[hoboon]

I wonder if it's common or I am just unlucky or unskilled...

I've been out of work for 11 months. I've been on a large number of interviews and it seems like after that many failed interviews, the answer is probably with me.

The most frustrating thing is the lack of consistent information about why I didn't get hired. Some people said I had good theoretical grasp but can't code. Others said I could code really well but didn't have the grasp of fundamentals they wanted. Most stay silent.

Frustrating.

I've grown to hate and resent myself.

[shawndumas]

I've conducted a lot of interviews. In my 23 yr career I've done on avg 10 a year. Early last year I was in Yahoo's hiring war-room and did more than I care to remember.

All that to say; I'd love to conduct a few mock interviews with you. My contact info is in my profile.

Do it. Contact me. Seriously.

Edit: this offer extends to anyone that wants help. I am a front-end engineer so that means you'll get more mileage out of me for JS, CSS, and HTML; but I am totally willing to help with the subjective side to interviewing as well.

[steffan]

Thank you for doing this. You've improved my impression of humanity today, and inspired me to do the same.

(And you also, papercruncher)

[nashadelic]

As someone who does 8 interviews a day and loves to help candidates understand what they did wrong and how they can improve; this is really, really nice of you.

[philsnow]

Did you mean "on avg 10 a [month]" ? 230 over a 23-year career doesn't seem like all that many.

[grrowl]

Maybe not heaps, but consider you won't hire at entry-level, and unless you beeline straight into management you're unlikely to be conducting anywhere near 10 a month, ever.

[philsnow]

That doesn't agree with my (somewhat limited) experience at all. I don't know if my experience is atypical or yours is, though.

I interviewed more people than that per year while I worked at Google, and I'm doing even more now that I'm at a smaller company.

[shawndumas]

As a software engineer you are doing more than two interviews a week on avg?

[grrowl]

I've worked at small places, where we might only hire 5 people a year; and larger places which were large enough to leave it to the leads (engineer-managers overseeing 20 working engineers)

[papercruncher]

Don't hate yourself, interviewing is a skill that can be improved with practice. I'm not hiring right now but if you're in SF, I'd be more than willing to give you a mock interview and all the honest feedback you want. Email is in my profile.

[maheroku]

I think the best way to get over that is to make something on your own that is so great that everyone wants to hire you without even doing an interview!

The funny thing is that you may not even need a job once you do something great on your own :)

If you are short of money, you can always get a simple part time job to survive.

[danjayh]

Last time I went out interviewing, I whipped up a fun little Android game, put it on my phone, and made a point of finding a way to slip it into the conversation. It was great because:

1) It let me set the tone and path for much of the interview, since so many places do unstructured interviews. 2) It was a concrete demonstration of my skills. 3) Java and mobile are both hot technologies, and the game also made effective use of other common stuff like Open GL, multithreading, network, database storage (via sqlite), etc. 4) Spending a few minutes playing a game sets a relaxed tone for the entire interview, which makes things easier for everyone involved.

Structured interviews really are a brilliant strategy. Whenever I interview, I do my best to subtly direct the interview in a way that exposes my strengths and leads the conversation into areas that I am most comfortable with (and trust me, whipping out a concrete example full of technologies that you're absolutely comfortable with helps). A structured interview, to an extent, would allow the employer to retain better control of the interview (whether or not the realize it), which is probably to their benefit. For instance, I teach Java, C#/VB, and some other modern languages at a local college after work, do tons of C / embedded / network / etc. stuff at work, and do digital electronics for hobby ... so if you let me push the interview in those technical directions, I'm at an advantage.

[megablast]

This is great.

I am always surprised when I meet mobile developers who have never created a mobile app for themselves.

[danjayh]

The game is called 'aqua balls' and is on google play. I haven't updated it in almost 3 years, though ... right after I finished it I started having trouble with my wrists and finger joints, which meant no more coding for fun (I took a team lead job and cut out a lot of typing at work too). My brother wrote and maintains the other app published by 'woggle' (he also did all of the art for aqua balls), so it is still updated regularly. He's actually a D.O. IRL, so this is 100% hobby for him.

[hoboon]

> I think the best way to get over that is to make something on your own that is so great that everyone wants to hire you without even doing an interview!

