Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apparently they did...
Interesting... Is it a social experiment?
RMS did something similar way back in his days
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/ch07.html
Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
351–360 of 497 posts
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#352Earlier 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 they need experience with a specific Unix they should ask for it by name. Having worked with a number 'real' Unix's (mainly Solaris, Irix and Digital Unix/Tru64) I can tell you that it's no easier (or harder) to transfer knowledge between, say, Irix and Solaris than between Linux and Solaris.
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#353You should have just appended UNIX to the CV and been done with it. You just have to play the game and keep a long 'experience tuple' of keywords. The recruiter was basically trying to help you, most would have just filtered you out and not even replied. Recruiters don't have technical experience, so don't expect them to understand the nuances of OSes etc.
> Recruiters don't have technical experience, so don't expect them to understand the nuances of OSes etc.
Yes, you should. If they don't understand what they should be looking for in a CV, they should not be recruiting for the position.
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#354Hey 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…
Do not bend. Keep educating people. You done right.
If we all give in, the result is 2017: ignorant, arrogant recruiters, not willing to look into what they _should_ understand, since they are looking for speciality positions; and ignorant, arrogant people all around, not willing to learn anything.
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Do remember that we are talking about internships here. If I have a task for an intern that requires some shell-scripting, and the intern already understands what it means to pipe commands, I put my hands together in silent thanks.
> If I have a task for an intern that requires some shell-scripting, and the intern already understands what it means to pipe commands, I put my hands together in silent thanks.
I thought we were talking about university students studying CS or related discipline?
How on earth would a uni student in CS don't know about piping commands? Does this actually happen? I dropped out of uni after 1,5 years, and I studied bioinformatics, not CS, but even then I considered using pipes as basic and universal skill for any "advanced user", not even an engineer.
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#356Hey 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 don't think you was horribly inappropriate, tho you really was condescending. You was mostly quite a lot unstrategic and you did not tailored your communication to audience.
The audience is not-too-technical requiter. You introduced term he did not knew (posix) and sent him wall of text explaining history of unix/linux. First, even tech people use terms Linux and Unix as a synonyms for Unix-like daily, so there is not need to go full nerd on someone who is not into it. Local experienced senior could easily have said "we need Unix and Linux experience" and requiter then simply attempts to fulfill that requirement. Local experienced seniors would rather change job then manage communication with dozens of potential interns, you cant expect first contact to be like them.
Second, history of tech wall of text will not work even if you are the most polite and humble person in the world. People don't read long detailed explanation even when they actually need them. They want to move to next mail as soon as possible. If the long text where you are lecturing someone contains just a hint of condescension, even if unintentional, people wont read it and will react negatively (which happened by the end of conversation). It is his bad not yours, but such reaction is still fairly predictable.
Just say that yes, you worked with Linux and Unix systems and leave out historical details. When you are looking for doctor, you don't expect lecture on correct latin names of body parts and their history. You expect them to translate from human speech to doctor speech. It is same thing.
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#357Recruiter: 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…
Good one! Sounds like a Monty python skit! I would add that in this case they wanted someone with 'clay' pipes experience. He only had 'regular' pipes knowledge.
The thing is, in your context, materials do matter; there are enourmous differences between material x and y, eg. a metal pipe and a plastic pipe. Different structural capabilities, different resistance towards chemicals, etc., so if you do need clay pipes experience, because of the very special material that is about to flow in it, or due to structural/pressure/etc specialities, you may actually be in the need of someone who knows these.
There aren't that many differences in software and they are easier to learn (eg. be aware of `killall` linux vs bsd).
In this case though I doubt they were looking for a specialist; it would have been marked as, for example, AS/400 experience if this was the case.
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#358True story, I once got an email from a recruiter asking for someone with experience in C, C+ and C++. No idea if it was a typo for C# or the recruiter thought, we have C and C++, why not add C+ in there to increase our hits. I found it amusing, but didn't start an argument..
Years ago I had a recruiter pull a list of questions from their technical guy to ask. The first question was something about constructors in C. I carefully explained that the question made no sense for C but would for C++. They insisted the question was correct, so I told them what the answer would be in C++. They also asked me about if I had experience with the EMACS editor, but spelled out the letter E-M-A-C-S. Why…
I once interviewed a guy who listed both EMACS and Vim in his "Skills" section. When I asked him how to quit Vim, he got visibly confused and said "you just close the window".
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#359Hey 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…
You're not condescending; you were trying to explain to a person who is not qualified to screen you. It's a billion-dollar business, and they're hiring engineers, so they're not picking up apples at the grocery store. Even if you would apply before they contacted you, there is no excuse that they don't know what they're talking. You don't have to be gentle to excuse someone else's illiteracy. He/she is not your friend or your family, this is a business.
You screened the recruiter well, and he/she failed to continue. Best luck in his/her exactly-UNIX-and-not-UNIX-like engineer search!
Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi, I think you could have massaged the snark in the sentence that says "Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do not have experience with a true UNIX OS" but other than that I think you should walk away thinking that your communication was clear, straight-forward and respectful. Here's what happened - the recruiter had a list of keywords, received a large volume of inbound resumes…
> A bit of advice: When you encounter imperfect systems like this in the future a good practice is to ask yourself if you know what the actual desired outcome is, and give the lossy filter the input it needs to get you to the next round. This is extremely condescending. The article displayed a supercilious tone towards the recruiter, clearly making it known that "I (the erudite developer) know more about how to filte…
You think this exchange shows a recruiter conducting a psych experiment?
All I see is a human keyword grep that is clearly failing to do their job: find relevant candidates and forward them on. I say this having been in both ends of the recruiting process and have have struggled with recruiters who had no understanding of how to read a technical resume and rejected JavaScript experts on this basis that they didn't list html in their keywords.