"What advice would you have for younger you?"

"What is something you've had trouble with recently?"

"How would you change that?"

"What's the worst mistake you've ever made?"

"Why haven't you joined FAANG?"

"Tell me how did you handle disagreements at work"

"What's your growth plan? What do you want?"

"What's your favourite design pattern?"

"How do you manage tech debt?"

[klenwell]

It's the "What's your greatest weakness?" type of questions that always throw me. Some variations include:

- What's something your not good at?

- What's the biggest mistake you've ever made on the job?

- Describe a time you disagreed with a colleague. How did you resolve it?

- Tell us about a time you received some negative feedback from a manager and how you handled it.

For these types of questions, it has definitely helped me to have rehearsed a little ahead of time.

[Aeolun]

> - Describe a time you disagreed with a colleague. How did you resolve it? - Tell us about a time you received some negative feedback from a manager and how you handled it.

These questions are incredibly annoying when asked.

For one thing I’ve literally never received negative feedback from my manager, but nobody believes that when you tell them, so you have to come up with something absolutely trivial, and somehow blow that up into ‘negative feedback’, then think of a way you dealt with it other than ‘I didn’t do it again’, because that isn’t what they want to hear.

The times I disagree with a colleague are not situations we ‘resolve’, it’s something my manager ultimately decides. I don’t know what kind of answer they’re fishing for here. At least ‘we talk about it, and then either not disagree anymore, or escalate it’ does not seem to make anyone happy.

[jacobr1]

There are tons of blogs out there with example interview questions. If you review a few dozen, you start to pick up some commonalities.

Another approach that has worked for in the past is a mock interview. Ask a fried or college to interview you and give some feedback.

Look at job descriptions for role you are interested in. For each bullet point, you should able able to speak to why you are qualified, probably via an anecdote of a prior experience.

[0xFACEFEED]

Freestyle rappers basically do the same thing! It's very impressive when you see it done in person; very good strategy.

[klenwell]

Just like Homer, haha. I guess when you think about it, it's all just another form of the prehistoric craft of oral poetry or storytelling.

[0xFACEFEED]

A pessimist might say that this only demonstrates how tech interviews reward the better performance art.

:P

:|

:(

[GordonS]

This is gold, I'm definitely banking this idea. 10 suddenly feels like a lot of stories to come up with though :)

[unsupp0rted]

> He calls it his Batman utility belt. You anticipate every question you'll get and do your research.

Part of the reason Neil DeGrasse Tyson is so painful to watch/listen to (especially on his recent appearances) is that this over-preparation or expectation of specific talking points comes off as smugness, interrupting behavior, etc... is it this which hurts the flow of conversation and even seemed to exasperate Joe Rogan during their talk recently?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwZXR2PlcEM

[jrh206]

Those clips are painful.

DeGrasse Tyson interrupts Rogan right before important words - punchlines. For instance, in the first clip, Rogan begins “what’s interesting is that the town is -”, and DeGrasse Tyson takes that moment to pattern break: “wait, wait, wait, have you seen that they did Starry Night in bacon?!”. Rogan blinks, stunned. His point about the town lost forever.

Regardless, it’s possible to be well prepared but not interrupt the person you’re talking to right as they get to the juice. I would suggest Sean Evans and Nardwaur as examples from the other side of the fence - interviewers - who are unrivalled in preparation and give their guests a chance to speak.

[jvanderbot]

DeGrasse Tyson is insufferable anyway. He takes every chance to pontificate and play the skewering science expert, even when it's not necessary. His generation / audience just wants a scientist to slam dunk on everyone all the time and "Science the shit out of it", and he's responding perfectly.

And I work in space exploration! I've seen 100s of better voices for science than him fist hand.

[samstave]

Agreed, as is Michio Kaku. They are the Zahi Hawass of astro physics.

[glitchc]

This might be on purpose, especially if Mr. Rogan is pandering to the audience and Dr. Tyson is aware of his behavior.

[throwbigdata]

Pandering?

[PragmaticPulp]

It's the difference between natural conversation and performance.

NDT wasn't trying to have a conversation, he was trying to put on a performance. He was using intonation, cadence, and speech patterns rehearsed for putting on a show, whereas podcasters want to have something more like a natural conversation.

This can actually be a problem when people try to study social skills and speaking habits from performers and then deploy those habits into natural conversations. It comes off as inauthentic and awkward.

[scrozier]

Thank you! I've always found DeGrasse Tyson unbearable. He's clearly a very smart guy, but as a communicator of the people? Not at all sure why he's so popular. That clip is positively grotesque.

