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The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

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Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#41

Post by esotericn »

I don't think that this sort of rant is useful.

In everyday life people understand that there are individuals they won't get on with. Not everyone is going to be your friend. You don't want to be everyone's friend (if you do, that's an ephemeral state that will likely bite you eventually).

When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the interviewer were different; etc; then it'd all be different, they'd get the job and live happily ever after.

Realistically? You'd end up working with a bunch of people who at best make questionable business decisions; at worst are completely opposed to your personality and make work a hellish place to be.

Maybe I'm missing something entirely and this is intended to be some bizarre sort of humour.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#42

Post by jimmydddd »

gumby wrote: post #20

> "The whole team thought you were great. You were probably the strongest candidate overall, but we were looking for someone with experience in XYZ." Wow, my GF just related this to me literally last week. She liked the team she interviewed with as well. (I'm relieved actually as she got a job offer in hand for a place much closer to home).

I think sometimes the HR person just makes up a reason. It's counter-productive to read too much into it.

One time I was told I was great, but they needed someone with XYZ experience. It was very important.

They ended up hiring my friend, who had even less XYZ experience than I did.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#43

Post by blfr »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #32
curuinor wrote: post #3

This is all expressions of power. It won't be overcome until interviewees get leverage and express it. By the structure of the thing they never get leverage, so it will continue because it can.

The leverage interviewers have is that they know if the candidate can't find a job, that at some point the candidate won't be able to afford rent/mortgage, food, clothing etc. That's a desperate position for a candidate to be in and it puts employers in a position of absolute power. With that type of game it's inevitable that you will see anti-social interview techniques. It would be a sign of high character if an in…

The third option is a tight job market. This is undermined by mass immigration, criticism of which is fought by the establishment even harder than basic income.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#44

Post by pm90 »

esotericn wrote: post #41

I don't think that this sort of rant is useful. In everyday life people understand that there are individuals they won't get on with. Not everyone is going to be your friend. You don't want to be everyone's friend (if you do, that's an ephemeral state that will likely bite you eventually). When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the int…

> When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the interviewer were different; etc; then it'd all be different, they'd get the job and live happily ever after.

I agree that you shouldn't hire people who may not be the right fit and whom you have reason to believe may not succeed or thrive on your team. However, it seems apparent that most people (and I would include myself) may not really be good judges of that. There may be things that are "Red Flags" or "something's off" to us, simply because of the way we were brought up (cultural differences), the way we speak etc. I guess what I'm saying is that in an increasingly diverse world, the markers of success that we look for (or conversely the markers of failure) may not be accurate and we thus miss out on candidates who might actually be a great fit.

Personally, I used to judge interviewees pretty hard on the things I thought weren't appropriate, or things I considered unprofessional. But then I realized that isn't really my job as a technical interviewer. As long as the folks demonstrate the technical skills and a thirst for learning, that's good enough for me.

Which isn't to say there aren't red flags. Lying for instance; pathological liars will totally wreck your organization.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#45

Post by mnm1 »

cgriswald wrote: post #23

> Why would people want to work in such a homogeneous culture? Why would they want to work for someone who couldn't even be bothered to search the web for "How to pronounce Nguyen"? Hilariously, I did a search for "How to pronounce $my_last_name" and each result I checked mispronounced it the same way English speakers always mispronounce it.

Yeah seriously. Almost every single American mispronounces my name even after I say it multiple times. Hell, they mispronounce common, one syllable American names like "Lou" more than half the time. When I tell them my name is like another name they can pronounce except without the "o" at the end, they still can't pronounce it despite being able to pronounce my name with an "o" at the end. After three decades of this, I've given up trying to correct people, trying to go with the Americanized pronunciation, or even using my full name at all. It's pointless. Americans are simply incapable of pronouncing anything even remotely foreign even if I enunciate it for them. I don't even bother with my last name. However they say it is fine because it's always wrong. I would recommend people adopt very simple American nicknames if they move here like many Chinese do, even if the name seems like it would be easy to pronounce. There's just no hope in getting people to pronounce your name right. Or accept the American wrong pronunciation and go with that. I've used all these strategies at some point in my life so now I have three names.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#46

Post by paulcole »

jayalpha wrote: post #40

There are very few rules in getting hired. A few are: 1. First class people hire first class people. 2. Second class people hire third class people. 3. People like to hire people similar to themselves. 4. Not getting a job does not really say anything about you, but the guy they hired says a lot about the company. PS: 5. Most companies, when offered unexperienced talent and an experienced idiot, will hire the experie…

6. People overestimate which category they fall in and everyone thinks they're an "A player."

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#47

Post by brandonmenc »

>"If someone doesn't send a thank you email, don't hire them".

I recently went through a short job search for programming work in Austin. I made it all the way to the final, on-site interview at three places before landing an offer.

Every time I did not get an offer, I would get an email saying "thank you so much for your time, please reply with your concerns or questions!"

And so, each time, I sent and email asking "what did I do wrong, and what could I improve?" making it very clear I was just looking for a quick, single sentence answer like "more github projects" or "you smell."

I didn't get a single reply. Not one.

After that, I quit playing the ultra polite send-a-thank-you for every single phone call or meeting I was graced with, and sure enough, I got a couple job offers after that.

If anything, the whole experience convinced me that no one maybe outside of sales or filling an executive position really cares about this kind of business etiquette - either in giving it or receiving it.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#48

Post by overgard »

It's almost not worth complaining about because of the ubiquitous of it, but I absolutely hate and make a point of never doing this if I'm interviewing someone:

1) Puzzle questions not related to the work they'd be doing. It's ok to have a somewhat puzzling geometry puzzle if they're doing, say, 3d work, but for a web dev? Etc. etc.

2) Coding on a white board. Can't you just setup a laptop in a conference room? Or have them bring in a laptop and show some of their work? Nobody ever codes on a white board!! Plus seeing them use a computer tells me way more. Can they type? That's important. I know some really good coders that can't type well, but it's more the exception than the rule. Do they know their tools well? Those things are all actually relevant to the work.

Also here's the other thing: there's essentially no cost or barrier to writing code (IE, you're not using up precious materials or something), so I don't understand why employers want to PROJECT how someone MIGHT write code via puzzles and white board writing when they can literally just pair up and watch the person solve an actual real world problem on an actual computer, with google and stack overflow like they'd actually have access to, and then they don't need to project anything, because they know what it looks like when the person actually writes real world code! Spending a grand on a cheap laptop for this with a few software/IDE licenses is a lot cheaper than making a bad hire.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#49

Post by overgard »

esotericn wrote: post #41

I don't think that this sort of rant is useful. In everyday life people understand that there are individuals they won't get on with. Not everyone is going to be your friend. You don't want to be everyone's friend (if you do, that's an ephemeral state that will likely bite you eventually). When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the int…

The interview techniques he's describing, IMO, aren't subjective. They're objectively not useful for determining if someone is a good candidate

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#50

Post by borski »

cgriswald wrote: post #24
Carpetsmoker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have great coding skills, but are right assholes or otherwise seriously toxic. You definitely need to look for more than just "great coding skills" if you want to hire great employees.

Sure, but I don't think "making a good impression in an interview" has a very strong correlation with whether someone is a "right asshole or otherwise seriously toxic." Plenty of decent people don't interview well, and plenty of assholes can put on 'interview face' to get a job.

Most assholes are thinly veiled in an interview. Decent people are nervous, and that’s okay - it’s usually pretty clear. Assholes are trying /hard/ not to come off as such, so when the interviewer inevitably challenges them on a piece of code or their background, they usually end up showing their true colors, at least in my experience.
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