I&#x27;ve been in interviews where those stupid &quot;I have three balls and want to guarantee the ball I pick is red&quot; questions get asked, and what I&#x27;ve noticed is if they <i>want</i> to hire me, I can just take vague guesses and they&#x27;ll help me along, but if they <i>don&#x27;t want</i> to hire me, they&#x27;ll sit coldly, watching as I flounder about.  By the time I&#x27;ve sat down in the chair, a lot of times the person hiring has already made a choice.  I&#x27;m not charismatic enough to reverse their choice, but I&#x27;m not antisocial enough to disqualify myself if they already like me.<p>The thing I learned about applying to jobs last time I went through this is that if your primary goal is obtaining a source of income, you need to send your resume to ~10 people a day, every day, and go on every possible interview, and do every possible thing people ask you to do.<p>You&#x27;ll still lose a lot of jobs to these techniques, because they&#x27;re effectively random, but since it&#x27;s random, your odds of success increase with volume.  Eventually you&#x27;ll hit a position that you <i>do</i> just randomly happen to know the algorithm they&#x27;re looking for, or they don&#x27;t ask CS theory questions (I&#x27;m self taught, so theory is a weak point for me as well), and you can talk about&#x2F;demonstrate your <i>actual</i> job qualifications, rather than some contrived talent that&#x27;s entirely irrelevant to the position.