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Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

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Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#161

Post by deathanatos »

foo101 wrote: post #130

Here are the facts about Unix. * The name "UNIX" or "Unix" is trademarked. * AIX, Solaris and HP-UX are certified Unix systems. These are bonafide Unix systems and there indeed are software developers today who work with these Unix systems.[2] * The set of Unix-like systems is a superset of the set of Unix systems. The set of Unix-like systems include systems like Linux, FreeBSD, etc. which the set of certified Unix…

If I quizzed engineers, what percentage of them do you think would get that exactly right? Prior to your post, I had myself thought — as Stanley seems to — think that Unix referred to the operating system by that name. I did not know that,

> By decree of The Open Group, the term "UNIX" refers more to a class of operating systems than to a specific implementation of an operating system; those operating systems which meet The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification should be able to bear the UNIX 98 or UNIX 03 trademarks today, after the operating system's vendor pays a substantial certification fee and annual trademark royalties to The Open Group.

But if I were exchanging information with a candidate, what Stanley provides is more than I would expect from a candidate (even from industry; he seems to be a student); that he isn't exactly on the mark should have been fine. If we really wanted exacts, the recruiter had ample opportunity to explain his/her position, but instead, we get nothing. Stanley took the time to both give his view on things, and give a simple layman's answer that conforms to that view when the tech jargon didn't seem to go over well. That he might be technically wrong is incredibly nitpicky, and I am not persuaded that that was the issue the recruiter had.

It still seems like an extremely weird qualification to require, doubly so again for an intern level position: you would still be likely to pass over extremely qualified candidates who just never touched a "UNIX".

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#162

Post by akhilcacharya »

JackFr wrote: post #43
kichik wrote: post #29

In my home country we say sometimes it's better being smart than right. The recruiter is doing their job and antagonizing them, no matter how right you are, is not the smart move.

No - the recruiter is not doing their job. They are marking time in a role and collecting a paycheck, but decidedly not doing their job.

Facebook hires (or at minimum, interviews) hundreds of PE's a year, there's no way this sort of miscommunication isn't sorted out in the average case.

I might be wrong, but as far as I know PE's are recruited to have SysAdmin expertise as well. It's clear that the resume didn't reflect that as well as it should if this was even being asked.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#163

Post by foo101 »

derenrich wrote: post #143
aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

Eh, honestly I would've been similarly frustrated. The recruiter seems like they are being needlessly bureaucratic. Either they are familiar with Unix and thus should know that Unix-like is synonymous with Unix nowadays or they aren't and they should take your word. Maybe you were a little condescending but it happens and rejecting someone on the basis of this exchange seems mad to me. If FB doesn't reverse their dec…

Unix-like systems are not synonymous with Unix systems nowadays.

* Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are Unix systems.

* FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux are Unix-like systems but not Unix systems.

When technology people like us are debating over this terminology, I think it makes sense to cut the recruiter some slack.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#164

Post by dcosson »

freehunter wrote: post #76
mquander wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verbatim exchange: Thanks for the quick response and clarifications. Experience with Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems is largely transferrable thanks to the standardization that resulted from the POSIX specification. As a result, the terms "POSIX" and "UNIX-like" by-and-large refer to the same thing. My experiences are in particular with developing software for Linux platforms, which are the most popular o…

>I'd love to see you defend why the guy is a professional communicator with a good attitude. He's not, but that doesn't matter. You're going to be hard pressed to only ever communicate with professional communicators with good attitudes your whole career. So if you ever want to be taken seriously and have a successful career, you're going to need to learn what battles are worth fighting. Hell, maybe it was even a tes…

I don't think "pick your battles" is quite fair. I didn't read this as him being stubborn for no reason, at least not in this initial message. He knows Facebook has a reputation as a strong technical team, and since he is applying for a technical job, he probably thought they'd appreciate the attention to detail of giving a thorough response.