[hinkley]

Speech and conversation are not the same skill.

[osigurdson]

He's a little weird/rude in those clips but there is no vindictiveness behind it. He was great in Cosmos.

[IE6]

This to me is tangential - I am wondering if you are more annoyed at his preparation (which I believe is an excellent example and suggestion to the OP's question) or that he talked over Joe Rogan and didn't let him finish his joke ...

[muzani]

I think it's a great counterpoint. It's unnatural behaviour, even for NDT. He applies the technique where it clearly doesn't work - right in the middle of someone talking.

[itsmemattchung]

Watched about 3 minutes of this...too cringe to finish the rest.

[kube-system]

> If you answer immediately, you will "ummmm uhhh" a lot. Learn to take a breather and buy time.

Some of the best advice I've ever gotten for this was: If you're pausing to think, just be silent. Practice for a while and have someone call you out on it. It's a hard habit to break, but someone who doesn't fill space with "um" will sound twice as smart.

[kettro]

A coworker I had (a good friend and an _amazing_ engineer) would generally just pause silently and think after a question. It was initially off putting, and I couldn’t tell what was happening, but very quickly got used to it. I started doing it myself, but start with a short “hmm” to indicate that I’m now thinking about the question, or just say “let me think”.

Waiting helps you ignore the impulse responses, and double check if you heard the question correctly, whence you can just ask for clarification.

No one complains about a sorta slow speaker, but a frenetic one is hard to follow and will blurt things out.

[ruh-roh]

Using silence strategically is a superpower.

Best leader I ever worked with had a "7 second silence" rule. Just don't say anything for 7 seconds. Requesting input on a topic/idea in a meeting? Wait in silence for 7 seconds. Dropping an important point in a presentation? Wait for 7 seconds. Not sure of the answer to a question? Wait for 7 seconds. If you have doubt about what to say or do? Just wait and breathe for 7 seconds.

It is extremely difficult to do in practice. But it is crazy what a breather can do to help you organize your thoughts. Or what other people will do to fill the void.

(Note: It's not a novel idea, I've seen other folks use 5, 6, or 8 seconds. imo 7 is _just_ on the border of uncomfortable.)

[muzani]

I think it's off-putting if you ask someone a question and they stare into your eyes for 7 seconds.

"Hmm" and "That is a good question" are good loading indicators. "Errr" and "Uhh" are loading indicators too, just a little harsher. You can be silent and look at the ground, finger to chin, as long as it's clear you'retthinking.

[lostcolony]

Yep. "Hmm, give me a second to think on that" is my favorite pause to collect my thoughts. Take a minute to flip through my prepared stories, potentially think through ones I haven't prepared but that might fit better, settle on one, decide the beats I need to hit to best answer the question, and then "Okay. One time..."

[grandchild]

It's an especially hard habit to break for people who are "Team Interrupt", because we learn to cling to the speaker position in normal group conversations this way. People from "Team Wait" are probably much more natural in staying silent for a second (I wouldn't know for sure, but I think I'm observing this in others).

[1] Team Interrupt/Team Wait: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LuXb6CZG4x7pDRBP8/wait-vs-in...

[SenHeng]

Some good examples by Elon Musk and Steve Jobs described in this article.

https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/why-intelligent-minds-like...

This was probably one of Steve Job's most impressive example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE

[gcanyon]

I clicked to double check, but I knew what Jobs clip you were linking to. That answer is so well done.

[lkxijlewlf]

> If you answer immediately, you will "ummmm uhhh" a lot. Learn to take a breather and buy time.

Not just in interviews (I don't interview that often), but just in general, I've trained myself to smile and say, "That is an interesting question!" (and subtle variants so I'm not a robot). It buys me a second or two if it's not that hard, and even more if it is a hard question because now they know I'm thinking about the answer and, well, that is okay.

Edit: And it often buys you points, so to speak, with the person asking.

[lowercased]

> And it often buys you points, so to speak, with the person asking.

I had a tech interview with some folks... 15 years ago. Smallish agency, and I was meeting with the owner and his #2.

I got asked some question - "how would you do X?" - I think it was something like "build a house". Not a tech task, just "how would you go about X". I went to a whiteboard and picked up the marker. Just before I started to draw something, I asked some questions. "Who's going to live there? How many people? Do they have any specific needs?" Stuff like that. Just a handful of questions, and I started answering/drawing based on their feedback. I asked a few more questions, got more answers, drew some more and explained things, then sat down.

