Facebook recruiting and Unix systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#281

Post by grecy » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:46 AM UTC

scelerat wrote: post #276

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 dodged a bullet. If a recruiter is that dense, that doesn't speak well for the company they represent (they are helping to recruit others, too!) You can do better. Nothing in your response was wrong or out of line.

I used to think like that too, but it's worth remembering that HR/Recruiters != company.

It's entirely possible that once you get past the inane recruiter junk you find yourself on a superb team of talented people.

Unfortunately, I have just come to accept silly HR/Recruiter practices as a negative reality of life in 2017.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#282

Post by Cursuviam » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

Hey recruiters,

At the point that it became clear that there was a technical misunderstand, would you find it condescending to say something like, "I think there's a misunderstanding over this qualification for `foo` position. Could we clear it up with a `foo` engineer who is working on this stack?

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#283

Post by bodz » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:47 AM UTC

nulagrithom wrote: post #236

pwinnski wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stanley said in an email he worked on Linux systems, but despite repeated prompts from the recruiter, refused to put exactly that on his resume. He was technically correct, which some people believe is the best kind of correct, but the failure here was his. He was more interested in being right than getting the internship, and as a result he gets a lot of pats on the back from people who share his philosophy here...…

> refused to put exactly that on his resume. But he did!! And the recruiter still gave him flak! Stanley said, "POSIX is more-or-less a standardization effort for UNIX/Linux systems, so I've updated my resume to reflect this." And then he shows a screenshot that just lists "UNIX", not "UNIX-like". Then the recruiter bats at him again! I think he was more interested in being as honest as possible, not being right .

He didn't, though.

At first, his resume included "Linux". The recruiter asked him to update his resume to include Unix as well. Stanley changed it to read just "UNIX", but no Linux.

The recruiter asked him to fix this by specifying both Linux and UNIX in his resume. Stanley updated it to say Linux and UNIX-like.

The recruiter, very professionally instead of just dropping the conversation immediately, then asked again that Stanley rectify his resume to include the terms they are looking for: Linux and UNIX. Not "UNIX-like". But Stanley again did not do this.

The recruiter gave very clear instructions on what to do, but (from the recruiter's perspective) Stanley was more concerned with condescendingly educating the recruiter rather than following simple instructions.

I sometimes screen resumes from college students at my company, and if I ever received an email exchange like the one from Stanley here, I would have immediately put him in the "no" pile. I already have 400+ people to screen, why waste time with him when I can easily find someone with equivalent experience that also knows how to follow instructions and, most importantly, isn't so rude about it?

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#284

Post by Grue3 » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:48 AM UTC

grecy wrote: post #281

scelerat wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dodged a bullet. If a recruiter is that dense, that doesn't speak well for the company they represent (they are helping to recruit others, too!) You can do better. Nothing in your response was wrong or out of line.

I used to think like that too, but it's worth remembering that HR/Recruiters != company. It's entirely possible that once you get past the inane recruiter junk you find yourself on a superb team of talented people. Unfortunately, I have just come to accept silly HR/Recruiter practices as a negative reality of life in 2017.

>once you get past the inane recruiter junk you find yourself on a superb team of talented people

But... these are exact same people the "inane recruiter junk" has selected. How good can they possibly be?

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#285

Post by Cursuviam » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:50 AM UTC

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #279

I had a similar experience with a recruiter at Google ... only worse. Recruiters are the gatekeepers. In my case I was waiting for an answer on my interview at Google for 6 months ... just radio silence with no reply. If you are lucky, maybe you have some friends at Facebook that can intervene on your behalf. If not, there's other companies. I had friends at Google to help me get an answer. But I decided I never want…

On the point of needing friends, I don't think this is necessary given that this post hit 500 points on this site. This almost definitely will be posted to some internal group for recruiting feedback.

edit: Looks like it's been posted already internally judging from one of the other posts

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#286

Post by grecy » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:50 AM UTC

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…

Which is why you need to see this is an inane game, and just "beat it" and move on.

Recruiter: We're looking for someone to fix the pipes.

(re-word their statement/question in your answer so there can be NO ambiguity)

You: I have lots of experience fixing many kinds of pipes, (including the EXACT SPECIFIC kind you asked for - WORD FOR WORD.)

(Notes on your replies, they didn't ask if you are a qualified plumber, they didn't ask what you were trained to do)

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#287

Post by wellboy » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:53 AM UTC

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 didn't do anything wrong. In fact, you should have asked the recruiter to speak to a supervisor with deep knowledge in Unix, where he could confirm your knowledge and get back to you and you would've gotten the job.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#288

Post by ktta » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:57 AM UTC

kev009 wrote: post #256

Spooky23 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad gig, but it's sales. You need to fill and maintain your funnel of both candidates and customers. Typically you get a cut of the action (10-20% of first year salary or annual rate) or spiffs. If you have a good network of contacts, you may be able to specialize in some niche that pays more.

The most appealing thing to me about that is performance based pay. It's not hard to imagine closing dozens of hires a year in a moderately interesting company. It probably feels great too, as you're greatly helping individuals and managers and the company by landing talent. In an engineering org, I typically see low salary multiples for the lowest and highest performers. The lowest may be barely responsive while the…

Your thoughts don't seem wrong, but I'm reminded of the phrase 'Grass is greener on the other side'.

In a recruiter role, networking might be everything. You can be great and know the domain specific knowledge, but missing out on one contact might cost you your salary.

To me it seems to be a very risky job. Isn't this similar to being a real estate agent in a way? Sure, we see the successful ones, but obviously there are people who go months without a sale.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#289

Post by isostatic » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 6:58 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #42

mquander wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure he could have done a better job communicating to the recruiter. You could tell he was slightly irritated, and maybe somehow he could have figured out a different framing that the recruiter would understand. (But note that at the end, he changed his strategy and said simply that he had experience with Linux and UNIX, and the recruiter still didn't care. It really isn't clear whether there was any approach tha…

> He did like a 75% good job. I'd say a 75% good job for a fresh grad is a really good score. Explaining technical jargon to the computer illiterate is not really something you can learn at school.

> Explaining technical jargon to the computer illiterate is not really something you can learn at school.

How can you not learn that - how else can you talk to IT/Conputer teachers?

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#290

Post by grecy » Thu, Sep 07, 2017, 7:00 AM UTC

Grue3 wrote: post #284

grecy wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think like that too, but it's worth remembering that HR/Recruiters != company. It's entirely possible that once you get past the inane recruiter junk you find yourself on a superb team of talented people. Unfortunately, I have just come to accept silly HR/Recruiter practices as a negative reality of life in 2017.

>once you get past the inane recruiter junk you find yourself on a superb team of talented people But... these are exact same people the "inane recruiter junk" has selected. How good can they possibly be?

Just because the people played the "inane recruiter junk" game doesn't mean they are good or bad.

Maybe the manager of the team does an excellent job of sorting out the noise after people have passed the recruiter game. Maybe they have great face-to-face interviews with the team and the team decides.

There are a hundred reasons why the recruiter junk is meaningless to the quality of the candidate, but it certainly lets you know everyone that gets through is willing to be adaptable, compromise, communicate clearly etc. etc.