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Flunking my Anthropic interview again

(taylor.town)
369 points surprisetalk | 23 comments | 29 Aug 25 14:02 UTC | HN request time: 1.445s | source | bottom
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kashunstva ◴[29 Aug 25 14:44 UTC] No.45064812[source]▶
I have no idea to what extent Anthropic or other employers delve into prospective candidates’ blogs; but this strikes me as too much self-disclosure for one’s own good. We all have idiosyncrasies; but calling oneself weird on a now widely published blog article seems like it risks defeating the goal of making oneself an ideal candidate for many job opportunities. Look, many of my own eccentricities have been (net) valuable to be professionally and personally, but it was probably better they be revealed “organically” rather than through a public act of self-disclosure.
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1. corytheboyd ◴[29 Aug 25 14:48 UTC] No.45064865[source]▶
Maybe a good point, but honestly, interviewers barely read resumes, they’re very, very likely not going to read your blog, or remember “hey it’s the person from that blog post I ready 7 weeks ago.”
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2. stickfigure ◴[29 Aug 25 14:54 UTC] No.45064948[source]▶
I expect that for a Developer Relations role, someone read the blogs.
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3. busterarm ◴[29 Aug 25 14:55 UTC] No.45064957[source]▶
> interviewers barely read resumes

I feel like this is the biggest lie ever told in this industry. Do you, as an interviewer, not read resumes?

I read loads of resumes and the truth is more like everyone are terrible communicators. Especially software engineers. Most resumes are badly formatted, badly typeset, full of errors and give me confusing/contradictory details about what your job responsibilities were rather than what you accomplished.

Most peoples' resumes are so low-effort that they're practically unreadable and I'm trying to read between the lines to figure out what you're capable of. I might as well not be reading them because I'm trying to figure out what you've done, what you're good at and what motivates you and nothing you've given me on that paper helps me do that.

One of these days someone is going to figure out how to cross-polinate technology people and sales people in the office to smooth out each others' rough edges. Whoever does is going to revolutionize industry.

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4. ◴[29 Aug 25 14:55 UTC] No.45064964[source]▶
5. ◴[29 Aug 25 14:55 UTC] No.45064965[source]▶
6. corytheboyd ◴[29 Aug 25 15:01 UTC] No.45065046[source]▶
I’m a little confused, because first you challenge me, but then come to the exact conclusion that resumes are largely unreadable. I’ll look for something they claim to have done to dig deep on, see if it’s BS or not, but I’m not reading every X by Y% with my jaw on the floor. FWIW I’m generally on the back side of the process, where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.
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7. busterarm ◴[29 Aug 25 15:04 UTC] No.45065084{3}[source]▶
> where someone at the front (is supposed to have) vetted the person already.

I think that's a mistake, personally. Each interviewer needs to make an independent decision and relying on the judgement of a screener early in the process is giving that person disproportionate weight towards hiring for your team. Usually that resume screener is someone in HR. Would you trust them to decide who your team hires?

Your posts do indicate that maybe there is a larger segment of folks who don't read resumes than I realize...My amount of rigor may only come after being involved in some catastrophically bad hiring decisions. Like someone I made the deciding vote to hire was stalking multiple employees, was a heavy drug user, did zero work of value and ultimately crashed and burned by getting arrested for coming at someone with a knife. For years HR wouldn't let us fire that person because of their protected class and multiple false claims they made against a large number of employees.

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8. lylejantzi3rd ◴[29 Aug 25 15:10 UTC] No.45065154[source]▶
> I feel like this is the biggest lie ever told in this industry.

It's not. I've been in a number of interviews where the interviewer has told me straight up "I didn't read your resume. Mind giving me a second to give it a scan?"

To be fair, as you mention, resumes are horrible tools. They should only be used as a place to start a conversation, so does it really matter if the interviewer reads it in depth before starting the interview?

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9. ciigugv754 ◴[29 Aug 25 15:10 UTC] No.45065160[source]▶
It is true for some companies. That said, in my experience, the more it was visible in an interview that the interviewer read my application, my website, my open-source code etc, the more enjoyable working for that company has been for me. I guess it’s a sign people at such a company give a shit. It transfers to other areas than just interviews led by them. At this point, if I see that the interviewer barely skimmed my CV, my expectations, that this job will be good, plummet.
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10. ◴[29 Aug 25 15:10 UTC] No.45065168{4}[source]▶
11. gk1 ◴[29 Aug 25 15:11 UTC] No.45065185[source]▶
Absolutely. Especially for late-stage candidates.
12. ◴[29 Aug 25 15:13 UTC] No.45065213{3}[source]▶
13. lylejantzi3rd ◴[29 Aug 25 15:14 UTC] No.45065222[source]▶
People get hired all the time based on their online content. Or, at the very least, they get interviews when they wouldn't otherwise. Don't forget about the luck surface area!
14. busterarm ◴[29 Aug 25 15:15 UTC] No.45065240{3}[source]▶
It's starting to sound to me like on both sides of this conversation, up-front effort made can be strong positive signal...
15. majormajor ◴[29 Aug 25 15:17 UTC] No.45065267{3}[source]▶
Others in the loop (sourcer/screener/recruiter at minimum) almost certainly read your resume for you to even make it that far.
16. corytheboyd ◴[29 Aug 25 15:33 UTC] No.45065452[source]▶
That’s a good point, I’ve been a bit burnt out on strictly eng roles that I projected there a bit
17. dasil003 ◴[29 Aug 25 18:11 UTC] No.45067513{4}[source]▶
If it’s truly only HR and then direct to full interview panel then I agree with you, but I’ve never worked somewhere where a technical person wasn’t involved in screening. Yes recruiters will winnow the inbound, but usually there a technical phone screen, hiring manager screen, or both.
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18. corytheboyd ◴[29 Aug 25 18:27 UTC] No.45067709{5}[source]▶
FWIW this is what I assumed to be true when I said what I said.
19. jama211 ◴[29 Aug 25 19:08 UTC] No.45068132[source]▶
Perhaps the blogs of the candidates yes. On the other hand, perhaps OP will find a perfect fit this way.
20. busterarm ◴[29 Aug 25 19:52 UTC] No.45068629{5}[source]▶
And yet still that screening almost always has less technical depth than further interviews. It should not carry the most weight in the process, but because of practices like this it does.
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21. dasil003 ◴[29 Aug 25 20:10 UTC] No.45068833{6}[source]▶
Sorry, can't agree with this. The hiring manager's decision carries the most weight yes, but saying it's biased towards the screen is over-generalizing. I'm sure sometimes it is, but as someone who interviewed thousands and hired hundreds over a quarter century career at many organizations large and small, I can tell you unequivocally that technical feedback can and does regularly override my screening signal.
22. ◴[29 Aug 25 21:38 UTC] No.45069699{3}[source]▶
23. com2kid ◴[30 Aug 25 03:29 UTC] No.45071679[source]▶
As a hiring manager, I've read blogs. Heck when reviewing a stack of resumes, "has a technical blog" almost certainly moves a candidate to a consider pile and they are probably getting a callback in the very least.