Note to self: If I get rejected from a lot of companies, just apply to Twitter. They'll surely say yes. Addendum: there should be a companion site "Even twitter rejected me!"
It does look like Twitter is for rejects if you only read the top entries.
They Rejected Us
141–150 of 385 posts
Re: They Rejected Us
#142This is like It Gets Better, but for fragile software engineers who obviously are talented enough to make 6 figures some place else. I understand rejection can feel personal, especially when so much of your life and identity comes from the work you've put into mastering some field, but this doesn't seem like the healthiest mindset. I'm just leaving college now and don't have much of a perspective yet, but the applica…
The perspective is, rejection is fairly arbitrary.
Re: They Rejected Us
#143I still can't get over the fact that Google rejected mxcl, author of homebrew, possibly the most important piece of software on OSX, because he couldn't remember some useless piece of easily-googleable (ha) CS trivia on the spot. Even though they all run it internally. If that isn't the purest, most concentrated form of arbitrary, blind, own-goal beaureaucratic corporate idiocy I don't know what is. And people actual…
>Even though they all run it internally.
I bet many Google projects also use `leftpad` internally.
Re: They Rejected Us
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
This resonates. I'm terrible at big tech company interviews--kind of a generalist, read Cicero rather than Knuth in college, tend to start out problems kind of muddled, etc. After a while I concluded the only way to get into large SV companies was to sell a company to them. It's easier to go through due diligence than the corporate interview process in a lot of places. (That's how I got my current job.)
I spent most of my college evening getting drunk with philosophy majors and pretending my math degree meant more than my CS fallback -- but I haven't found the corporate interview system to be that terrible. I do however think it's a game that conflicts with certain personality types, including myself early in my career. I'm always curious what you (or anyone else!) think could be done better.
The all day interview process selects for a kind of person who is confortable with arduous processes. With poor scalability.
IMO any team with an SLA should be avoiding these people like the plague, because they will tolerate bullshit manual processes that take all day. They have no motivation to make foolproof automated processes with good visibility and repeatability. The smartest of them will fight attempts to change the status quo because the status quo makes them look good and everybody else look like idiots.
Three of my favorite bosses were from the Fire All Heroes school of management. Two actually gave a speech to that effect in front of the entire engineering dept. They helped me get out of the hero racket.
It’s great to be needed. But it sucks being the bottleneck.
Re: They Rejected Us
#145This is like It Gets Better, but for fragile software engineers who obviously are talented enough to make 6 figures some place else. I understand rejection can feel personal, especially when so much of your life and identity comes from the work you've put into mastering some field, but this doesn't seem like the healthiest mindset. I'm just leaving college now and don't have much of a perspective yet, but the applica…
Yeah it feels like they want medals for getting rejected at companies that haven't even bothered to give me a callback. We all get rejected from dozens of interviews. That's just life. Did anybody ever think it wasn't like this?
> Did anybody ever think it wasn't like this?
Yes, that's who this is for.
Re: They Rejected Us
#146Actually if you come to the bay area and just apply to startups... it will lift your spirits by a lot. It's way easier here.
Re: They Rejected Us
#147This is like It Gets Better, but for fragile software engineers who obviously are talented enough to make 6 figures some place else. I understand rejection can feel personal, especially when so much of your life and identity comes from the work you've put into mastering some field, but this doesn't seem like the healthiest mindset. I'm just leaving college now and don't have much of a perspective yet, but the applica…
Yeah, I like the idea of this site but was disappointed to find most of the entries being something like
I was rejected by Fashionable BigCo X and Y but then eventually got a job at Fashionable BigCo Z
Which is great, it really is, but not really all that interesting (sorry!). You've only been rejected in a very narrow sense. Everyone has an off day, or off interviews. You were actually accepted by the mainstream, eventually. It's like saying you were only accepted to 2 of the 5 world class universities you applied to. In what sense have you suffered rejection?
I was hoping for more of this variety:
I was rejected by Fashionable BigCo X and Y and Z. That path was obviously not going to work out for me. But I at least knew my own value. So, undeterred, I instead did awesome thing #
There are a couple like that. That's interesting. Someone who holds their confidence and actually outperforms others' expectations, despite lacking conventional sources of validation.
Re: They Rejected Us
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most interviews are during my work hours. Do you take a day off for each?
You have 2 choices. You can do it discretely; after work hours, no the may not contact my employer. Or, you can do it openly; multi-hour lunch breaks, lots of personal time off, and your LinkedIn profile is super active. The latter will either get you a salary increase or you'll be shown the door. Ask me how I know.
I haven't had an on-site yet that didn't require blocking off an entire day.
Re: They Rejected Us
#149I still can't get over the fact that Google rejected mxcl, author of homebrew, possibly the most important piece of software on OSX, because he couldn't remember some useless piece of easily-googleable (ha) CS trivia on the spot. Even though they all run it internally. If that isn't the purest, most concentrated form of arbitrary, blind, own-goal beaureaucratic corporate idiocy I don't know what is. And people actual…
>because he couldn't remember some useless piece of easily-googleable (ha) CS trivia on the spot.
This is a myth. There's no good reason to believe he didn't get the job for that reason, other than his claim.
Re: They Rejected Us
#150I still can't get over the fact that Google rejected mxcl, author of homebrew, possibly the most important piece of software on OSX, because he couldn't remember some useless piece of easily-googleable (ha) CS trivia on the spot. Even though they all run it internally. If that isn't the purest, most concentrated form of arbitrary, blind, own-goal beaureaucratic corporate idiocy I don't know what is. And people actual…
https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-logic-behind-Google-rejectin...
Please read the above. It contains an updated opinion from the creator of homebrew and is more relevant.
It also contains responses from people who worked at google and were or are part of the hiring process.