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Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

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Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#141

Post by vowelless »

foo101 wrote: post #131
foo101 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I Googled and I find that the candidate was wrong. The recruiter was right. AIX, Solaris and HP-UX are bonafide Unix systems and there indeed are software developers today who work with them. In any case, it is not very hard to write something like the following in the resume: POSIX, CentOS (Linux), Solaris (Unix), FreeBSD (Unix-like), etc. It is always good to be more specific about your skills in situations like th…

Can the downvoters care to explain what in my comment is incorrect?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#142

Post by deathanatos »

obstacle1 wrote: post #59
deathanatos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much more clear poor Stanley can get: > Recruiter: We're looking for students with experience work on Linux and Unix > Stanley: I have experience working on Linux and UNIX > Recruiter: Your email and resume say Unix-like, which is not exactly UNIX. The recruiter, by the end of this exchange has been given the explanation of why "UNIX-like" is the correct term, why it is being used, and why it is rele…

The recruiter's response isn't irrational. Very clear instructions are being given: put UNIX and Linux on your resume . Not tell me via e-mail. Then candidate goes ahead and 'educates' the recruiter, and puts something other than UNIX (UNIX-like) on the resume. i.e., does not follow instructions. Clear no hire.

> Very clear instructions are being given: put UNIX and Linux on your resume. Not tell me via e-mail.

Even if that were the recruiter's intent, I don't think it's that clear. At no point in the conversation does the recruiter ever make an explicit request to have a resume with both of those on it. You might think there is an implied request from the recruiter for that, but I do not, and neither, it seems, did Stanley.

The only point in the exchange that I can see where the recruiter requests a change to the resume is here:

> […] we require having Unix experience. If you have it, could you update your resume and resend?

Which he does.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#143

Post by derenrich »

aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

Eh, honestly I would've been similarly frustrated. The recruiter seems like they are being needlessly bureaucratic. Either they are familiar with Unix and thus should know that Unix-like is synonymous with Unix nowadays or they aren't and they should take your word.

Maybe you were a little condescending but it happens and rejecting someone on the basis of this exchange seems mad to me. If FB doesn't reverse their decision here I'd be surprised/disappointed.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#144

Post by zhanwei »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #119
tw1010 wrote: post #91

In situations like these you really aught to ask yourself what your end-goal with being elitist like that is really trying to serve. In engineering situations usually the purpose is some form of disguised signaling. This is the purpose of most sentences that start with "technically". But when you're talking to a recruiter that kind of move is unlikely to be effective. It's unlikely to affect your application positive…

I disagree. It looks like the recruiter is clueless or maybe even trolling, and applicant was going out of their way to be helpful. They could have just updated their resume, and allowed the recruiter to remain ignorant, but imo that would have been very rude.

He already did his job of intellectually engaging the recruiter. If the other party is not interested, it will not be rude if he update his resume and move on.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#145

Post by Spooky23 »

umeshunni wrote: post #74
mquander wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verbatim exchange: Thanks for the quick response and clarifications. Experience with Linux and other UNIX-like operating systems is largely transferrable thanks to the standardization that resulted from the POSIX specification. As a result, the terms "POSIX" and "UNIX-like" by-and-large refer to the same thing. My experiences are in particular with developing software for Linux platforms, which are the most popular o…

> Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do not have experience with a true UNIX OS This line is where he started to come across as a jerk. I think if he had skipped this paragraph and just replied with the "I've updated my resume..." bit, he would have been fine. > Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, .. Stanley should update his industry knowledge. My school…

Most public companies running Oracle Financials will do so in Unix to control license expenses.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#146

Post by droopyEyelids »

aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

You're internalizing your repression, which is actually another requirement for most full time positions.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#147

Post by derenrich »

samoright wrote: post #135
aspyrx wrote: post #128

Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly regret the whole exchange, and posting it…

Thank you for commenting here! I am curious. Can you be a little specific and tell us what Linux or Unix experience do you have? I mean can you specify the Linux distro names and the Unix brand names (AIX, Solaris, etc.) that you have worked with?

wait do people actually think this position requires Unix (not linux) experience? I assumed the recruiter must just be wrong there.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#149

Post by FridgeSeal »

bitexploder wrote: post #100
Aeolun wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are your weaknesses? I don't play well with idiots, or nonsensical bullshit.

Recruiter is not a technical person. If you want technical people recruiting you work somewhere smaller. The real weakness is inability to communicate with non-technical members of staff.

I would expect a recruiter for one of the biggest tech companies in the world to have at least some basic understanding/idea of even what linux is - that's not a big ask at all.

Moreover, if I'm a recruiter, unless I'm a domain expert, looking to hire someone into the field and they say they already have it on their resume, I'm going to go and double check their resume and double check my own understanding before I go any further to avoid issues like this.

The only person who looks bad here is the recruiter, and it's entirely their own fault.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#150

Post by Spooky23 »

type0 wrote: post #8

Recruiter: We're looking for someone to fix the pipes. You: Yes, I'm a qualified plumber and can do the job. Recruiter: Sure, but can you fix our pipes? You: Off course, that is is what I was trained to do. Recruiter: You keep saying you're a plumber but we need someone to fix our pipes You: I can do it. Recruiter: we need someone who have worked with pipes. You: I have worked with those. Recruiter: Sure, but we need…

A more apropos version:

Recuiter: we need someone who can work with copper and pex pipes. Your resume says that you work with PEX

You: I can do plumbing. I have connected PEX to copper before.

Recruiter: Do you have experience installing copper?

You: Building codes allow you to substitute PEX for copper pipe. I have used PEX with copper.

Recruiter: we need someone to work with copper. Thank you.

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