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It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

simonwillison.net

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Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#131

Post by an_opabinia »

jameshush wrote: post #27

In my experience, for a pure engineering role, nobody seems to care. I had credits at large companies, posted talks online (interviewers rarely looked at them), but if I forgot how to write binary search in 10 minutes in an interview it didn’t matter. This actually made me realize being just an IC wasn’t actually my goal though. Once I started interviewing for management and sales, all of those things _really_ matter…

In my experience, for every engineering subordinate that turned out to be good that I didn't bother testing with leetcode, there were 19 who sucked and also failed their coding test, or sucked and we should have tested them. So far, among people who studied programming as their major in college, the best predictor was the prestige of the university they attended.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#132

Post by [deleted] »

solipsism wrote: post #67
maxk42 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really underestimate the amount of stress that can be felt when you're alone facing 6 people for a job that you want. Practice. Go on interviews even when you don't need a job. Get that practice in and get comfortable with it. I went on 18 - 30 interviews a year for many years when I was a contractor and got very good at interviewing over time. I still get a bit tense when the job is particularly appealing, but w…

Ah, yes, purposefully waste people's time. Fuck them, right? I've seen this kind of attitude before, and it's usually justified with something about how the companies don't respect your time so why should you respect theirs. The thing is... the kind of people at these companies who don't care about your time are the kind of people who would do something like this.

[deleted]

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#133

Post by komali2 »

Depends a lot on what you have to stand on. Got FANG on your resume? or NASA or something? Coast through your career if you want. Fresh out of a bootcamp or a college that isn't One Of Those Big Ones? Yea, a project is a great way to prove you know your stuff.

Having a project I was actively working during my job search was great for a lot of other reasons, too. A lot of interviewers don't really know what to talk about, hadn't looked at my resume, etc. I could quickly take control of these interviews by bringing up my project, and many interviewers would seem almost relieved to have the pressure taken off of them. This had relatively obvious advantages for me insomuch as I controlled the narrative of the interview, came off as very competent (despite having literally no working experience), and left interviewers with a good impression. All in all I consider this, along with my volume of applications, to be the most important aspect of my job search.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#134

Post by jschwartzi »

simonw wrote: post #109
barbarbar wrote: post #106

Is a doctor also going to publish achievements? A construction engineer should he/she publish calc of beam dimensions? A carpenter how should he/her show creations. If it was doors or windows installed in people's houses. Something is wrong here in this industry.

I would hope that carpenters would include photographs of their work as part of an interview process.

Depends. If you’re a framer they just want to know if you have tools and when you can start. If you’re a lead it’s important to know stuff like how to square a foundation and calculate stair risers and hips/valleys, and you should be familiar with different hardware and where it goes. But nobody is going to ask you about which cracker-jack spec houses you built at your last job.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#135

Post by RandallBrown »

jameshush wrote: post #27

In my experience, for a pure engineering role, nobody seems to care. I had credits at large companies, posted talks online (interviewers rarely looked at them), but if I forgot how to write binary search in 10 minutes in an interview it didn’t matter. This actually made me realize being just an IC wasn’t actually my goal though. Once I started interviewing for management and sales, all of those things _really_ matter…

For a pure engineering role things like credits at large companies, online talks, side projects, etc. are all really great ways to get an interview.

I can't really remember the last time I was turned down for an interview.

You're totally right about the other part though. I've lost a lot of jobs I think I could have been great at because I'm really bad at whiteboard coding interviews.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#136

Post by Bukhmanizer »

I don’t even think it needs to be technical. A friend posted a jokey video he made in college introducing himself on his website, beside his resume, and he says recruiters often say they contacted him because the video was funny. He’s obviously qualified too, but it just helps him stand out.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#137

Post by booi »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #64
k__ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helped me to get offers from companies, so I didn't have to apply for anything anymore. Sure, when I applied, I had to do dumb tests. But when a C or VP level asked me it was usually not an issue to get a job.

This really depends. Are you talking about FANG+ type companies? Doesnt matter who you are you will probably have to whiteboard. Outside of FANG? I'm sure you can bypass many technicals with credentials.

Most FAANG companies do actual coding now instead of whiteboarding :(

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#138

Post by mattmanser »

an_opabinia wrote: post #131
jameshush wrote: post #27

In my experience, for a pure engineering role, nobody seems to care. I had credits at large companies, posted talks online (interviewers rarely looked at them), but if I forgot how to write binary search in 10 minutes in an interview it didn’t matter. This actually made me realize being just an IC wasn’t actually my goal though. Once I started interviewing for management and sales, all of those things _really_ matter…

In my experience, for every engineering subordinate that turned out to be good that I didn't bother testing with leetcode, there were 19 who sucked and also failed their coding test, or sucked and we should have tested them. So far, among people who studied programming as their major in college, the best predictor was the prestige of the university they attended.

If you've hired over 20 people, and 19 of them have been bad, it just sounds like there's something wrong with your process. It also sounds like you're hiring a lot of novices, which isn't what's being discussed really.

The uni thing is not exactly a revelation. It's the same for every single field/job. Better uni, usually better worker.

All you're actually saying is that novice programmers straight from uni mildly correlate in ability with SAT scores.

Nothing surprising in that.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#139

Post by Jach »

ganafagol wrote: post #113

> Build a small personal project and put the code on GitHub. This has lost its effect and partially turned it upside down. In school people seem to be instructed "have a github with personal project" to improve hiring chances so now everybody an their mother has an account with a bunch of meaningless crap projects that they have 0 intetest in but put it there to try to boost interview chances. Don't. Whenever I scree…

How do you distinguish between "made a crappy chat app with Python+Flask because I wanted to play with Flask [and perhaps by making it public my hiring prospects will improve as a bonus, or not, but I don't have a strong reason to just keep it private on my machine]" and "made a crappy chat app with Python+Flask because I want to put Flask on my resume and hopefully my hiring prospects will improve"?

Or is it just that it's crappy enough to turn you off? If that's the case I'm kind of in agreement with the sibling that it seems overly harsh. Github-as-code-archive is a fine use case, I've never expected that someone linking their account should also be actively contributing to some projects used by other people. I'm happy just to see code of any sort, I don't care if the project is dumb or half-completed or finished or abandoned or still being worked on with a bunch of other people.

The only account that rubbed me the wrong way when I interviewed FTEs and interns was the kind that had nothing but a bunch of forks of other repos on it, no commits in them. It's like they were trying to pull a fast one on me, hoping I'd only look at it for a few seconds and think "oh lots of repos, good coder!" I'd have preferred an account be literally empty, because then at least I can believe they only linked to it out of some imagined (I hope) dumb HR filter as shallow as "has github acccount? check!"

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#140

Post by colordrops »

booi wrote: post #137
AlwaysRock wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really depends. Are you talking about FANG+ type companies? Doesnt matter who you are you will probably have to whiteboard. Outside of FANG? I'm sure you can bypass many technicals with credentials.

Most FAANG companies do actual coding now instead of whiteboarding :(

Why the unhappy face? Is this considered a bad trend? I'm personally way better at online coding sessions than whiteboarding.
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