have you ever had a situation where you could not solve trivial problem on interview which otherwise you could have solved easily?
not sure how to recover from this. I solve puzzles/problems frequently and this mental block was scary. Last time i locked up like that was on first quant problem on GMAT.
Kinda scared i am losing the edge
Happened to me in my algorithms exams. I had like 100 percent on all 3 midterms then got 50/100 on the final. It’s a function of stress and not practicing enough, these age related stuff start happening after 60 or so if it happens at all.
Happened to me in my algorithms exams. I had like 100 percent on all 3 midterms then got 50/100 on the final. It’s a function of stress and not practicing enough, these age related stuff start happening after 60 or so if it happens at all.
Yes, I’ve had this issue a lot. I think it’s just a matter of nerves, because as time goes by and I give less sh*ts about jobs, I do these questions better, even though I am arguably becoming less intelligent in math over time. Kind of ironic actually.
One time, I got frustrated and called the guy right after the interview and ranted for a long time with the answer to the thing I choked on. I did end up getting an offer, but rejected them. So again, the irony…
order a prostitute the night before. no joke, it will get your confidence up and you’ll crush the interview.
You’re probably the 5th smartest person here. That may not mean much IRL, but it should.
Run the top 10.
Sounds like the ol’ “I’m just not a good test taker” excuse.
you would say that… but actually i am a good test taker, interview has one dramatic difference… you cannnot move on from the problem and come back to it later. You are forced to rapidly generate ideas until you solve problem and anchoring is massive - if you solve problem in suboptimal way, it is very hard to work backwards and solve it optimally.
So no, interviews are nothing like tests
It’s likely an effect of stress/expectations. I’ve sounded like a mumbling idiot before in public speeches on stuff I knew well because the moment and circumstance had overtaken my nerves…so no longer centered. Practice is of great help in overcoming the occasional blocks.
you choked.
cutting to the bone; infinity isn’t wrong, you choked. I’ve had this happen before too.
Only way to prevent this is to a) prepare well for the content, b) rehearse out loud - verbalizing the problem solving process or whatever mock you’re using to simulate a situation like this, and c) get adequate mental rest before the interview. Failing all that it’s not uncommon to stumble but the question is how you recover.
and greenie, your comment reflects a bit too much of yourself.
Yes, this happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I told the interviewer I had a mental block due to nerves and took a few seconds longer to answer the question.
Thanks everyone. Yes, i choked no doubt, i was more concerned that it reflects that i am not as sharp as i want myself to believe. Hopefully it is not the case
Combination of nerves and not being sharp, stay calm, tell them you’re having mental block and would like to come back to it, move to next question and forget about it. If you don’t focus on it, the answer will pop into your head a bit later. If it doesn’t, apologize and move on, focus on winning the rest of the interview.
As far as the sharpness, don’t doubt your talent, but maybe use this as an excuse to brush up on some topics in your spare time. A lot of people get rusty, you gotta use it or lose it and it’s generally not hard to keep up on things once you get in the habit. I occasionally take evening courses, read industry stuff, skim old text books, read a lot of white papers and have been a CFA practice exam question writer the last few years for L2/L3 econ just to stay up to speed on stuff I don’t always use every day.
What do you mean?
Out of curiosity, how does one become an exam question writer?
So I only write the practice exam questions through a third party provider that does orchestrated mock exams. Within the main CFA organization, I think they write a number of questions for the actual exam and unused extras are recycled as practice exam questions. I don’t know the exact process for the CFA organization, but I imagine the requirements are more stringent. For me, I just saw an ad through a local CFA society looking for writers and got involved. It’s definitely been a learning process in terms of constructing the questions and answer sets an interesting for me to brush up on the material.
ah gotcha! sounds like an interesting thing to get involved in
Bump. Just wanted to say i got the offer.