[thebandrews]

Sorry Ed, but the best preparation for any interview is not simply getting good at what you do. Being good at what you do is a given. But there is an art to interviewing. I have bombed interviews not because of a lack of ability, but because of my failure to understand interview dynamics.

[jader201]

This may be true, to an extent, but to me, the best interviews do a good job at honing in on how good you are at what you do.

Good interview skills only benefit you in one area -- how good you are at interviewing. Once somebody hires me, how good I am at interviewing serves no purpose to my employer. And smart companies recognize this, and adjust their interviewing process to get to what's important.

[ljlolel]

Is there anything I wrote that requires you to spend hours on something that is only useful for interviewing?

I specifically say the opposite, don't practice whiteboard interviewing.

Edit: who would down vote this? Edit edit: thanks for the explanation jader

[jader201]

My post wasn't a direct response to your article, but rather thebandrews' point about preparing for interviews.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't prepare for interviews. I'm just saying that companies that evaluate a candidate based on how they "perform" in an interview vs. trying to really get to the root of how they would perform in a job are doing themselves a disservice, and may be losing some good candidates because of it.

And if this is happening, that company should change their interviewing strategy to focus more on what's important, and get rid of anything that may get in the way of evaluating that.

Take your point on writing code on a whiteboard vs. writing on a notepad, just for example. To your point, it may be unnatural to code on a whiteboard. But, to me, it's also unnatural to code on a notepad. Actually, I hate handwriting altogether. I prefer typing a thousand times over. So in order for a company to really see how I code, they would hand me a laptop, or even better, allow me to use my own.

Of course, there are arguments to whether that would even be a truly accurate evaluation. My point is -- and again, this isn't necessarily in direct response to your post -- that good employers know how to get to the root of someones abilities, without letting these interview-specific strategies get in the way.

Edit: Disclaimer, I did not vote you down. :)

[paulhauggis]

Exactly.

It's just like marketing. You can have the best product in the world (in this case, yourself). But, if you can't market it well, other products will be used instead (IE: you won't get hired).

Learning how to market myself is the single best thing I've learned how to do and it's definitely helped me get jobs.