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Most of What You Know About Interviews is Wrong

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Re: Most of What You Know About Interviews is Wrong

#11

Post by fleitz »

sharkweek wrote: post #6

One of the ill advises wandering on the Internet is that you should do whatever it takes to learn about the company’s culture. This is also wrong, and it’s merely a waste of time. Severely disagree -- I think having an understanding of the company culture is vitally important. Being a good personality fit is a major component of being the right person for the job, and demonstrating not only your understanding of thei…

I don't think company culture is as important as knowing their business.

Patio11 talks extensively about this, if you're looking to be an engineer for sure find out about the culture, if you're looking to get paid, figure out their business.

I've done many tech interviews and people have been far more impressed by the dollars the software generated, than the language I wrote it in.

Re: Most of What You Know About Interviews is Wrong

#12

Post by slosd »

You are expected to do certain things: One of them is thank your interviewer with a letter or an email at least;

Really? This is the first time I hear anything like that. I can not imagine that an interviewer would want to get a mail or letter (who still uses these?) from every single interviewed person with basically no information in it. Am I wrong about this?

Re: Most of What You Know About Interviews is Wrong

#13

Post by parasitius »

mratzloff wrote: post #2

Your current salary has nothing to do with how much you want to make in your next job. If you know the market conditions, and you have marketable and transferrable skills, then you are free to name your price. ... When your current salary is asked, say it freely. The salary question is just yet another question. Wrong. It anchors the negotiation. If you are happy with your current salary, then by all means do so. But…

What happens if you are moving from the mid-west (developer salaries in the $20k's in some companies under 100 employees) to West coast? I guess their asking is about as useful as if you came from a third world country, but they may think it is valid to offer you "25" as a huge bump-up since it is still the united states.

Re: Most of What You Know About Interviews is Wrong

#14

Post by timfrietas »

I interview a fair amount of people (3-5 a week), and most of this is solid advice. However, I'm not sure I agree with the section Getting Prepared for the Questions will Make you Sound “Rehearsed”: Wrong!

I generally know when an answer is canned or the question anticipated (I'd estimate I catch it most of the time, but how would I know?), and I quickly switch gears to somehow take the question to the next level or introduce variables that can't have been anticipated by the candidate. In fact, that is a large part about what behavioral interviewing is, it is about digging down to ask follow-ups and determine what a candidate's real contribution to past projects really was. Rehearsing answers to a questions about what the coolest feature of Rails is won't help you, because I am then going to ask you about a time you specifically used it, why it made a difference in your past project to do it and not choose some other solution, what other ways there might be to do it if that feature didn't exist and if your coworkers agreed with the decision, etc. In short, I am going to ask you a lot of follow up questions to determine your actual contribution to something, and if I sense each response was canned I will keep drilling deeper until I find you actually thinking about your answer on the spot.

Re: Most of What You Know About Interviews is Wrong

#16

Post by anjc »

This article seems to be being slated. I must admit, i've read a lot of guides and tips for unsuccessful interviews, as well as doing the mandatory preparation and study. This article seems to be saying things that i suspected were true, but was never in a position to confirm. I really like it.

But anyway, if this isn't up to everyone's standards, can people recommend other guides, tips, books etc etc. If it helps, i'd be looking for junior dev jobs.

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