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A researcher who just started at OpenAI is opening up about how he landed the job in such a competitive market — and the one big mistake he made in interviews.
Bas van Opheusden joined OpenAI as a technical staff member in July. In an X post on Tuesday, he shared eight pages worth of tips for nailing the AI job interview.
The document covers everything from general interview advice to coding tips, and what to expect when negotiating comp.
“Some recruiters will play dirty,” van Opheusden wrote. “I have had companies give extremely short deadlines, retract offers, ghost me entirely, or ‘accidentally’ fail to make an offer until after another deadline had expired.”
He also shared a mistake he made during the introductory call with recruiters.
The introduction call is customary for many companies early in the hiring process. Van Opheusden said this is often the time for recruiters to explain basic information like who the hiring manager is, what team you’ll be on, and, “for startups, what the company’s mission and strategy is.” He also wrote that recruiters may ask about compensation expectations.
Van Opheusden’s advice? “During this call, take notes!” he wrote in bold. It might be the only time someone explains the company’s organization chart and team structure, he said.
“I’ve had coding interviews 2-3 weeks later where someone would ask what role I was applying to and I didn’t know,” he wrote.
For note-taking, Van Opheusden prefers having dual monitors so that he can take notes while on the call.
“I have a dual-screen setup where I can take notes during a call, and I will move the video call window on my screen so that it looks like I’m making eye contact,” he wrote.
Van Opheusden didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
The post A new OpenAI researcher shares the one regret he has from his job interviews appeared first on Business Insider.
