The hiring game, in a nutshell

When you go to a job interview, or when you interview someone, the game both parties are playing is, in a nutshell:

• Hirer: Why should we hire you?
• Candidate: You should hire me because…

That’s it! It’s essentially a marketing game.

In the recent period, I provided tips to a few of my friends on increasing their chances of getting hired. One of the main things a hirer wants to see is your line of reasoning, how you think, to understand better why they should hire you.

Here’s a simple example of how this dialogue can go.

Example dialogue

Hirer: Implement the Fibonacci sequence.

Candidate:

<?php
function fib_optimal($n) {
    if ($n <= 1) return $n;

    $prev = 0;
    $curr = 1;

    for ($i = 2; $i <= $n; $i++) {
        $next = $prev + $curr;
        $prev = $curr;
        $curr = $next;
    }

    return $curr;
}

Hirer: Why this solution? What other solutions did you consider? What are the trade-offs?

Candidate: I chose this solution because I optimized for performance. I also considered this code, but I didn’t go with it, because it has very bad time complexity. That being said, this code is much more readable than the previous one, at the cost of performance.

<?php
function fib_suboptimal($n) {
    if ($n <= 1) return $n;
    return fib_suboptimal($n - 1) + fib_suboptimal($n - 2);
}

Feedback loops

Now, imagine the same dialogue without the hirer having to nudge you. It could go something like this.

Hirer: Implement the Fibonacci sequence.

Candidate: I chose this solution because I optimized for performance. I also considered code where I use a recursive function, but I didn’t go with it, because it had very bad time complexity. That being said, the recursive code was much more readable than this one, at the cost of performance.

<?php
function fib_optimal($n) {
    if ($n <= 1) return $n;

    $prev = 0;
    $curr = 1;

    for ($i = 2; $i <= $n; $i++) {
        $next = $prev + $curr;
        $prev = $curr;
        $curr = $next;
    }

    return $curr;
}

What’s the difference between the first and the second dialogue? In the second, you immediately showed your line of reasoning, without requiring the hirer to nudge you. You cut the feedback loop shorter, and you made the hirer’s job a lot easier by presenting everything you did, including your line of reasoning.

Hirers don’t just care about solutions; they also care about how you approach those.

You will increase your chances of getting hired if you make the hirer’s job easier.