Live data from Hacker News

The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

shkspr.mobi

61–70 of 122 posts

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#61
The "thank you" emails seems to be a tradition/expectation of the classic corporate culture where the employer has a extreme amount of candidates for each opening and each candidate must please the interviewer at all cost. (e.g. a extreme imbalance in power between employer/candidate).

Quite contrary to the "startup" culture where there is a limited amount of candidates for each opening and where it's acknowledged that candidates might get multiple offers (e.g. a more balanced employer/candidate power)

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#62

And then you have the famous Liar’s Poker interview question: > Investment bankers had a technique known as the stress interview. If you were invited to Lehman’s New York offices, your first interview might begin with the interviewer asking you to open the window. You were on the forty-third floor overlooking Water Street. The window was sealed shut. That was, of course, the point. The interviewer just wanted to see…

younger versions of those same guys have hazings, too

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#63
One must learn that there are very few "rules" to anything in life. You must be skeptical that a person sharing their "rules" has a major experiential, interest driven ruleset they are trying to project onto every other domain.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#64
post #58

I flip a bird every time I read about this subject. How did we allow the hiring process get such bizarre when we are the scarce resource?

super trendy SF "hot" company with increasing investment.. word is that they are going through engineers left and right.. they do all the recruitment, get super-high octane output from the hires, and then dump them at the first error or problem.. no end of candidates for this company, is the second part, due to positioning and mission.. The ones that stay tend to be "pleasers" who will take this kind of treatment and perform.. rumors only ymmv

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#65

>"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…

Because if they told you that you smell, you could counter that being tidy was not in the job description and take them to the court.

They'd rather be safe.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#66

>"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…

There is no incentive for a company to spend their time explaining what you did wrong at an interview if they are already sure they don't want to hire you. And if the reason for not choosing you is not very constructive, there's no point at all in sharing it.

Your best bet might be to ask about how you did at the end of the interview. I had some luck with interviewers explaining me a solution to an interview problem that they would consider perfect.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#67
post #52

>"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…

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. I wouldn't be surprised if deciding not to worry about details with unknowable significance and inconsistent response allowed you to relax a bit more in future interviews.

Same trick worked for young me when I started dating...

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#68

>"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…

Aren't there legal reasons why it's unfavorable to the company to really go into too much detail why they didn't hire someone?

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#69

I think one mistake from the author is the believe that somehow, an interview process is supposed to be fair. It's not. Nature is not fair. School is not fair. Dating is not fair. And so on. We try to build fair societies, but right now, they are not. And interview processes are really, really unfair. Being disappointed they are not and writing a rant about how to them more fair is very naive. Interviews are most of…

"Don't do that. A job interview is a structured process designed to let you consistently evaluate multiple candidates. If you are asking each candidate different questions, that's not a fair test."

if this is the thing you're responding to, you're misunderstanding the post entirely. "fair test" here is not about morals, it's about results. if i want to evaluate 2 candidates, i want the test to be as "fair" as possible so that i have the most relevant, fine grained information as possible. i want to render the candidates commensurable so i can make a better decision for my own purposes.

"life's not fair" in this context sounds like some kind of systems pessimism. it sounds like you're saying "stuff doesn't work." but of course it does. of course asking this question and not that question gives me more relevant hiring information. it's totally insane to think otherwise.

Re: The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

#70

I totally agree that these rules are absolute BS. The goal of a job interview for me used to be twofold: Can the candidate do the job? Would I want to work with the candidate? Unfortunately, I have got the second one wrong as often as not in the past, so now I just try to find anything that would mean that I wouldn't want to work with the candidate, in other words, are there any red flags? If there aren't then that's…

Could you share some typical red flags?
Post reply on HN