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All my career rejections

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Re: All my career rejections

#191

Post by karolist »

Ma8ee wrote: post #171
karolist wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copying this response from my older comment: The rampup at FAANG can be brutal and you'd be doing lots of learning even after getting in. The leetcode style interviews are designed to select people capable of studying and materialising broad problems in depth and scope under time constraints. They are also objective and can't really be faked nor you can talk your way in like in most banking/finance IT jobs. I was of…

They select people who have a lot of discretionary time. I guess that is ok, if you want an organisation consisting mostly of young people without family that are happy to work weekends and evenings. I’m very happy to be in a position where I can do most learning during company time, and then spend my free time with my wife and kids.

I can definitely agree, IT industry sucks in the sense that you're sort of expected to always be learning to stay relevant in the job market, and on your own time at that. We don't expect dentists or lawyers to have their job be their hobby but in IT... Here we are.

Re: All my career rejections

#192

Post by simonebrunozzi »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #152
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #151

Interesting blog post; a far more interesting aspect, for me and my personal career at least, is the companies and interviews where the company did a really poor job and essentially wasted my time and/or pissed me off. Without naming names, here's a couple of examples: 1) FAANG company: interviewed and received offers at two distinct times, which I rejected. Both offers where missing exactly what I had asked at the b…

Often I remind myself that interviews are a two-way street - companies forget this, to their detriment. You are there to impress them, but they are also there to impress you - do you want to spend the next few years with them? Companies who forget this by putting obstacles in the way - e.g. several, progressively more absurd, interview cycles, arbitrary whiteboard examinations and so on simply put off the most qualif…

> I thanked them for their time and ended the interview early.

Absolutely brilliant response.

Re: All my career rejections

#193

Post by monsieurbanana »

PunchTornado wrote: post #188
newswasboring wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are genuinely curious. The point here is, people are confident that they can do the job, just can't pass the interview. The purpose of the interview is to select someone to do the job, not to pass the interview. "Preparing for the interview" is chasing the wrong KPI for both parties. Companies don't want someone who can pass the interview, they want someone who can do the job, they are not the same things…

idk, seems to me weird to go to an interview without preparing for days/weeks for it.

It doesn't seem weird to you that the skills you need to prepare for the interview have nothing to do with what the job actually entails?

Re: All my career rejections

#194

Post by eyelidlessness »

joelbluminator wrote: post #184
eyelidlessness wrote: post #76

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have few rejections in my career. Off the top of my head: - Google (the feeling was mutual) - GitHub, if you count no response as a rejection - I likely would have been rejected by Microsoft, but I ended the interview early That said, I’ve been even more fortunate to have established great working relationships with peers, mentors and mentees, which has helped me get all but my first…

> but I ended the interview early I wish I had the balls to do that. I mean sometimes u just know you bombed and there's no going back, like 30 minutes into a bad date. You just know. Yet there I am going through the whole 1.5 hours sweating it. Why not just say : Hey guy, thanks for the opportunity. I think we both know this isn't going well for me, good luck! Actually this can work for bad dates as well!

For what it’s worth, I wish I had walked out on Google. That was definitely one where I knew I wouldn’t be happy on the job.

And I wish I’d stuck it out with MS, at least as a courtesy. Even if I would ultimately have been rejected. I was mostly just disappointed in the particular interview style. I got to the last interview in the loop, by the team’s lead, and asked if he had any intention to have me do an exercise relevant to the (frontend) job or if it would be 4 straight algorithm/data structure exercises. He said the latter, and that’s when I walked.

Re: All my career rejections

#195

Post by musingsole »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #166
newswasboring wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are genuinely curious. The point here is, people are confident that they can do the job, just can't pass the interview. The purpose of the interview is to select someone to do the job, not to pass the interview. "Preparing for the interview" is chasing the wrong KPI for both parties. Companies don't want someone who can pass the interview, they want someone who can do the job, they are not the same things…

However confident people are hat they can do the job the point of the interview is to convince the recruiters. That's the game and the recruiting company sets the rules.

