&quot;An interview is not a test; it&#x27;s a date&quot;<p>I think understand where you&#x27;re going with the analogy, and I think that your advice not to dwell too much on any one interview is a sound.   However, I do think it&#x27;s important to recognize the extent to which a technical interview really is an exam.  I&#x27;m not just quibbling about terms or analogies here, I&#x27;m bringing this up because I think a lot of the problems associated with tech &quot;interviews&quot; are related to the fact that they are exams, but don&#x27;t observe many of the practices that support the student or examinee in typical exam-based institutions.<p>For instance, in college, an exam should be associated with a study path, students should be aware of how to prepare for it.  While questions on a good exam should need not be shared in advance and may test creativity and problem solving, they shouldn&#x27;t be out of the blue either, they should be related to the study path.  An exam should be graded consistently and fairly, by people who are qualified to recognize a strong performance, and perhaps an approach that was not anticipated (a grader for a math exam, for instance, should be able to evaluate a proof that differs from the one a professor had in mind when he or she wrote the question).  Students often have the right to receive feed back on their performance, and they often obtain a lasting credential, credit for a course, or other artifact that demonstrates that they successfully demonstrated knowledge of or competence in the subject matter.<p>Unfortunately, I believe that tech exams are very stressful, but don&#x27;t observe many of these practices that I believe exist in universities and other exam-related institutions for a good reason.<p>The first step, I think, is to recognize tech interviews for what they are, which is a form of exam.