I got a job offer the next day (turned it down - couldn't afford me). But I was told (both by the owner and later someone else I met who worked there) that I was the only person they'd interviewed who'd ever asked any clarifying questions before answering.

[scrozier]

Seems like a good technique, but boy, is that overused these days. Let's face it, not all questions are that interesting. Seems that a lot of people start with that, robotically.

[gknoy]

I can see how it might get old hearing that a lot, but when I look at the suite of tech screen questions we have here, several of them are basic under the hood (tree-building and traversal, string manipulation, etc). However, they all do have something about them that made them interesting to me when I did them to calibrate my interviews.

Things can be interesting without being hard or novel, and as Aphyr's entertaining "Hexing the interview" series shows, you can often find something interesting for purely personal reasons that are separate from the question itself. The interesting part might be that a normal data structure isn't enough, or that the difference between the naiive solution and the performant one is substantial. It might just be that we might be doing a task that we normally use a library for (string manipulations) in our normal work, so it's refreshing/challenging/interesting to look at things from a different level of abstraction.

[lkxijlewlf]

> Seems that a lot of people start with that, robotically.

Can't tell if you're trying to be an ass or not.

People can use whatever they want. The point, as many others point out, is to come up with something you'll use to not say, "ummm..." so much.

[publicola1990]

But some people seems so at ease with spontaneity, dealing with dynamic, emergent conversations, and even the ability to direct it to particular directions or narratives. I doubt all of it is preparation.

[willidiots]

I spend a lot of time thinking about important conversations beforehand, and the directions they could take. I'll pace around the house for half an hour talking to myself, practicing speaking. This has proven helpful in my job, which involves a lot of meetings and conversations.

To the original commenter's point, you don't want to memorize your answers, you just want to explore these conversational avenues and test-drive what you might say, seeing how it sounds, what positions are more defensible, what topics to avoid. This is the skeleton of the conversation you'd like to achieve, the "plan".

Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy. When conversation gets spontaneous / goes off the rails, I try to detach and control my emotions. Sit for a few seconds, consider what you're about to say before speaking, and be straightforward and honest.

[121789]

I thought I was the only one who did this (the pacing and practicing conversations). I am surprised at how often it pays off

[wantsanagent]

It is all practice. For a 30 minute presentation I might spend 6 hours in practice. Over my lifetime I've spend months of time practicing public speaking.

That said, the motivation to practice comes from success. If someone tells you you're good at something you'll do it more and be willing to spend more time doing it. Success comes from practice, so the hardest part is getting that first positive feedback if you're starting from a deficit (language barriers, previous criticism). I recommend getting a tutor for just about anything like this. Pay a stranger, whose opinion you don't care about, to get you past the awkward bits and into a range that's better than average.

Also, while some of us come off as comfortable, that doesn't mean we are.

[wnolens]

You prep for what you're weak at.

I spend all my time practicing stupid coding questions since I'm prone to screwing up easy ones (I can get em all, just need more time and less pressure).

But I NEVER practice behavioral questions, nor system design. And consistently blow those out of the water. The bar is low in a tech interview, and my personality means that I've had a lot of experience having spontaneous conversation in my life, piecing together coherent narrative on the spot.

[iovrthoughtthis]

4 things help for me:

1. i like myself regardless of if this other person likes me 2. i will be fine, even if i fuck this up 3. every time im asked is an opportunity to practice, tweak something 4. write what you've been up to down

it's like rapping tbh. you learn snippets and lines that work and then you mix and match them for the context.

you don't want to be deciding word by word but phrase by phrase.

[larrywright]

The last time I was interviewing I wrote out a narrative about my skills and experience. Basically a short bio, but also what roles I’d had in my current job, what technologies and practices I had used, some highlights of major projected, etc. I didn’t read it word for word but just having it up on my screen during phone interviews helped. Before in person interviews I’d review it a few times.

[blowski]

There’s an article about Boris Johnson’s bumbling talking style, and how it’s all a schtick.

Before he was even London Mayor, so had fewer repeat listeners, a journalist went to three of his speeches in the same year. In each one, Boris arrived and apparently didn’t know where he was. He then made a brilliant speech with the same “ad-lib” jokes, mixed up his reading notes at the same point.

Making public speaking look effortless takes a lot of effort.

[drBonkers]

I’d love a link to this if you have it.

[blowski]

I think it might have been this, though it’s only two speeches and 18 months apart here.

https://reaction.life/jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/

[tokamak-teapot]

I come across as one of these people and I do minimal practice of what I’m going to say, maybe thinking about what I want to say as an intro - and that’s it. Most of my thinking is done while building slides that I use as cues for what I want to talk around.

