# The reality of tech interviews

- **Episode:** [135](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/135.md) (2024-10-10)
- **Type:** panel-interview
- **Tags:** tech-interviews, interview-process, career-advice, job-search
- **Time:** 35:03–38:15 (start 2103s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/135?t=2103](https://truthliesandwork.com/135?t=2103)

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[35:03] Al Elliott: I really genuinely hope it's encouraging for you to hear that there are multiple paths into tech careers, whether through formal education, boot camps, or even just self-study. The key seems to be cultivating this curiosity we mentioned before, and also being very, very willing to learn. But once you've got the skills, how do you land that first job? Let's talk about the interview process
[35:25] Leanne Elliott: You've probably heard stories about tech interviews, multiple rounds, brain teasers, and even unpaid work assignments. It sounds pretty intimidating. I asked John and Nick about this. Is this the reality of tech interviews, or is this just hype?
[35:41] John White: I'm a hiring manager now, so I will say that You know, our interest in, as hiring managers, is finding the right person in the most efficient way possible. Um, I think that the brain teaser era has gone. A previous company I worked for, uh, Google, was fairly famous for that. You know, like maybe early on in his career, how many, how many, uh, ping pong balls fit in a 747? How does that help me do the job? I don't know why you would ask me that. And even, I think early on at Google, there was a, oh, it's going to take 12 interviews to get in. And Google being famously a data-driven company said, well, how successful are— how important is the interview process past 3 or 4? And it was like, well, it's—
[36:36] Nick Korte: Yeah
[36:37] John White: 70% correlated with the person that we would hire at interview 12. So a lot of that effort is wasted. And I think they, you know, that specific company really rationalized it to, to get down to as few interviews as possible. And, and in my experience in the jobs that I've had to hire for, it's the same thing. It's a, you know, if it goes a long time and I'm You know, putting people through, you know, multiple interviews. It's painful for everybody involved. And, you know, the, the longer it goes, the, the better chance I have of losing somebody to a different job that they're interviewing for. So it's, it's not really in my, my interest to do that. One, I would say anytime somebody's asking you to do free work, that's just a— you know, I've never understood that. That's, that's the time to to gracefully bow out of that interview process. That's my strong opinion. Maybe, you know, I try to say strong opinion loosely held, but that's a red flag for me. If they're asking you to do free work during the interview process, once you're an employee, how much free work are they gonna try to get out of you? So I try to say this, the interview process is indicative of how the company is going to treat you afterwards. So, you know, as a hiring manager, I try to have a good interviewing process because I want people to say, oh, okay, so, you know, this has gone well. It's tough, but, you know, it's been rewarding, and that's how the job is going to be