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Interview Prep: Two Counterintuitive Tips

Summary

This episode focuses on providing unconventional advice for job interviews, applicable to developers and professionals in the tech industry. The host acknowledges the challenging job market and the emotional toll of interviewing, offering strategies to improve performance and stand out from other candidates.

The first counterintuitive tip is to “help your interviewer.” This involves shifting from a defensive, adversarial mindset to a collaborative one. Instead of viewing questions as tests, approach them as fact-finding missions where you work arm-in-arm with the interviewer. Practical ways to help include asking clarifying questions like “Did that cover what you were looking for?” and sending follow-up summaries. The core principle is to be honest about your experience, including gaps, to build trust and differentiate yourself from candidates who try to perfectly fit the job description.

The second tip is to “give the ball back” by creating a dialogue rather than delivering monologues. Interviewers often disengage after 20-30 seconds of uninterrupted speaking. The host suggests using a volleyball metaphor: aim to return the floor to the interviewer frequently. Answers should typically last 45-75 seconds, followed by an invitation for the interviewer to ask follow-ups. This keeps the conversation engaging and allows the interviewer to explore areas they find most relevant.

The episode concludes with more intuitive advice: practice answers to common questions. Practicing helps deliver crisp, confident responses in 30-45 seconds. This preparation is also valuable for work meetings, as anticipating questions and having clear answers shows consideration for colleagues. The host emphasizes that these strategies apply beyond interviews to any one-on-one conversation, such as meetings with managers.

Recommendations

Tools

  • Unblocked — A tool that provides answers to questions about your codebase by augmenting source code with discussions from GitHub, Slack, JIRA, Notion, and Confluence. Mentioned as the episode’s sponsor to help teams ship faster by reducing time spent digging for information.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to interview advice and its broader applications — The host introduces the episode’s focus on counterintuitive interview tips. He notes that many listeners are likely interviewing soon due to industry changes or job loss. The advice shared will also apply to other one-on-one conversations beyond interviews.
  • 00:01:44 — First counterintuitive tip: Help your interviewer — The host presents the first piece of advice: help your interviewer. He acknowledges that this might feel unsafe or absurd initially, often due to past rejections creating a defensive mindset. The goal is to shift from an adversarial dynamic to a collaborative one.
  • 00:04:27 — How to practically help your interviewer — Practical ways to help the interviewer are explained. View questions as collaborative fact-finding. Ask if your answer covered what they sought. Send follow-up emails summarizing the discussion to aid their memory and provide more information for hiring committees.
  • 00:06:46 — Being honest about gaps and imperfect fit — The host advises being honest about where you don’t perfectly fit the role. For example, if you have AWS experience but the role prefers Google Cloud, clearly state your gap. This honesty differentiates you and allows interviewers to see your real value and growth potential.
  • 00:11:57 — Second counterintuitive tip: Give the ball back — The second tip is introduced: try to give the ball back. This means creating a dialogue instead of monologuing. Interviewers often check out after 20-30 seconds. The goal is to engage them by returning the floor frequently, making the conversation more interactive.
  • 00:15:18 — Implementing the give-the-ball-back strategy — Details on implementing the strategy are provided. Answers should be 45-75 seconds long, then yield to the interviewer for follow-ups. This feels like you’re not sharing everything, but it lets the interviewer guide the conversation to what signals they need. Adapt to the interviewer’s style.
  • 00:18:15 — Intuitive advice: Practice your answers — The host shares an intuitive final tip: practice answers to common questions. Practice builds confidence and helps deliver crisp answers in 30-45 seconds. This preparation is also valuable for work meetings, as anticipating questions and having clear answers shows consideration for colleagues.
  • 00:20:52 — Conclusion and encouragement — The host concludes by hoping the advice helps listeners stand out in a tough job market. He acknowledges the struggle many face in finding jobs and suggests these tips might provide a slight edge. The episode ends with a thank you to the sponsor, Unblocked.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2024-05-01T07:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:21:58

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] You may be interviewing today, sometime after you listen to this episode.

