131–140 of 185 posts
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How would a trial period work?
Work on a sample project, sample team for 2 weeks. See if you like the work and the company sees if they like you. This would only work if it were a widely accepted standard practice.
Related message for students / new-grads: Find an internship. Internship interviews tend to be much easier as the stakes are lower. If you perform well during your internship (arguably easier / more accurate indicator of success), the company will likely extend an offer. At big companies I've seen internship to offer rates exceed 30%.
I've noticed that in banking - and I'm not talking about investment banking, or high-finance in general, but regular consumer banking - there's been a trend to basically hire woefully overqualified people for the lowest positions around - I'm talking about bank greeters, customer support, and what not, and then train them from there.
This could very well be a local thing, but there are so many people today qualifying for these jobs - lots of BBA and MBA candidates out there, willing to do pretty much anything to get a foot inside.
When I was interning for a bank, even the greeters (basically the person that just greets the clients, and forwards them to the right people within the bank - a receptionist, really) had a Bachelors degree, many were working on their Masters.
The more sought after positions had been re-labeled "graduate programs" or "trainee programs", and were aimed at the top-shelf students. While the rest pretty much had to get a foot inside by working their way up from the bottom.
So you suddenly have a ton of highly educated candidates applying for jobs that only 15 years ago required a HS diploma, if that even.
Then when they're first inside, they tend to get moved around internally - as a lot of positions only get posted internally.
It's almost the same way with internships. Internships are there to practically train and select future company workers. If you do well, you get a return offer - if not, well, at least you have some experience.
With the rising number of graduates, I can foresee a future where candidates are being divided into the regulars and the elites. The regulars will, no mater how qualified they are, will have to start at the rock bottom, proving themselves for $8.5/hr, while the elites are trained for leadership/management-track positions.
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Find them through word-of-mouth.
Double edged sword. Certainly helps to find great talent and build a cohesive team. Also tends to perpetuate our biases, create cliques and echo chambers. Makes it harder for new talent to break in. When I build my teams, I try to balance referrals with newly sourced talent far outside my network.
Never say no, but don't say yes unless you're sure about it. You won't believe how often that will be good enough. "Can you code in X?" "I can program in many languages!" Didn't answer the question, but was often enough for the interviewer.
I used to be very honest about my opinion on languages, but my experience is that if you start being too honest (on the negative side) regarding some language you're being asked about, it will have few upsides.
For whatever reason, some devs. are very personal about the tools and languages being used, and will even get hurt or agitated by criticism.
So whenever I get asked about that now, I just try to come up with the positive things I enjoy about [x] language.
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I'm five years into my career, and still experience this same kind of anxiety. Only recently did I revisit algorithms as I'm getting serious about my job search now, and am still super nervous. Not to mention, having a family, I don't have a ton of time to study for the gauntlet decent tech companies put in place to vet candidates. As for personal projects? See lack of time above. I'm lucky to get an hour a week to w…
Most jobs are who you know. So cultivate the kind of person who interviews well and will quickly be trusted to say hire you. My first job all open positions went to Jon (last name hid), if he handed a name that person was called in, the interview was reverse, unless you really did something stupid you had the job, the purpose of the interview was to convince you to take it. If Jon didn't know anyone a head hunter was…
Luckily my current and last position didn't require any kind of mental gymnastics (my soft skills are great in terms of software engineers), but I'm still wondering what lies behind those gates kept locked by technical trivia and tricky buzzword algorithms that send CVs to the void before a human ever sees them.
My current situation is a bit different than previous (trying to transition tech stacks and job titles now) so the nerves are a bit different. The anxieties are just as real as before though, albeit the payoffs are higher with the new goals. Guess you could call em game day jitters.
Your interview process sounds improved over traditional corporate style interviews. My last employer had similar tactics (put the interviewee at ease, casual conversation), and it led to the best 18 months I've had in my career yet.
It is true, and not that I am trying to be dishonest myself but I am not the same person while taking an interview. It's a sad that we can't be honest or humble but in this system we have to sell ourselves, fake enthusiasm for the hiring company is a must, do whatever it takes to pass the interview then think later if we take the position or not. If not, somebody else with the same capability or or less will snatch t…
If you want a really big competitive advantage, figure out how to hire great people who don't interview well.
I use a gig to hire process for this. It works very well. I've been meaning to write more about it but I also get income for helping with hiring around this model so im a bit conflicted. The whole answer is long and complex. Basically: give candidate a proper task on your project and evaluate them based on that work - the "interview" is less than an hour, the "work" is longer (many hours (and you pay for it)) - provi…
My entire interview process for BigTech was only six hours and because of Covid, it was fully remote.
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That will work for some people but not everyone. At my current job I can't monetize work I do outside the company without approval. That means I can't go through you application process unless I quit first. Even if I was allowed to do this I don't think I'd want to. The time commitment of an extra project on top of my normal workload is not something I want.
Well, then you can just work out a deal to not monetize it. Your objection is of course valid - extra workload on top of a normal job probably has its limits. But the fact one is willing to pay those who are willing to be paid for such an interview doesn't suddenly make it a strict requirement ha. I must say though, I also view the interview standard I've faced - quick phone screen, 1h tech screen, 4-6h onsite (proba…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Double edged sword. Certainly helps to find great talent and build a cohesive team. Also tends to perpetuate our biases, create cliques and echo chambers. Makes it harder for new talent to break in. When I build my teams, I try to balance referrals with newly sourced talent far outside my network.
So basically you see yourself as so irredeemably biased (racist or sexist?) that the network you keep is also this badly biased?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use a gig to hire process for this. It works very well. I've been meaning to write more about it but I also get income for helping with hiring around this model so im a bit conflicted. The whole answer is long and complex. Basically: give candidate a proper task on your project and evaluate them based on that work - the "interview" is less than an hour, the "work" is longer (many hours (and you pay for it)) - provi…
So unless you are paying an above local market rate, why would I as an in demand developer go through that when I could do one phone screen and one in person interview and get a job that pays just as much? My entire interview process for BigTech was only six hours and because of Covid, it was fully remote.