I can’t be sure of course, but I would guess that the reasons I get away with very short prep time are:

1. 99% of the time I know the subject inside out, because I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I didn’t, so that is already covered.

2. Sharp focus on prepping exactly the right things - and nothing else. If I’m trying to get a point across, that’s the bit I need to make sure I’ve considered - what the obvious holes are in my argument, how I would answer the obvious questions, etc.

I’m definitely not the smoothest presenter, but I do get great feedback (and am still surprised considering I feel like I’m cheating by not spending hours in prep) so if you are already armed with deep and broad general knowledge in your area, maybe going for the laser focus on the specific points that you really care about and then ‘winging’ the rest might work for you too.

[ftio]

As a person who fits your description above, I can attest that at least for me: it is 100% preparation.

For big presentations, I put in practice time equivalent to 10-20x the time of the talk. For a one hour presentation, I'll practice for 10 hours at least, if not substantially more.

For high-stakes conversations with Important People, I think to myself, in advance: what do I want to achieve from this conversation? What do I need to say or ask in order to achieve those things? This is true even if the conversation is "just a chat." The goal might be as simple as: build credibility and familiarity with Important Person. Pro tip: plan up front what you're going to ask/say if there's awkward silence. It happens even to the best conversationalists. Better to be prepared than to be caught flat footed.

[sleepdreamy]

This is me. I work in IT(Not Coding) but we still get fairly technical questions etc all day. I have no issue going into a tirade about issues I faced recently at work, the way PMs work with the team bla bla bla. I am a naturally good conversationalist. My fiancee on the other hand is the polar opposite to me and has to prepare when speaking in front of people. She is very shy. Some people are lucky, many are not. It's totally normal to prepare for that sort of thing from what I've read. I'm just lucky

[deepGem]

It may not be preparation for that particular interview or task but there is preparation elsewhere that's paying off here in the interviews. Perhaps even sub conscious preparation.

One such preparation happens at school when you prep for debates and speeches. This may not be apparent at that time but I see those who are very coherent in interviews have had some debate prep in their schools or colleges. Just quoting an example. Any public speaking prep actually helps in stitching together multiple ideas as you are talking and as you converse and do it in a coherent way.

I really wish many people had these skills. Most of the meetings I sit in, people take 30 mins to convey what should ideally take like 10 mins. 20 mins is just blabber.

The other counter intuitive prep that personally helped me was GMAT verbal. What started as pure hatred turned into a treasure trove of brevity and coherence. Especially the reading comprehension aspects. A month or two you spend through that exercise really helps in the long run. You get pretty good at communicating your ideas coherently.

[dagmx]

There's definitely an art to seeming spontaneous and conversational, but it really comes down to practice.

The thing is that some of us get practice from just our upbringing and life experiences, others may not have that. So for those others, it's about identifying where they can bolster things and practice.

[edmundsauto]

Preparation not only gives pre-baked answers, it gives you a chance to practice coming up with those answers.

And as with all human things, natural aptitude varies.

Preparation is all you can control, however.

[larrywright]

This is actually a symptom of ADHD, something to do with working memory I believe.

[rangersanger]

This plus having a formula for how to answer. I like the star technique. It’s what people want to hear in the right order. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/how-to-use...

[SenHeng]

NDGT had an interview or youtube once about public speaking, I couldn't find the video anymore so paraphrasing.

> Not anyone can become great at something, but everyone can become better. So you don't have to learn to speak like all those famous people out there, just practise so that you can be better than you were.

[jstanley]

Waste disposal. You can always put sewage in the bin, but you can't empty your bins into the sewage.

[zarzavat]

Yes after having living in cities with neither, a waste disposal system is absolutely more important.

No sewage system, you will be fine. People will use septic tanks instead.

No waste disposal system = trash everywhere.

Even if your waterways get polluted by raw sewage, that’s a lot easier to clean up than a waterway polluted by trash.

[muzani]

My wife's village has neither. We burn the trash, and have septic tanks. Diapers don't burn though.

There's a truck that comes in every now and then to clean it out, but that probably counts as waste disposal.

[blowski]

First time I gave a presentation, an experienced speaker congratulated me afterwards. I said that I’d had to rehearse the talk 5 times before I gave it. He said he still rehearsed his 10 times.

[muzani]

I taught technical courses. A ground rule I had was 3 hours rehearsal for 1 hour of content. A 1 week class meant 3 weeks of practice. I still think this is what separates the bland teachers from the great ones.