[00:00:18] Or maybe you’ll interview in the next couple of years.

[00:00:22] It’s very likely if you’re listening to this podcast that you’re not done interviewing.

[00:00:29] And in fact, the advice that we share in this episode applies beyond interviews.

[00:00:37] It turns out that some of the things that you would practice in an interview also work

[00:00:41] well in other one-on-one type conversations.

[00:00:47] We’ll talk a little bit about how what we talk about today applies beyond interviews

[00:00:51] as we go.

[00:00:53] But there’s a critical mass of people in the industry right now who are looking for

[00:00:58] jobs either because they’ve recently lost one or because their company is changing in

[00:01:04] some way that is pushing them to consider leaving.

[00:01:09] And this isn’t a new phenomenon.

[00:01:12] People leave companies all the time.

[00:01:15] And it’s not a new phenomenon that learning how to interview, learning interviewing skills

[00:01:20] is distinctly different.

[00:01:24] It’s been a while since you last interviewed and you need to brush up on some of these

[00:01:28] things.

[00:01:30] But in today’s episode, I’m going to share advice that maybe you have never heard before

[00:01:34] about interviewing.

[00:01:36] So today I’m going to share two counterintuitive pieces of advice for your next interview.

[00:01:44] The first counterintuitive piece of advice I want to share today is to help the interviewer.

[00:01:52] You probably, if you’re like most people, have an immediate reaction to this or you

[00:01:56] might feel unsafe or you might feel like that’s an absurd thing to say.

[00:02:04] But let’s inspect this reaction for a second.

[00:02:07] Why is it that we would believe that helping the interviewer is somehow going to cause

[00:02:14] a problem?

[00:02:17] Think about this, try to figure out if you had that reaction to me saying that, try to

[00:02:21] trace that, try to understand what it is that makes you feel like you’re in some adverse

[00:02:27] position to the interviewer.

[00:02:31] The truth is most people who are interviewing right now especially begin to feel this adversity,

[00:02:40] this kind of me versus you dynamic, because so many interviewers, so many interviews and

[00:02:49] so many interviewers, those processes have resulted in some kind of rejection.

[00:02:56] And so the rejection has been associated with the interviewers, has been associated with

[00:03:01] the process of interviewing, and now it feels like you are in the position of defense.

[00:03:08] And so this is an unfortunately unhelpful position to be in, because what can start

[00:03:14] to happen is as the interviewer is looking for information, you might put up a guard.

[00:03:23] As the interviewer is asking you questions, you might tell stories that come off as clearly

[00:03:28] defensive or somehow not sharing transparently all of the information that you could share.

[00:03:34] Now I want to address before we go any further, this is a very difficult market that a lot

[00:03:39] of people are looking for jobs in.

[00:03:42] It’s not easy, it can be emotionally incredibly draining, and so it’s understandable if you’ve

[00:03:49] gotten into this position, if you’ve gotten into this overall kind of mindset of defensiveness.

[00:03:57] It’s also understandable if you have something that you are actually hiding.

[00:04:02] There may be some part of your resume that you don’t want people to pay attention to.

[00:04:08] Maybe you’ve been laid off recently, maybe you’ve had a short tenure somewhere, maybe

[00:04:13] there’s a gap that you don’t feel super comfortable explaining.

[00:04:17] My recommendation for this is to try to get as comfortable with those things as you can,

[00:04:23] and the forcing function here is in fact to help the interviewer.

[00:04:27] So going back to our original counterintuitive piece of advice, help the interviewer, what

[00:04:33] does this mean exactly?

[00:04:34] It means a couple of different things.

[00:04:36] The first thing that it means is as the interviewer is trying to understand something, as they

[00:04:42] ask questions, as they are trying to look for particular information, instead of seeing

[00:04:48] this as a test, how good can you answer this question, see it as a fact-finding mission

[00:04:55] where you are arm-in-arm with that interviewer.

