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by lugg 4420 days ago
Piecemeal advice, even if you know the answer to all job interview questions answering a straight up "no haven't dealt with that before but I'd tackle it by learning x y z." Will set you apart from pretty much everyone. Being able to confidently tell someone you politely have no fucking clue is pretty rare in my experience.

Example I interviewed for a job I know I was qualified for, they kept asking questions about things I really had no idea about (all stuff I had never dealt with before - only similar things) they were so refreshed by the honesty and how I dealt with not knowing things they offered me the job despite pretty much what I thought at the time was tanking the interview.
2 comments
nostrademons 4420 days ago
I used to interview people for Google, and "I don't know but here's how I would go about finding out" almost never counted against candidates. What would count against a candidate is if they made a wrong assumption and then blindly proceeded as if that assumption was correct.
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mgkimsal 4420 days ago
What if they said they'd bing for the answer? Would that count against them?
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nostrademons 4420 days ago
I think that's happened before, not for one of my interviews but for one a friend gave. I don't think it counted against them, but they weren't good enough to meet the bar anyway. (That happens a lot - I've never had a non-intern candidate get through, and I've had friends go for 50 interviews without a single candidate getting hired.) We had a good laugh afterwards.
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lugg 4418 days ago
Why would it count against them theyed still get google search results.
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neumann 4420 days ago
Similar experience. I've had two job interviews where I answered a lot of the questions with, "I have no experience with that, how does it work?" or "Not sure, but sounds interesting". In one case they asked me to complete a technical challenge while watching over my shoulder using their tech stack just to see how I would try to solve their problems not a CS 101 exam question - which I would just google anyways). It was a great interview process. We discussed my approach during it, they helped me understand their method, we got to see what it would be like working together. In both job interviews I was offered the position, not based on my immediate IT skill tree, but character compatibility and demonstrated ability to learn.
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