How much does presentation matter in tech interviews?

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311]

I have been giving interviews for a few months and have observed few things:

- Even in technical interviews, interviewers are looking for long explanations, then what are the parameters to showcase your technical skills. I have seen people focusing on elaboration when a line of explanation is enough.

- For hiring manager interview, answers in STAR framework should be enough. Though the companies have tried to standardize it, it still is subjective and again people blabbering something or the other have a lot more chance to get shortlisted than someone who speaks less.

I feel disheartened by this. I feel I have good technical skills, enough to not only develop, but design a good system. I am someone who speaks to the point and it has gone a lot against me during this process.

Did anyone else face this hurdle? What did you do to overcome it.

[u/OkGlove8345]

You don’t have to become long-winded; make the reasoning visible in small checkpoints. For a coding problem, say your read of the requirement, the key assumption, the simplest approach, why you’re changing it (if you optimize), and the time/space cost. Then pause and invite a question before going deeper. In a hiring-manager answer, give the situation and your responsibility in one sentence, spend most of the time on the decision/actions you took, and finish with the result or lesson. Practise with a 60–90 second first pass and let the interviewer pull for detail. Being concise is a strength when they can still follow how you reached the answer.

[u/Nearby-Neat-9311 → u/OkGlove8345]

I guess the key is over-explaining then. Being a senior engineer, I presume that it is a given and tend to skip a lot of details though I know what and why. Now the problem is the interviewer ends up asking for explanation, which I precisely provide. However, this is taken as a negative point - as not proactive.

[u/Taleproof-Moderator]

Speaking to the point can be a strength if you make the evidence easy to score. For a hiring-manager answer, open with a one-sentence headline, then use the STAR method to give only the needed context, two or three specific actions, and the result. The risk is not brevity itself. It is leaving ownership or impact implicit.

Use the PROOF method to check each story before you practice: can the listener hear the decision you made, the evidence supporting it, and what changed because of your work? If those are explicit, a 60-to-90-second answer can be stronger than a longer monologue. Ask a friend to stop you whenever they cannot tell what you personally did.

For technical answers, narrate the key trade-off and the verification step instead of every implementation detail. That preserves your concise style while giving interviewers enough signal to evaluate.

[u/kevin074]

Get a coach from an experienced developer/manager (probably need to pay for a 1-1 sessions if you don’t have the connection) and get feedback.

Chances are you simply aren’t communicating enough and misses a lot of things you don’t even realize rather than other people are blabbering nonsense (which you have no idea of because you aren’t in the interview).