[00:04:59] This might seem a little bit silly, but if you approach this conversationally, if you

[00:05:05] start talking about a particular story and you share some details and then you ask back

[00:05:12] the interviewer, did that cover what you were looking for?

[00:05:16] You’re providing the interviewer the opportunity to say no.

[00:05:21] You’re providing them the opportunity to dig a little harder.

[00:05:25] Instead of asking the same question over and over until you answer it in a way that is

[00:05:31] for them to respond, you are inviting them to explore as deeply as they would like to.

[00:05:37] So that’s one way that you can help your interviewer.

[00:05:40] But there are many other ways.

[00:05:41] For example, you could send a follow-up email with a summary of what was discussed.

[00:05:46] This isn’t a silver bullet.

[00:05:48] Just because you sent a summary doesn’t necessarily bring you to the top of the pack or anything

[00:05:54] like that.

[00:05:55] But sending a summary does allow them to review what happened.

[00:05:59] And this will help you be more memorable.

[00:06:02] And ultimately, it will help them have a summary of what happened.

[00:06:06] Interestingly, a lot of interviewers are not necessarily taking summaries in every interview

[00:06:11] because they have so many to get through.

[00:06:14] So if you do a little bit of that work for them, when it comes time for that hiring committee

[00:06:19] to get together, they will likely have more information because you provided it to them

[00:06:25] about your particular candidacy.

[00:06:27] Your goal as an interviewer is not to convince a company that you are perfectly fit for a

[00:06:32] role.

[00:06:34] This would look like something like an overfit.

[00:06:38] What you’re doing when you help your interviewer is you’re trying to define exactly what value

[00:06:44] it is that you’re going to bring.

[00:06:46] That’s what they want to know.

[00:06:48] And you’re helping them by trying to explain exactly that.

[00:06:52] One important aspect of this is some signal, some information that they may not necessarily

[00:06:58] have about you yet that doesn’t necessarily fit the role perfectly.

[00:07:04] This is kind of a subpoint here that’s even more counterintuitive that you would ever want

[00:07:08] to let on that you’re not a perfect fit for the role.

[00:07:12] But let me explain my reasoning here.

[00:07:16] If you were to apply for a role where you have extensive experience in, let’s say, AWS,

[00:07:23] and maybe the role prefers Google Cloud, it’s very possible that your extensive experience

[00:07:32] in AWS is more authoritative and provides a clearer story of your experience than if

[00:07:40] you said, well, I’ve had a little bit of experience in Google as well.

[00:07:44] Now, aside from blatantly lying, which, of course, I would never recommend you do in

[00:07:49] an interview, even if you were to kind of try to check the box, if you say, okay, well,

[00:07:56] because they want Google Cloud experience, I’m going to say that I’ve had a little bit

[00:08:01] of experience in it because I did one pet project using Google Cloud.

[00:08:07] It would be more effective for you to explain where you don’t have experience so that you

[00:08:13] know and they know what your growth opportunities actually are.

[00:08:19] The important thing here is that you are actually differentiated from the very large number

[00:08:23] of interviews where everyone in that stack is trying to fit exactly what the job description

[00:08:29] says.

[00:08:30] The interviewers are very often going to see through this and they’re going to forget those

[00:08:35] interviews altogether versus with you, they may recognize that, well, they’re definitely

[00:08:41] going to have to get up to speed with Google Cloud, but I’m pretty sure that their extensive

[00:08:45] experience with AWS is going to make a huge impact on us and maybe even it’s a positive

[00:08:51] because they have some different mental models than what we have internally.

[00:08:55] You’ll notice that the underlying principle here for this first piece of advice is that

[00:09:02] You should be as honest and confident in your real experience as you can be.

[00:09:11] Don’t try to bridge the gaps so if you don’t have the experience that the interviewer is

[00:09:17] looking for or if you had a particular bad experience, you can communicate that clearly

[00:09:24] and you can communicate that you have a growth mindset and that you’re willing to learn.

