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Comment by RickS | Hacker News Reader

Depends on what part of the interviewing process is slowing you down.

Your other comment indicates that your question is not "what jobs interview with day-to-day challenges rather than google-scale hypotheticals"

>They involve discussing real world problems and work experiences with me. I still do not get offers from them.

The question should not be "how do I run from this problem"

It is first "how do i get a credible assessment of why I didn't receive offers"

and then "how do I build or repair that area of my skills"

This applies equally if not especially to "soft skills" aka "how am I perceived by other humans".

edit: I poked back into your history and it seems that you figured this out with your question from ~20 days ago. That's the right thread to pull IMO and it looks like that post got some responses. I'd say keep pushing in that area - sub one month is a very short timeline for both personal growth and varied interview rounds.

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My soft skills are good enough on the job. I hardly get complaints about communication issues with co-workers and also have taken part in client meetings at some companies, discussing their goals and requirements. I keep on track with everyone that is needed for a project.

But almost everything about soft skills on a job interview feels too orthogonal and dissimilar to my applied work soft skills. Interviews like that are more suited for sales jobs, I think. Sales skills seem like they have been put on a pedestal. Therefore I cannot see these interviews as an accurate representation of most soft skills at work.

Edit: Also about my older thread, are you referring to the one about returning to an office job after 2 years of being away from it? I really do feel like this is what I need and almost all the jobs I apply to require daily 9-5 office work. I'm a homebody and hang out only with 3 people regularly. It remains to be seen on the "when" of I'll get that kind of job.

> My soft skills are good enough on the job. I hardly get complaints about communication issues

This isn't about you, I don't know you, and you may well be the exception to this. But, given that; in my experience everyone I've ever met in person who claims that their social skills are not why their (not just coding) interview skills are lacking is wrong. Often they're wrong because they don't even realize it, because their peers know that communications skills are lacking and then don't even raise the issue to avoid the possibility of a (quite common) poor reception of the feedback. Don't assume the lack of criticism as an endorsement. If someone thinks you lack something technically but have strong communication, they'll tell you that. If someone thinks you lack communication skills, they'll do their best to avoid treading on the viper, because they don't know how you'll respond.

> But almost everything about soft skills on a job interview feels too orthogonal and dissimilar to my applied work soft skills. Interviews like that are more suited for sales jobs, I think.

I'm not even 100% sure what you mean by that, but I read it as "I don't really need the skills you think I do." Again, I'm not sure that's what you meant, but as a disinterested third party, if I read it that way, I'd be surprised if some interviewers don't.

> their peers know that communications skills are lacking and then don't even raise the issue to avoid the possibility of a (quite common) poor reception of the feedback.

That's an interesting thought. It never occurred to me that feedback on technical skills is more commonly given than feedback on communication skills. How did you discover that?

Also, withholding certain kinds of feedback because of fear of reprisal does not seem like an effective way to manage or improve your employees. So they'd rather fire you without telling you how you needed to improve? That doesn't sound like good management to me and it sounds like these are the types of managers I should avoid.

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