> to convince the recruiters.

The employer is the one with a skills need. Arguably, I'm in need of resources. However, coding shops are a dime a dozen. I know I can build and ship software. I've proven it to get where I am today. I'm not too interested in proving it to someone who will forget my name in a week. I've also proven I can lazily apply to places, ignore interviews with this coding challenge mess, and pay attention to the shops that actually talk to me about my strengths and their needs before anyone opens a CLI.

So, is there a STEM shortage? If yes, then the recruiters and companies are the ones hurt by the 'convince the recruiters' mindset. If there isn't, then I'm hurt by being less competitive. Who knows what the future will look like, but despite all the language and shenanigans to the contrary, I know my company needs me more than I need it.

Re: All my career rejections

#196

Post by arwhatever »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #166
newswasboring wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are genuinely curious. The point here is, people are confident that they can do the job, just can't pass the interview. The purpose of the interview is to select someone to do the job, not to pass the interview. "Preparing for the interview" is chasing the wrong KPI for both parties. Companies don't want someone who can pass the interview, they want someone who can do the job, they are not the same things…

However confident people are hat they can do the job the point of the interview is to convince the recruiters. That's the game and the recruiting company sets the rules.

The recruiting company sets the rules for their own interview process, and most developers have an abundance of companies to choose from.

Re: All my career rejections

#197

Post by Balgair »

daveslash wrote: post #8

I entered the professional workforce in the fall of 2008, as the recession was in full force. I had a college degree, but no experience or resume of which to speak - and frankly, didn't know very much outside of academia. I was lucky enough to land a job, but was laid off in fall of 2009. I was poor, sleeping on an air mattress, and in my early 20s, but determined to get a job as a software engineer, even if it meant…

Pretty much the same situation for me back then too. But I wasn't in SW. So I did ~2000 applications before finding a job. Even in the late before-times, it would take ~6 month to ~1 year to get something lined up. SWland has it very easy when it comes to looking for work.

Re: All my career rejections

#198

Post by newswasboring »

karolist wrote: post #190
newswasboring wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The assumption that leetcode is the only way to know if people have learning capabilities is weird. My job is a semi niche industry (semiconductor manufacturing equipment), most people who enter here need to go through a brutal ramp up. There are ways to assess learning ability without asking people to make interview preparation their part time job. Edit: Anecdote time. The best interview I ever had was for my curren…

FAANG typically has 3-6 30-50 minute back to back interviews, the style of interview where they ask open ended questions is almost always included too...the leet code stuff is in addition to that. I can agree it's not ideal but these big companies do it for a reason and apparently it works for them.

If design thinking can be assessed through open ended design questions, what is leetcode adding? Except proficiency in leetcode?

Re: All my career rejections

#199

Post by freewilly1040 »

joelbluminator wrote: post #173
nostrebored wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a life means that you should love a standardized interview format. There's nothing worse than project assignments from companies asking 'for only a few hours' with descriptions that very clearly ask for multiple workdays. Algorithmic interviews also compensate you better. Being able to prepare for multiple interviews at the same time means that you have a broader range of options to choose from and can play th…

Home assignments at least test your actual ability to write code or complete something that somehow resembles real work. Whereas solving whiteboard / live codility questions under stress with some guy looking at everything you type is a lot about how well you are under stress and how used you are to solving codility questions.

Perhaps. But from the employers perspective home assignments carry a much higher risk of cheating

Re: All my career rejections

#200

Post by [deleted] »

musingsole wrote: post #195
mytailorisrich wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However confident people are hat they can do the job the point of the interview is to convince the recruiters. That's the game and the recruiting company sets the rules.

> to convince the recruiters. The employer is the one with a skills need. Arguably, I'm in need of resources. However, coding shops are a dime a dozen. I know I can build and ship software. I've proven it to get where I am today. I'm not too interested in proving it to someone who will forget my name in a week. I've also proven I can lazily apply to places, ignore interviews with this coding challenge mess, and pay a…

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