[00:09:30] Every career has some kind of gap going from one job to another.

[00:09:34] No one comes in completely smoothly.

[00:09:38] At the very least, you have to onboard to the product knowledge at that new company.

[00:09:43] So being able to recognize the opportunity in that challenge with your interviewer and

[00:09:50] to lay out exactly where those gaps are, that kind of clarity is valuable in a candidate

[00:09:57] and it’s helpful to the interviewer.

[00:10:00] We’re going to take a quick sponsor break and then we’re going to come back and I’m

[00:10:03] going to give you the second counterintuitive piece of advice about interviewing.

[00:10:16] What was the last time you had a question about your code base and you went spending

[00:10:19] hours digging through Slack channels, PRs, JIRA tickets, source code, wikis, looking

[00:10:25] for the answers?

[00:10:26] Or maybe the last time you bounced out of the IDE to answer a colleague’s question.

[00:10:32] Maintaining a shared understanding of your code base gets harder as the engineering team

[00:10:36] grows.

[00:10:37] Getting answers to questions also becomes more time consuming when you’re onboarding

[00:10:41] new team members or working on refactoring existing projects.

[00:10:45] Unblocked solves these time sinks.

[00:10:48] It provides helpful and accurate answers to questions about your code base in seconds.

[00:10:53] Answers are specific to your team and application because it complements source code with relevant

[00:10:58] discussions from GitHub, Slack, JIRA, Notion, Confluence and more.

[00:11:03] Like an extended team member who never sleeps, Unblocked is aware of every decision, every

[00:11:08] discussion and for every part of your code base.

[00:11:11] With Unblocked, teams ship faster by spending less time digging for information and dealing

[00:11:16] with interrupts.

[00:11:17] Check out Unblocked at www.getunblocked.com.

[00:11:31] The first counter intuitive piece of advice that I have about interviewing, if you have

[00:11:35] an interview today, if you have one in a week from now, in a year from now, in a decade

[00:11:40] from now, this will still be true.

[00:11:42] Help your interviewer.

[00:11:44] Help your interviewer.

[00:11:46] We talked a little bit about that before the break.

[00:11:49] Now I want to give you the second piece of advice, the second piece of counter intuitive

[00:11:52] advice, counter intuitive advice about interviewing.

[00:11:57] And this will actually help you with the first piece of advice.

[00:12:02] This will help you help your interviewer.

[00:12:05] This piece of advice is very simple.

[00:12:07] Try to give the ball back.

[00:12:11] Try to give the ball back.

[00:12:14] What does this mean?

[00:12:15] As soon as you can, create a dialogue between you and your interviewer.

[00:12:24] This is a little bit ironic that you’re listening to a podcast, a monologue where we’re not

[00:12:30] able to do this.

[00:12:32] But in an interview, try to put on the hat of the interviewer.

[00:12:40] Most interviewers have been spending a lot of time sitting and listening.

[00:12:46] Most interviewers have been provided with a list of questions to ask in an interview.

[00:12:53] And most interviewers are ultimately checking out once the monologue gets past about 20

[00:13:03] seconds.

[00:13:05] Once your answer goes and extends beyond some amount of time, probably somewhere in the

[00:13:11] 20 to 30 second range.

[00:13:15] So what this means is that your answers, when you’re asked a question in an interview, the

[00:13:21] typical model is you give me a question and I’ll go on a monologue, I’ll tell you a three

[00:13:25] or four or five or six minute story.

[00:13:28] Tell me about yourself or tell me about a time when you did X, Y or Z.

[00:13:33] And these questions very often are looking for specific types of signal.

[00:13:39] They’re looking for, you know, particular values.

[00:13:42] They’re looking, you know, if you have ever done an interview, you know that most interview

[00:13:46] platforms allow you to rate people on a particular value.

[00:13:50] And your answer is going to show some variety of those values.

