this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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just bombed an interview (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) by [email protected] to c/cs_career_questions
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applied internally to a role thatd be a nice pay pump. its a data role with a strong emphasis on python and sql skills. i studied my ass off on data concepts anticipating questions like "how would you start solving xyz problem" or "how would you find business insights on zyx" and the first question is "whats the difference between a dict and a list in python?" or hell, even a leetcode-like question. i like to think im decent at USING python and sql, but not having used them in a current role in ~2 years, these google-search-esque questions threw me off guard. i fumbled making up answers for a few but some i straight up had to say i have no fkn clue. so todays been a bit of a demeaning experience! has anyone else ever had an interview where they asked questions like that?

edit: thanks to yall for being supportive, this is the kindest comment section ive had. im still recovering from the embarrassment of these guys thinking I probably lied about having these skills lol. part of my difficulty is that ive been on a rotation program at work and have spent almost the last year on a cyber analyst position and it didnt hit me how much I forgot to code! so now I'm applying to some cyber roles too, wish me luck!!

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't worry too much about it. I landed an interview at DreamJob™ before I was ready. The phone screening went great and I came for two in-persons, two people in each. I bombed all the way to hell and back. I could tell one of the people in the first meeting was thinking to himself that his time was being wasted. It was a nightmare. Needless to say, I didn't get it.

A year later, I came back for a different position in the same department at DreamJob™. The first in-persons went well (three of them, each one-on-one). In fact, the third person was about 35m late, so the second guy had to fill time and started throwing logic problems at me to give us something to talk about. I hadn't had to do any real math in a handful of years, so that was stressful, but I made it through. When third guy showed up, he seemed to like me and we had a nice fit-for-culture kind of chat.

The next round was a day of interviews, eight rounds. Most were pairs, but also two one-on-ones. The guy whose time I'd wasted the year before was one of those. I was terrified. He didn't remember me (why would he, I was just an inconvenience the first time). He seemed to like me, stoping to ask if I understood how a technology worked when I was having a hard time answering a question. So he explained it to me and said, "ok, so now that you know that, how would you approach the question from before?"

There were two more one-on-ones on separate days with the head of the department and then finally his boss. I got the job. My entire career and everything since is built on that first major success in the industry.

Lesson to take from the story is that no matter how much shame you may feel at this moment, you can try again and have a totally different outcome down the road. Just keep working on your skills and building yourself into a more suitable candidate and, when the time comes, try again. Bad interviews happen. They hurt for a while, but they aren't the end of the world. Invest in yourself and you'll get there.

(I usually wait five minutes when I type anything this long and then proof it, but I'm in a rush so you get my first draft, lightly edited.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

8 rounds in a day holy shit