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How to Ace a Phone Screen

engineering.zenefits.com

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Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#31

Post by ohitsdom »

minimaxir wrote: post #15

I'm not fond of the implication that you can get an interview/job from pandering to Zenefits by working on a project that promotes their brand.

I viewed his little creation as "extra credit". It shows he knows Sass/CSS and makes him standout from other "boring" interviewees that may have possessed similar skillsets.

Why not make it about their brand? It shows his desire that he wants to work there, and it's also clear he just made this. It isn't some cool thing he did awhile ago and is showing many different companies in interviews. He wants to work there, and that initiative shown will go a long way (and was successful, in this case).

Worst-case scenario is that he doesn't get the job but spent the night learning more about pseudo elements and how the interact with other elements. That's a win-win.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#32

Post by [deleted] »

logfromblammo wrote: post #14

The CSS hummingbird is cool. It shows off the awesome ability of the software professional to take a half dozen stupid, illogical constraints and somehow end up with something that works anyway. The problem is that companies would not need to select for this quality if they could avoid imposing stupid, illogical constraints in the first place. So the obvious followup question I would ask first would have been, "Why d…

[deleted]

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#33

Post by dimgl »

logfromblammo wrote: post #14

The CSS hummingbird is cool. It shows off the awesome ability of the software professional to take a half dozen stupid, illogical constraints and somehow end up with something that works anyway. The problem is that companies would not need to select for this quality if they could avoid imposing stupid, illogical constraints in the first place. So the obvious followup question I would ask first would have been, "Why d…

I also thought about this as well. At first I even thought it was an SVG image. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty damn awesome that he was able to use CSS transforms to create that but...why? I guess it shows how to think critically and maybe he did it in CSS because it's backwards compatible. I don't know. I don't know the backwards compatibility of CSS transforms vs. SVG.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#34

Post by ianstallings »

dvt wrote: post #10
x0x0 wrote: post #5

Just make sure not to publicly discuss your deal/doubts about the company or the ceo will tantrum and revoke it. And then, in a bold stand for integrity, edit his answer to remove the offer revokation. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-start-my-caree... http://www.businessinsider.com/zenefits-ceo-rescinds-job-off...

Came in here to post exactly this. Publicly rescinding an employee offer by a CEO is amateur hour and shows a clear sign of immaturity. Caveat emptor.

Well in fairness he actually is an amateur and is learning on the job. I think he's done something pretty incredible myself. Zenefits really is one of those incredible outliers that is going to the stratosphere. Even an experienced CEO might have some things go wrong in such an extreme example.

He made a public spectacle out of something small and he paid the price in bad publicity. But I've seen worse, by so-called pros. Sometimes people let their ego get the best of them. But that doesn't mean that every decision they've made is invalid.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#36

Post by gabrielflorit »

JoelSutherland wrote: post #4

This is not really the attitude a company should have when they manage benefits: On the flip side, with so many people contributing code mistakes are bound to happen. That’s normal – after all we’re all just people, and people make mistakes. One thing that I’ve found particularly admirable about our team here is that people own up right away, and strive to fix things as fast as possible. No one wants to ship buggy co…

This Buzzfeed article corroborates your findings: http://www.buzzfeed.com/williamalden/zenefits-hr-rocket-ship...

Glad my benefits aren't handled by Zenefits.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#37

Post by russell_h »

eykanal wrote: post #29
Someone1234 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not really the attitude a company should have when they manage benefits Why exactly? They are talking at the individual employee level, not company wide. The statement above is: "[As an individual developer] it is ok to make mistakes, just own up to them and take responsibility." They didn't touch on test coverage, integration Vs. unit testing, code reviews, UI automated testing, code quality inspections (b…

The problem isn't with the first part ("it's OK to make mistakes"), it's with the second ("just own up"). When a mistake is made, it's because some part of the benefit coding process failed. I work in an insurance company where 100% of benefits coding changes are put through QC, and then another 25% are put through a second level of QC. The costs of screwing this up are pretty high, and will make people pretty mad. Y…

> The costs of screwing this up are pretty high, and will make people pretty mad. You need to have a process where the vast majority of mistakes are caught before they get out the door.

Its interesting to reflect on this statement in the context of Zenefits vs the insurance industry.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#38

Post by DanBC »

eykanal wrote: post #29
Someone1234 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is not really the attitude a company should have when they manage benefits Why exactly? They are talking at the individual employee level, not company wide. The statement above is: "[As an individual developer] it is ok to make mistakes, just own up to them and take responsibility." They didn't touch on test coverage, integration Vs. unit testing, code reviews, UI automated testing, code quality inspections (b…

The problem isn't with the first part ("it's OK to make mistakes"), it's with the second ("just own up"). When a mistake is made, it's because some part of the benefit coding process failed. I work in an insurance company where 100% of benefits coding changes are put through QC, and then another 25% are put through a second level of QC. The costs of screwing this up are pretty high, and will make people pretty mad. Y…

> I work in an insurance company where 100% of benefits coding changes are put through QC, and then another 25% are put through a second level of QC.

For electronic engineering this is a known fault mode of inspection.

When the first line inspectors are busy they'll shovel stuff theough with less inspection because there's someone else to do so checking. But now that other person is busy, and they'll shovel stuff through because if the first line of inspectors are doing their job properly it should be okay.

So it's interesting to see this not fail in an indistry tha is data driven and cash sensitive.

It'd be interesting to know what the difference is.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#39

Post by Tloewald »

I think the answer is "appear to be the person they want to hire" with the extra degree of difficulty being you don't know the person they want to hire. On the other hand, who wants to be hired under false pretenses? Not I.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#40

Post by matwood »

untog wrote: post #13
x0x0 wrote: post #5

Just make sure not to publicly discuss your deal/doubts about the company or the ceo will tantrum and revoke it. And then, in a bold stand for integrity, edit his answer to remove the offer revokation. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-start-my-caree... http://www.businessinsider.com/zenefits-ceo-rescinds-job-off...

While I agree that the CEO was an idiot there, I also don't have a huge amount of respect for anyone who judges where they work by whether it is a "buzzword like Uber".

But buzzwords matter. MIT, Stanford, FB, Google all things that make a resume look better. Would you want Java on your resume or JS and React right now? The candidate was absolutely right in the analysis even though it should not have been shared in public.
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