[00:13:56] But the problem is the interviewer, once you begin to drone on, they will get bored.

[00:14:04] Their mind will wander.

[00:14:05] Now, this isn’t a negative, you know, mark on the interviewer.

[00:14:10] If you’ve ever been in the interviewer seat, you know this is true.

[00:14:13] In remote meetings, this is also true.

[00:14:17] So we said at the beginning of the episode that this stuff would apply beyond interviewing.

[00:14:21] This is one example of how it applies.

[00:14:23] When you have a one-on-one with your manager, don’t make it mostly a monologue.

[00:14:29] Try to give the ball back.

[00:14:31] The mental model that I have for this in my head, and everybody has a different one, is

[00:14:37] it’s volleyball.

[00:14:38] The goal of volleyball is to get the ball back over the net, over the top of the net

[00:14:42] as soon as you can, right, or to get it set up in a way that it gets over in the net.

[00:14:49] And if it doesn’t get over to the net, that’s a failure, right?

[00:14:53] That’s going to be a point for the other team, and now it falls apart because we’re not necessarily

[00:14:58] going against our interviewers, as we already mentioned in the first half of the episode.

[00:15:03] But the goal here is find a way to return the floor, to give, kind of yield your time

[00:15:11] back to the question asker.

[00:15:13] Now, what this will feel like, here’s the important thing I want you to capture here.

[00:15:18] What this will feel like is that you’re not sharing everything.

[00:15:22] You’re not actually telling the whole story.

[00:15:25] You’re not actually explaining all the parts that you think are important or valuable to

[00:15:30] explain.

[00:15:31] Now, this requires that you try to pick the parts that are most valuable to explain as

[00:15:38] early as possible, but then instead of continuing down and drilling into every single detailed

[00:15:45] topic that you have on your mind, you can instead ask the interviewer, what parts do

[00:15:52] they want to drill into?

[00:15:56] Because again, if you’re just talking because you have a story to tell, the interviewer

[00:16:01] may not be getting the signal they need, and the moment that they are not getting the signal

[00:16:06] they need, that’s when they’re going to check out.

[00:16:09] Their mind is going to wander.

[00:16:11] They’re going to go and think about what’s for lunch, probably.

[00:16:15] But if you’re engaging the interviewer, then you are much more likely to get better engagement

[00:16:21] and better memory.

[00:16:23] They’re going to listen to you.

[00:16:25] If you speak in shorter sentences, if you speak in terms that they can volley with you,

[00:16:33] you can kind of go back and forth about the discussion, you can talk about different parts

[00:16:37] of the project that you worked on, or you can talk about different strengths that you

[00:16:40] have, you’re giving them the opportunity to explore where they want to explore.

[00:16:45] Now, I have one caveat to this rule because the goal is not to play hot potato.

[00:16:54] We’re not trying to give the ball back immediately, and two or three word or one or two sentence

[00:17:01] answers usually will not cut it for most interview questions.

[00:17:06] As a general rule, you want to aim for somewhere between 45 seconds and a minute and 15 seconds

[00:17:14] for most questions, and then adapt to your interviewer.

[00:17:19] Once again, this is going back to our first point, and this is in a way you’re helping

[00:17:23] your interviewer out if you adapt to their style.

[00:17:26] If they continuously are asking you more follow-ups or if they are jumping in to dig in, give

[00:17:33] them more opportunity to do that.

[00:17:36] Don’t try to cut them off or answer or anticipate what they’re going to ask.

[00:17:40] Give them the opportunity to talk more.

[00:17:43] But if they seem reticent or like they’re having trouble coming up with follow-up answers,

[00:17:47] then you may be a little bit more in the leading seat, leading the conversation a little bit

[00:17:53] more than they are.

[00:17:55] If that’s the case, then you can lengthen your answers.

[00:17:58] Maybe what was a one minute answer becomes a minute and 20 or a minute and 30 seconds.