This is a good idea.

I have no idea what people would want or what I could make that people would want or what open problems are there that I could make. Every idea I have someone else already has a better solution.

I keep trying and put it in github but it's mostly for me; no one looks at it.

[RogerL]

Okay, here is an idea.

The Julia people are complaining that their language is great but it is not being picked up because their standard libraries are missing a ton of functionality.

Start knocking out some standard library functionality.

Sure, you may not be interested in Julia. But there are plenty of other projects out there that are understaffed. IPython Notebook needs developers. Octave needs somebody to write a good front end. It goes on and on.

The advantage is that you don't have to be super creative (compare Julia's libraries to Python, and start implementing something that isn't yet in Julia), nor predict the future (meaning, you can make a brand new X, but if the world goes to Y, you will never get picked up). What you write will be used by (at least) thousands, and you will have to write production quality code to get your pull requests accepted. I'd be impressed with anyone that did that, even if I had no interest/need in the project that they contributed to.

[danjayh]

I would like to proffer a different strategy: Pick something that you are passionate about, good at, and comfortable with. Then push your personal boundaries and learn something new while making some app/widget/whatever, even if it's been solved/done before. Why did you do it? You wanted to stay up to date, learn something, and it was fun (and all of this will be true).

Whatever you made will probably be something pretty sweet because you chose something close to your heart, not something that was simply 'unsolved' or 'needed doing'.

Employers will love that you chose to challenge yourself to build new skills as a hobby, and because you chose something that you are passionate about, you'll probably also have a good amount of enthusiasm while you talk about it, which is equally important.

[cgearhart]

That sounds like a great idea. Do you have any specific links or resources regarding limitations of the Julia standard library?

[proksoup]

Where is your github? People bothering to respond to your comments on HN might be the only ones you will be able to get to glance at your code ... but I bet they will. I would have if I had been able to find your github.

[jedanbik]

Are you showing it to anyone? Put it in your profile, for starters.

[jmccree]

Pick an open source project that interests you, preferably one you personally use, and become active in their community. The issue/bug tracker of almost any open source project has a list of feature requests and bugs to work on. You get to add open source contributor to your resume, and become a "subject matter expert" by virtue of that.

[proksoup]

You've got about billion comments like this in your history.

The previous advice has been good.

If you opened up more about your specific troubles I think more on HN might help diagnose.

Maybe put some stuff on github, who cares how awful it is or if no one will use it .... The following statement is not globally true but I think it is probably true in your case --- you won't be able to succeed until you fail some more.

If there was a "hoboon" github we could like at when responding to your comments, the specific advice might be more specific.

[hoboon]

You're right. I talk about this often. I'm going a little crazy, and maybe angry.

[proksoup]

Yeah yeah, it's all good. We cool.

Show us your code.

[chernevik]

Frustrated and wanting to improve your skills -- fine.

Hate yourself -- hmm, not good.

Everyone struggles and it's very hard. Looking in the mirror and figuring out what you can do better, not being satisfied with what you've achieved, I'm all for that. It's how we grow. But you cannot allow your assessment of yourself on a single dimension to become your entire assessment of your entire worth. I'm certainly not saying we're all special flowers, and our professional is hugely important. But it isn't all we are, and those skills aren't static anyway.

Also: If you want feedback, you can do things to improve your chances of getting it. Be incredibly positive in your responses -- "thanks for the opportunity!" People are obviously reluctant to talk with someone they've rejected, so signalling that you won't make this hard for them can help. If you have guesses at the problem, or suspicions you'd like to rule out, suggest them. Statements like "I think I need to build up Z" or "I worry that I come across as Y" might give you useful yes / no answers, if they are set up properly.

Think also about informational interviews as a means for seeking out fit. If you're just having coffee with someone, about what they look for and how people succeed, they are much more likely to be brutally honest than they are after rejecting you. If I'm having coffee, I can politely tell you why your resume or body of work look off, because I think that's helping you.

[kelukelugames]

May I humbly recommend this resource?

https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~kelu/interviews/

[Decade]

Don’t hate yourself. I refuse to hate myself. I know my many skills and powerful talents. Hate the system.

[72deluxe]

Where do you live?