I've never been on the hiring side, but something I always try to do is be unique. When asked design questions, use something less conventional. Tell them you know it's less conventional, and make a simple justification for it. A simple question I've gotten was designing a deck of cards in C++. Instead of assigning a suit value of 1,2,3, or 4 I chose to use 1,2,4, and 8. While the point of the exercise was to demonstrate OOP, I wanted to spice things up and show I was also comfortable working at the bit-level, using shifts and masks. It probably didn't amount to much in and of itself, but I felt it made me more unique and that much more memorable.

The best way to get a job is to make yourself a person of great value, so that companies would want to employ you, instead of you wanting them. If you want it too much, you probably won't get it (because chances are, if you want it too much, you're not good enough).

I'm going to have to slightly disagree. I think there is a balance, and ambition and eagerness are great assets in a start-up environment in addition to technical prowess.

What I mean is that it's pointless to talk about how to ace an interview if the person in question isn't even capable of the job.

Such guides tend to be more along the lines of "how to hack the hiring process".

Literally the fourth sentence in: "I’m also going to presume that you have the set of skills the particular job requires."

Nothing about this guide is about circumventing the natural ways people find jobs (save for one step, and perhaps the lengths of which I'm asking people to try), but illuminating what has worked for me, and reiterating some tried and true methods of success. I feel you didn't even read the article, yet felt compelled to comment.

Really insightful and helpful.