But yes, it certainly is a lesson in dealing with nonsense.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#165

Post by TheCoelacanth »

foo101 wrote: post #103
samoright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think the risk you are talking about in believing a 20 year old is exaggerated? Is it that hard to go back to the manager and ask if "Unix-like" is acceptable although the job description says "Unix"? Or just do a little bit of Googling to figure out if what the candidate is saying could have merit? From my perspective, it appears that the recruiter is the jerk and not the candidate. I have met many compute…

I Googled and I find that the candidate was wrong. The recruiter was right. AIX, Solaris and HP-UX are bonafide Unix systems and there indeed are software developers today who work with them. In any case, it is not very hard to write something like the following in the resume: POSIX, CentOS (Linux), Solaris (Unix), FreeBSD (Unix-like), etc. It is always good to be more specific about your skills in situations like th…

While that is true, I find it highly unlikely that they are expecting interns to have experience with Unix™.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#166

Post by monktastic1 »

aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

I also think you're being too hard on yourself here. Sure, it will be helpful for you to learn to interact with difficult people, and to bite your tongue when frustrated. But frankly, most of us have limited success with that even by late in our careers. It appears to me that the recruiter could have been a lot more helpful, particularly at the end where you flat-out explain you have Unix and Linux experience and they still insist that your email never said so.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#167

Post by Retra »

pwinnski wrote: post #73
deathanatos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much more clear poor Stanley can get: > Recruiter: We're looking for students with experience work on Linux and Unix > Stanley: I have experience working on Linux and UNIX > Recruiter: Your email and resume say Unix-like, which is not exactly UNIX. The recruiter, by the end of this exchange has been given the explanation of why "UNIX-like" is the correct term, why it is being used, and why it is rele…

Stanley said in an email he worked on Linux systems, but despite repeated prompts from the recruiter, refused to put exactly that on his resume. He was technically correct, which some people believe is the best kind of correct, but the failure here was his. He was more interested in being right than getting the internship, and as a result he gets a lot of pats on the back from people who share his philosophy here...…

No internship at FaceBook.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#168

Post by gpm »

Spooky23 wrote: post #139
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. It looks like the recruiter is clueless or maybe even trolling, and applicant was going out of their way to be helpful. They could have just updated their resume, and allowed the recruiter to remain ignorant, but imo that would have been very rude.

If you're looking for someone who has actual high level expertise working on AIX or FreeBSD, having some dude tell you that Linux is the same as Unix or asserting that knowing what POSIX means is equivalent to having production knowledge of AIX/FreeBSD for a production engineering role is not very productive. The recruiter handled himself professionally and should be commended for not being bullied. Mr. Zhang sounds…

If the recruiter is looking for FreeBSD experience and not just *nix experience he needs to be a hell of a lot more explicit. As is it just sounds like the recruiter doesn't know what he's talking about and is trying to just go based on keywords.

Especially since this is a UX research internship, and the candidate made perfectly clear that that is how the recruiter was coming across, so the recruiter had every opportunity to clarify.

The candidate didn't handle it perfectly, the recruiter however handled it far worse.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#169

Post by monktastic1 »

foo101 wrote: post #163
derenrich wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, honestly I would've been similarly frustrated. The recruiter seems like they are being needlessly bureaucratic. Either they are familiar with Unix and thus should know that Unix-like is synonymous with Unix nowadays or they aren't and they should take your word. Maybe you were a little condescending but it happens and rejecting someone on the basis of this exchange seems mad to me. If FB doesn't reverse their dec…

Unix-like systems are not synonymous with Unix systems nowadays. * Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are Unix systems. * FreeBSD and Debian GNU/Linux are Unix-like systems but not Unix systems. When technology people like us are debating over this terminology, I think it makes sense to cut the recruiter some slack.

I read the exchange as cutting the recruiter slack. He didn't say "you're wrong" or "you're an idiot." It seems to me he's saying "here's how I understand what you're saying, and here's why I think my skills meet your qualifications."
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