[00:18:04] I’ve given you two pieces of counterintuitive advice, but I’m going to give you one final

[00:18:08] piece of advice and it is intuitive and perhaps it’s useful just to be reminded of this.

[00:18:15] Practicing your answers to common questions will give you confidence.

[00:18:21] Practicing your answers.

[00:18:23] When you’re driving in the car, talk to the windshield.

[00:18:26] Don’t worry about what people think.

[00:18:28] They’ll think you’re on the speakerphone or something.

[00:18:31] Talk to the windshield and practice your answers and anticipate the follow-ups.

[00:18:38] This kind of practice is different for everyone.

[00:18:40] Sometimes it works to write this stuff out.

[00:18:42] Sometimes it works better for people to verbally process through it.

[00:18:46] But ultimately, practicing your answers to the most common interview questions.

[00:18:50] Things like, tell me a little bit about your experience.

[00:18:53] Tell me about the role that you’re in now.

[00:18:55] Tell me why you want to work here.

[00:18:57] These are questions that you can absolutely have good answers to.

[00:19:02] If you can have a practiced answer, if you know what your answer is and you can have

[00:19:07] a practiced answer, most of the time those practiced answers will be deliverable in 30

[00:19:12] to 45 seconds rather than a minute, minute and a half, two minutes.

[00:19:17] Use some discretion when you’re trying to define exactly how long a given answer should

[00:19:22] be.

[00:19:23] If someone asks you, why do you want to work here?

[00:19:24] That answer is going to be a little bit shorter than, what is your most recent job?

[00:19:31] What does that job look like?

[00:19:32] What are your responsibilities?

[00:19:33] Then that answer should be a little bit shorter than, tell me about a time when you did X,

[00:19:37] Y or Z.

[00:19:39] Practicing as many of these as you can and getting very good at knowing exactly what

[00:19:44] the beats are in the story that you’re telling will give you more confidence.

[00:19:49] Even if you just practice going over the main points, it’s going to help you pretty drastically.

[00:19:55] Don’t walk into an interview without having some of these basic questions, some idea of

[00:20:00] how you’re going to answer them.

[00:20:02] And finally, this last piece of advice, this more intuitive piece of advice definitely

[00:20:07] applies in your other work.

[00:20:09] You can anticipate what people are going to ask in a given meeting and practice your answer.

[00:20:16] You will be amazed at how much goodwill this will buy with your colleagues if you have

[00:20:23] a crisp and clear answer to the anticipated questions that are coming in a given meeting.

[00:20:29] You might be thinking, well, that feels fake.

[00:20:32] It feels wrong.

[00:20:33] It feels like I’m just putting on a script and in some ways you are putting on a script,

[00:20:41] but it’s not fake.

[00:20:42] It’s not fake.

[00:20:43] What you’re doing is you’re thinking in advance, you’re actually being considerate of your

[00:20:47] colleagues if you do this kind of work in advance of a meeting.

[00:20:52] Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea.

[00:20:55] I hope this advice is helpful to your very next interview.

[00:20:59] So many of you out there I’ve seen on all varieties of social media and in Discord,

[00:21:05] I’ve seen people looking for jobs and struggling to find them.

[00:21:10] By no means will my advice necessarily be the turning point in your career, but perhaps

[00:21:15] this little piece of advice will help you stand out just a little bit more from the

[00:21:20] crowd and give you a little bit more of an edge and a better statistical probability

[00:21:25] of landing that next job.

[00:21:26] Thanks so much for listening.

[00:21:27] Thank you again to today’s sponsor, Unblocked.

[00:21:31] Unblocked provides helpful and accurate answers developers need to get their jobs done.

[00:21:36] It tailors answers by augmenting your source code with existing team knowledge from GitHub,

[00:21:41] Slack, Confluence and more.

[00:21:44] Spend less time digging for context and more time building great software.

[00:21:47] Check it out at www.getonblocks.com.

[00:21:50] Thanks so much for listening and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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