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Questions to ask a company during a job interview

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Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#171

Post by toast0 »

acollins1331 wrote: post #7

Interviewing the interviewer has been THE best way to get the job. It just oozes a confidence that you already know you're good enough to get the job, and you're trying to figure out if they are good enough for YOU. Figure out questions before hand that describe the type of good working environments or fixes for bad ones that you've had in the past. The interviewer will quickly shift and try to sell the position to y…

When I'm scheduled for a technical interview, I've got some time for questions, but not a lot. If the candidate controls the interview to the point where we don't have time to get into the harder technical stuff, that's a red flag from experience with previous candidates; but I also will try harder to push back to the schedule to make sure I get the technical signal I'm looking for.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#172

Post by reallydontask »

aglionby wrote: post #137
mikepurvis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only resume falsehoods that can actually get you in legal trouble are around your educational record, I think. See: http://www.shakelaw.com/blog/lying-on-your-resume/ Mostly it's just the risk that you'll be found out and fired (which is similar to the risk on the other side of the table— that the employee will find out and quit).

At least in the UK I'm pretty sure that lying on your CV is fraud by false representation [1]. CIFAS (UK fraud prevention service) produced a suitably scary leaflet [2] to try to discourage recent grads from doing this. [1] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/pdfs/ukpga_20060... [2] https://cdn.prospects.ac.uk/2.0.9/pdf/Graduate-Employment-Fr...

I wonder whether any companies writer their ads in such a way that it could be construed as fraud, when it turns out to be entirely different.

Normally they probably get around with:

And any other duties, bla, bla, bla

So it's hard to see a shift in the onesidedness of the relationship

What about what they say on the interview? Verbal contracts are valid in some circumstances ... Record the interview ... :)

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#173

Post by smashface »

richardwhiuk wrote: post #158
smashface wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the GP intended to call engineers at those kinds of companies lesser. I think the point that was made was that working at companies where the company makes more revenue by having better software is a better company to work for. If your role is a cost you're treated (explicitly or implicitly) as such. It's a lot easier to show your value to a company by being part of the revenue side of the equation. Red…

>> Don't be the chump that's at Goldman Sachs acting as a code monkey for the traders. > I don't think the GP intended to call engineers at those kinds of companies lesser. Yes, they did - bit difficult to argue good faith when you are calling people chumps.

Fair point. There is a better way to phrase things if there was no intent. And is evident in this thread, intent doesn't change impact. Having colleagues, that I respect, who work in similar roles I perhaps should have considered this better.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#174

Post by PascLeRasc »

username3 wrote: post #104
jcadam wrote: post #99

Problem: Interviewers lie. I once interviewed with a company that brought me into a new, shiny, well-appointed building on the corporate campus for an interview. I did well answering their questions. And they answered my usual questions correctly. Stuff like "Can developers here choose their own tools?" and "My title is going to be Lead Engineer, will I actually be a Lead Engineer?" After I was hired, I found out eve…

Why did it take a year to find something else?

I'm not sure where the impression that it's easy to find a tech job comes from. Like the parent commenter, I started searching on day 2 of my current job and it's been over a year with around 200 applications/cover letters, dozens of interviews, some offers, but no good fits. I graduated 2 years ago with ~120 others in my class - not a single person is working in our domain (biomedical engineering), they're either in the same undergrad lab, in some corporate code monkey job they hate, or in grad school/med school and given up on the industry. Finding a decent job is possibly the hardest thing I've ever had to do and most days it feels like it will never happen.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#175

Post by jiveturkey »

jcadam wrote: post #99

Problem: Interviewers lie. I once interviewed with a company that brought me into a new, shiny, well-appointed building on the corporate campus for an interview. I did well answering their questions. And they answered my usual questions correctly. Stuff like "Can developers here choose their own tools?" and "My title is going to be Lead Engineer, will I actually be a Lead Engineer?" After I was hired, I found out eve…

> Problem: Interviewers lie.

Exactly what I came here to say, albeit quite a bit softer.

Without having had the benefit of reading TFA yet, the problem is that you are never asking "the company" questions. You are asking your interviewer questions. Their answer, like all non-sociopaths, will be internally true or mostly true to themselves[+], but be colored.

The mitigation for this is that you have to ask every interviewer the same few questions.

[+] Read any book on how to suss out liars and you'll see that everyone who is not a sociopath, has many "tells" that they actually cannot resist. ie, normal people are uncomfortable with lying.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#176

Post by AlexDragusin »

jcadam wrote: post #99

Problem: Interviewers lie. I once interviewed with a company that brought me into a new, shiny, well-appointed building on the corporate campus for an interview. I did well answering their questions. And they answered my usual questions correctly. Stuff like "Can developers here choose their own tools?" and "My title is going to be Lead Engineer, will I actually be a Lead Engineer?" After I was hired, I found out eve…

Your experience sounds like what could be Office Space 2 :)

By the way, didn't you get that memo? mmyeah...

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#177

Post by jiveturkey »

anon1m0us wrote: post #115
jcadam wrote: post #99

Problem: Interviewers lie. I once interviewed with a company that brought me into a new, shiny, well-appointed building on the corporate campus for an interview. I did well answering their questions. And they answered my usual questions correctly. Stuff like "Can developers here choose their own tools?" and "My title is going to be Lead Engineer, will I actually be a Lead Engineer?" After I was hired, I found out eve…

It's illegal to lie on your resume, but lying to your recruits -- oh, that's fine. Corporate Immunity.

It's not illegal to lie on your resume.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#179

Post by [deleted] »

gwbas1c wrote: post #94
relax88 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an infosec professional perspective, this one is always a challenge for security sensitive places. I agree with you that developers need admin rights on their development machines, but I have witnessed first hand why many companies attempt to take away local admin rights. When I'm responding to security alerts where developers have downloaded random .dll files from the internet, or some "troubleshooting utility"…

> If you want local admin as a developer, then we need to be able to trust that you aren't going to do something stupid. Issues with trust imply greater problems in the workplace. Unless you're in a high-risk (of hacking) industry, like military, treating adults like children is a huge problem. Granted, there are plenty of ways around these limitations. By now, all of my "I need admin rights" development is performed…

[deleted]

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#180

Post by noarchy »

alistairSH wrote: post #28
a3n wrote: post #3

Why doesn't the interviewee ever ask the interviewer a whiteboard or puzzle question, "to see how you think?"

Ask their own whiteboard question? That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days. But, if I ask a whiteboard question (or any tech question), asking me related questions as a means to further the discussion would be a good signal.

>Ask their own whiteboard question? That would be strange, as I'm a manager and don't write much code these days.

I don't write much code on a whiteboard, so that makes two of us.

But I agree that having a discussion about such problems can be productive. It may help separate legitimate problem-solving from mere hazing.

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