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Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

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Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#181

Post by deathanatos »

foo101 wrote: post #171
deathanatos wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

All I am saying is that when technology people like us are debating about terminology, we can cut the recruiter some slack, be nice to him or her and be more explicit in our communication to the recruiter. For example, instead of responding to "We are looking for experience in Linux and Unix" with "I have updated my resume with POSIX", respond with the following instead assuming you indeed have real Unix experience w…

That is something I would never do, because by doing so, I would by lying. Under the same beliefs as Stanley, I do not have experience with Unix.

He does also, at various iterations, include UNIX, Linux, and UNIX-like on his resume, not necessarily at the same time. If there's a particular order, or casing of the word Unix the recruiter is looking for, he or she should just name it.

> be more explicit in our communication to the recruiter.

The long, technical response is the explicit response.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#182

Post by aspyrx »

chis wrote: post #178
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…

This follow-up shows a lot of maturity. Both sides are obviously at fault here, although you instigated it. I suspect you could still get the internship if you send an apology like "Sorry for my previous emails they were out of line. You're essentially correct and here's an updated resume to reflect that."

Thank you - I actually did send an apology email, but since I'm pretty sure I'm not quite qualified for the position, I didn't bother pursuing it any further than that.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#183

Post by arielm »

Throwing my two cents here - as an employer who also happens to be technical I don’t like working with recruiters for the simple reason that most of them aren’t qualified to asses the kind of talent I’m looking for most times. They are good at parsing through resumes.

However, keep in mind this guy is recruiting for internships, so I assume he’s not the most experienced recruiter on the team.

P.S. - I personally believe in reading the audience, which in this case meant not digging deeper into technical terms but just adding “experience with Linux and Unix systems” to the resume as the recruiter suggested. But... only if you really _can_ answer questions about either/both during an interview.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#184

Post by flukus »

kev009 wrote: post #60
throwaway2016a wrote: post #12

Somewhat on topic. Does anyone use actual Unix? Is it even something you can install anymore?

You can basically buy the right to call yourself UNIX today from The Open Group. The most extreme example of this is z/OS, but Mac OS is also UNIX. As for a singular product it was always kind of muddy. There was early UNIX, Research UNIX, BSD and then System III and System V as products from AT&T. The last product that was "pure" UNIX was System V Release 4. You could buy it into the 90s for 3B2s and PCs. It had lot…

Could we crowd fund a campaign to buy a unix license for linux and end this silliness once and for all?

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#185

Post by autotune »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #148

I never went to a elite enough school to be reached out to by Facebook recruiters so maybe there's something I'm missing but I genuinely wonder why someone would be this condescending towards the people helping you get a job.

Facebook reaches out to me every few months and don't have a degree. I don't have the time or patience to study for their fresh-out-of-cs-grad style interview process though so only go with companies that test for what actually happens on the job vs in a text book, of which there are plenty.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#187

Post by loeg »

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…

Actually you're wrong about Linux not being included in the certified set. Inspur K-UX, a Linux distro based on RHEL, is a certified UNIX system. As is EulerOS.

Interestingly, MacOS is included in the certified UNIX list. Most of its userspace and a lot of its kernel interfaces come from FreeBSD. So in a way, some of FreeBSD is a certified Unix.

Curiously enough, Oracle just killed Solaris. AIX is old. Is it dead? Last release was in 2015. HP-UX was last released a year ago. My guess is that both of these systems are on their last legs.

I believe that specific distributions of Linux and versions of FreeBSD could both trivially be Unix certified, if someone wanted to waste the money paying SCO for the designation.

Either way, it's a stupid pedantic thing for a recruitor to gate on.

(Source: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ )

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#188

Post by j_s »

TL;DR: A recruiting conversation insisting that each party 'get bent' with utmost professionalism.

Edit: apparently the student did follow up here about the same time I posted this; props for doing so. This entire discussion serves as a reminder that getting a resume past HR (and most recruiters) is 100% about ticking exactly the right boxes, and only serves as the most rudimentary of filters.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#189

Post by IE6 »

I don't work at facebook I work at a healthcare company and I would accept this rejection as a solid weed out.

If you cannot understand that the HR person responsible for hiring you maybe is not a top-tier engineer and you cannot accommodate that person's gap in technical knowledge you probably cannot function in a healthy way with other members of the team such as junior developers, business people, or end users.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#190

Post by bo1024 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #150
type0 wrote: post #8

Recruiter: We're looking for someone to fix the pipes. You: Yes, I'm a qualified plumber and can do the job. Recruiter: Sure, but can you fix our pipes? You: Off course, that is is what I was trained to do. Recruiter: You keep saying you're a plumber but we need someone to fix our pipes You: I can do it. Recruiter: we need someone who have worked with pipes. You: I have worked with those. Recruiter: Sure, but we need…

A more apropos version: Recuiter: we need someone who can work with copper and pex pipes. Your resume says that you work with PEX You: I can do plumbing. I have connected PEX to copper before. Recruiter: Do you have experience installing copper? You: Building codes allow you to substitute PEX for copper pipe. I have used PEX with copper. Recruiter: we need someone to work with copper. Thank you.

To me, the problem (in part) seems to be that the recruiter is not qualified to understand, or at least cannot clearly communicate, whether they actually need someone who has worked specifically with copper or whether they want general experience with pipes such as copper and pex.
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