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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

#231

Post by hrktb »

BurningFrog wrote: post #222
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…

Recruiters will possibly say anything to get a sale. But when talking to your future peers/team mates, I think you can expect a lot of honesty if you ask the right questions about how things really are. I know I'm always 100% honest, because if they get hired, we'll be coworkers, and they'll know if I lied!! PS It's weird that you didn't get the title in the contract

Sometimes they’ll tell lies that their boss tells everyone willing to listen. Everybody knows these are lies, but they won’t always give you that “read between the line” interpretation during an interview.

The most obvious one is usually “we’re on an agile process”, but there’s so many other ones more subtle and hard to get a grip on, short of reading interviewer’s clues when they answer the canned answer.

Sometimes the same words just don’t mean the same things to them. Sometimes they don’t realize how bad their situation is.

“Reality shock” in the first days at some workplaces is a thing.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#232

Post by jerf »

dominotw wrote: post #189
nathan_long wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because unless you are some sort of celebrity engineer, "interview is a conversation between both parties" is nonsense. I disagree. Unless the candidate desperately needs this job, he/she can walk away. The candidate is free to consider "company won't bother to answer my questions at the point when they have most reason to be nice to me" as a bad signal. > I am specially referring to companies that don't really hav…

> it tells me I'd be a cog in a machine. Aren't you a cog regardless though. Why would one work for half the salary just because of an interview. If one can get over the interview part, he/she can retire 10 yrs sooner.

Well, to take the metaphor too far, there's cogs that are greased and used only within spec, then there's cogs that are never greased and deliberately run beyond spec, rust ignored, etc., and in the worst cases, cogs that are used as, err, bulletproofing or something. Metaphors. Never trust 'em, they always turn on you.

For what I'm paid, I don't mind being a bit of a cog. Work is a means to an end for me, not my identity. But I would like to be kept greased and worked within spec, not constantly in crunch time. And while I am fundamentally disposable, I prefer to work in a place that sees I'm lot more valuable not being disposed of. (Again, metaphor breaks down here; planning on your personnel being routinely disposed means you are planning on nobody ever actually developing any skill in your systems.) It's not all the same thing.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#233

Post by jecxjo »

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…

I once has the most honest interviewer ever ask me:

> Where do you see yourself in 3 to 5 years?

I gave my typical response of technical lead, driving projects from the engineering side of things. His response was interesting.

> What would you think about not working here after 5 years?

The way they were able to run their shop was to use turn over to their advantage. They were custom software/hardware company that basically used as contract workers to make the widgets a company either has no time to make or doesn't know how to make. Their business model was to have you work on the project to the point where the contractor decides to hire you on full time to support the thing you helped make.

It was an interesting idea but showed they had no concept of stability for anyone besides upper management. Opted not to work there.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#234

Post by jcadam »

BurningFrog wrote: post #222
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…

Recruiters will possibly say anything to get a sale. But when talking to your future peers/team mates, I think you can expect a lot of honesty if you ask the right questions about how things really are. I know I'm always 100% honest, because if they get hired, we'll be coworkers, and they'll know if I lied!! PS It's weird that you didn't get the title in the contract

Oh, my official title was "Lead Engineer" in the HR system. I just wasn't given any "lead" tasks or responsibilities.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#235

Post by svckr »

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…

I totally agree and, anecdotally, the last time I was interviewing for a position, the thing I was terrified of the most was running out of questions to ask (which happened eventually, after 5 rounds of interviews with ample time in between).

I'm happy to be adding a few more questions to my list now :)

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#236

Post by C1sc0cat »

wilsonrocks wrote: post #214
kingbirdy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most employees (at least in the US) aren't given a contract, they're given an offer of employment. This provides no guarantees as to what work you'll do, or the conditions you'll do it in, and both can change at any time.

In the UK, your contract is formed by: the thing you signed, any statutory law stuff, and any custom and practice stuff in your workplace. Generally speaking however, it's the same as what other people in this subthread have pointed out: you probably can't do a lot if the employer changes your contract, either officially or unofficially. Continuing to go to work implies acceptance and well. You could attempt to take…

I am a member of the Digital Division Committee of Prospect/Bectu Committee. We do take cases for existing members.

Unison has few places it represents at (probably more for historical reasons).

How ever apart from the costs we would only take a case to tribunal if it was a good chance of winning - as the pressure on the member going through a case is considerable.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#237

Post by quotemstr »

I use the comment test. It's pass/fail and goes like this: "Suppose I'm reading some code and I see an obvious typo in a comment. What's the process for fixing it?"

(Note: I've actually gotten all of these answers, albeit sometimes only after I joined a group (prompting me to develop this test in the first place)).

Fail: "just edit the file lol"

Pass: "edit the file and check it in"

Pass: "edit the file, send a diff, get a +1, and check it in"

Suspicious: "edit the file, send a diff, get your code and style approvers, wait for presubmit, and check it in"

Hard fail: "file a bug..."

WTF are you even doing: "we can focus on code quality issues after this milestone"

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#238

Post by jrootabega »

Diederich wrote: post #120
reallydontask wrote: post #69

> Is there a support / marketing / other call-heavy team close to my new team? This is so important. I can probably live with most open plan set ups, sure there will be annoying times, but if there is a call-heavy team nearby, forget it. I refuse to wear noise cancelling headphones all day long. FWIW, interviewers will blatantly lie. I asked at an interview about equipment quality and was told that they'd not heard a…

> I refuse to wear noise cancelling headphones all day long. May I ask why? Even when I work at home alone, and there are no stray noises at all, I'll still wear my headphones when I want to really focus. Years of mental conditioning has led me to a place where it's much easier to deeply focus when I'm wearing headphones listening to white noise.

Anyone would say they are glad to have the ability to wear headphones when they want to. To be forced to all day just to stay sane? Degrading.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#239

Post by quotemstr »

protonfish wrote: post #24

One I am going to start to ask is "Are all developers allowed to have local admin access of their computers?" I've struggled against this in my last 3 positions. This is a dealbreaker for me, and should be for all developers.

Important followup: "Am I allowed local unconstrained root without a usually-performance-killing daemon interfering with my work?"

At a few places, I experimented with running Windows. Every time, the Windows machine came with Bit9 or some other performance-killing compatibility-breaking security "solution" that made the system unusable. Windows is a great operating system. What IT departments do to Windows turns it into a nightmare.

These same places all had a much lighter touch on Linux VMs, desktops, and laptops, so clearly the invasive "security product" mindset was just contained to the Windows (and in one instance, macOS) groups.

Re: Questions to ask a company during a job interview

#240

Post by ryandrake »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #174
username3 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I'm not sure where the impression that it's easy to find a tech job comes from.

A lot of it is just the usual Internet bragging mixed with the “shortage of engineers” meme that just wont die. Everyone can get a new job in 7 days, just like they all make $250k, drive Porsche 911 GT3s, and have supermodel partners. It’s just part of the Hacker News zeitgeist.

Now back to the real world, my experience is close to yours. My last job took 1.5 years to find, with about 100 applications sent, 10 phone screens, 3 companies seriously interviewing, and 1 offer. So you’re not doing too bad, really.

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