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How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

brookeallen.com

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Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#331

Post by yaddayadda »

JohnBooty wrote: post #330
yaddayadda wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I certainly think part of my problem is the how I'm saying it. Unfortunately I don't have any friends who would give me constructive criticism (they'd give me plenty of criticism in jest, just none of the constructive variety). I wish I had somebody who could do this for me! I have to admit, I never considered trying to recover after I get the "look" from interviewers. In fact, I had provided multiple recommendations…

> I certainly think part of my problem is the how I'm saying it. First of all there's a chance you might not be coming across as awkwardly as you think you are. You know how it is when you're nervous - our perceptions (and our perceptions of how others see us) can get skewed. If you truly are coming off awkwardly, what's the real problem there? The problem is this: the interviewer is wondering, "How is this guy going…

Thank you so much for the advice and offer!

> ... you might not be coming across as awkwardly as you think you are ... I have no doubt that I am.

> ... you can address both of those unspoken questions head-on ... I honestly never considered this, but will in future interviews!

> If you live near Philadelphia... Unfortunately not.

> Is there anybody non-technical that might help you? Siblings, parents...?

Unfortunately I tend to have family and friends that are overly critical in a really bad way. The last time I asked my mother to look at my resume I was berated for 30 minutes for being so stupid, not using my god-given-skills, etc (i.e. nothing useful but lots of hurtful). I don't even bother asking the guys in my family, they're far worse than my mother. My friends really are great friends in many, many different ways, but tend to be truly lousy at giving constructive criticism. For example, I told one friend that I was going to be building an JavaScript application. She instantly went off on the evils of Java, how Apple won't run Java, and didn't let me get a word in. When she finally finished her anti-Java tirade, I tried to let her know some of the many differences between JavaScript and Java, but until a couple of other friends started quoting from wikipedia entries and intro tutorials, she wouldn't believe me that they really are two different languages. (I promise, she has been a really good friend in other ways!)

I do participate in a ton of meetups. Would it be appropriate to ask a peer from a meetup group to be a proxy for an interviewer?

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#332

Post by Retra »

namelezz wrote: post #212
reledi wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hidden talent; those good at doing a job but bad at getting one I really like this. If you're bad at getting a (good) job then employers safely assume you would also be bad at the job - it's too risky otherwise. But often that isn't the case, because there's a lot of "hidden talent". What can we do to give those people a fair chance? We need effective ways to discover hidden talent. The process you described worked…

Are there ways to help those talents get together and start their own companies? Otherwise, they may go to interviews and keep getting rejected.

Do you think those people who are not good at selling themselves are going to be good at convincing people to buy their stuff?

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#333

Post by Retra »

waylandsmithers wrote: post #264
yaddayadda wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many orchestras have found a fairly simple solution to the problem - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22blind+auditions%22+hiring+music... I'd hope to have a similar 'audition' approach that included not only basic programming skills but also –and as a junior level programmer, more importantly – learning skills. For example, commenting or debugging internal framework code (something that all interviewees are experiencing f…

That would be pretty cool-- and although software development is meritocratic, it's not as meritocratic as those orchestras, right?. They simply want the best musicians PERIOD, whereas lots of software companies would probably hesitate to hire someone with a lot of talent but a toxic attitude.

Most people don't have a toxic attitude, and you can always fire them if they do.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#334

Post by dllthomas »

Retra wrote: post #332
namelezz wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there ways to help those talents get together and start their own companies? Otherwise, they may go to interviews and keep getting rejected.

Do you think those people who are not good at selling themselves are going to be good at convincing people to buy their stuff?

That depends on why they're bad at selling themselves. For instance, if they get ridiculously self-conscious when the conversational focus is on them, that shouldn't get in the way of selling something else.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#335

Post by JohnBooty »

yaddayadda wrote: post #331
JohnBooty wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I certainly think part of my problem is the how I'm saying it. First of all there's a chance you might not be coming across as awkwardly as you think you are. You know how it is when you're nervous - our perceptions (and our perceptions of how others see us) can get skewed. If you truly are coming off awkwardly, what's the real problem there? The problem is this: the interviewer is wondering, "How is this guy going…

Thank you so much for the advice and offer! > ... you might not be coming across as awkwardly as you think you are ... I have no doubt that I am. > ... you can address both of those unspoken questions head-on ... I honestly never considered this, but will in future interviews! > If you live near Philadelphia... Unfortunately not. > Is there anybody non-technical that might help you? Siblings, parents...? Unfortunatel…

Yeah that sounds like a great idea!

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#336

Post by ibudiallo »

JeremyMorgan wrote: post #310
ibudiallo wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case, I did two things: 1. Add memcached 2. Serve static files via nginx It allowed me to handle 2.9 million requests I documented it here: http://idiallo.com/blog/handling-1-million-web-request

Nice! I tweeted this, you might see some additional traffic, definitely something my group of friends would be interested in.

Thanks, and I'm glad you found it interesting.

Re: How my life was changed when I began caring about the people I did not hire

#337

Post by owennoah »

dllthomas wrote: post #334
Retra wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think those people who are not good at selling themselves are going to be good at convincing people to buy their stuff?

That depends on why they're bad at selling themselves. For instance, if they get ridiculously self-conscious when the conversational focus is on them , that shouldn't get in the way of selling something else.

Hi, I'm Noah and I head BD for Better Work World, the organization I have started with Brooke to help firms hire the way he did. As for the above comment, this is true but the larger point is that, if the job isn't explicitly a sales position or doesn't require gaining internal agreement (like, say, many managerial roles)`one's ability to sell one's self in an interview is somewhat irrelevant, wouldn't you agree? Think about it: if you are a coder and happen to have several social anxiety issues, you would probably be an awful interview. But who cares? The market for coders is so hot it seems that has been largely accepted, albeit implicitly, but for less hot positions, not so much. We believe candidates win and hiring managers win when you focus on getting people to DO the work as opposed to talk about doing the work. When Brooke hired this way he found people he would have never hired through reviewing resumes, so thats a win for both of them, and those whom he did not hire-- many of whom had been unemployed-- would usually quickly find jobs elsewhere because they were given the opportunity to do relevant work, network, etc. To me, that beats the standard, "what's your biggest weakness?" line of questioning any day of the week.
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