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Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

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Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#31

Post by devoutsalsa »

sethhochberg wrote: post #25
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and multiple people interviewing, as a hiring manager I really need to know whether my top choice is serious once we're having a discussion about signing a contract - because if they aren't, or are still trying to land better offers from other places because they h…

I liked to ask the question, "If I extended an offer you like, would you accept it?" It helps facilitate a regular conversation about if & when someone would accept an offer, and if any steps can be taken to make an offer happen.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#32

Post by vmception »

sethhochberg wrote: post #25
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

From the hiring side, a (reasonable) expiration on the offer helps be fair to the other people who are interviewing, too. If I have a single position open and multiple people interviewing, as a hiring manager I really need to know whether my top choice is serious once we're having a discussion about signing a contract - because if they aren't, or are still trying to land better offers from other places because they h…

Exploding offers are bluffs.

We all know the team wanted someone that could hit the ground running yesterday for the last 6 months.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#33

Post by neilv »

vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

> I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing.

If people in a company don't know what they're doing, yet (it appears) have a deathgrip belief in the equivalent of something they found on StackOverflow or in a blog post... doesn't that reflect something about the company?

Or, given that this seems to be a pretty common dysfunction in our industry right now, with not a lot of good role models, maybe any particular org having that problem doesn't reflect too much on them. At the same time, maybe the situation means that an org not cargo-culting, and trying to do it better, tells us something more, and positive, about that org?

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#34

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ipnon wrote: post #13
ziddoap wrote: post #2

Interesting read but I (and I think many others) would be more interested in reading about how one manages to land 60 interviews, at all, in the current job market. You must have either a stellar resume, incredible experience, access to a huge network, or a combination of the above.

Apply the Lindy rule[0]: To get a job at a startup, have an app portfolio. To get a job at a Big N, go to an elite university, another Big N, or grind Leetcode for months. To get a job at a corporation, grind Leetcode and have recruiters spam your resume. Different jobs require different applicants. A balanced, general approach, would be to do 1 Leetcode problem and send 1 application per day. It'd be hard to still b…

How are any of those recommendations related to the Lindy Effect?

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#35

Post by vishnugupta »

jcims wrote: post #27
LaserToy wrote: post #20

Had similar marathon 8 years ago and it is draining. Now, being on the other side (hiring folks for a startup), I would argue that some of flags are a bit misleading. Examples: “Undue pressure to accept an offer letter” - interviews are not free, companies are investing eng time into evaluating each candidate and once they find great one, they really want them to join. They also do not want to be part of a bidding wa…

>Not enough clarity about your role This is true at large organizations as well, it's not like there is some jigsaw puzzle waiting for the candidate that's a perfect fit.

To add to that, role clarity is inversely proportional to the seniority.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#37

Post by wcarss »

ipnon wrote: post #13
ziddoap wrote: post #2

Interesting read but I (and I think many others) would be more interested in reading about how one manages to land 60 interviews, at all, in the current job market. You must have either a stellar resume, incredible experience, access to a huge network, or a combination of the above.

Apply the Lindy rule[0]: To get a job at a startup, have an app portfolio. To get a job at a Big N, go to an elite university, another Big N, or grind Leetcode for months. To get a job at a corporation, grind Leetcode and have recruiters spam your resume. Different jobs require different applicants. A balanced, general approach, would be to do 1 Leetcode problem and send 1 application per day. It'd be hard to still b…

I'd never heard of the Lindy effect before and it seems very interesting. As I understand it, it suggests "the longer a non-perishable thing is present, the longer it likely will be present."

Not trying to razz you here, but I don't quite follow how this is an application of it. Could you elaborate a bit?

(edit: rats, I took too long to try to word this request tactfully)

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#38

Post by jandrese »

TrackerFF wrote: post #26

I remember being in an interview, with a very respected figure/researcher in the local ML/AI scene - had seen some guest lectures/seminars he held at the local Uni., which were excellent. He was glued to his phone for about 95% of the interview, completely focused on something else. It was quite the letdown. But I understand that a lot of people really, really loathe doing interviews. Probably stipulated in their wor…

Sometimes a person had someone they want to hire but due to institutional policy they have to open the position up to the public. So they have to sit through interviews with people they have no intention of hiring just so their colleague can get the job.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#39

Post by goatinaboat »

vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

Extrapolating that to the actual culture is totally a miss.

That says to me that the culture of the company is based on hacking it together at the last minute. I've never come across a company with a slick recruitment process that wasn't technologically adept too.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#40

Post by bob33212 »

setgree wrote: post #19

I once got stood up for a round of interviews — I showed up, waited, emailed them multiple times to let them know I was there, and then 30 minutes later they wrote to me to ask if I could come in another day (rather than meeting me at the front desk where I was sitting). At the time I was just annoyed that they had wasted my time, but in retrospect, the real red flag there was that no one took responsibility — “there…

I had a second round with the CEO of a small startup on zoom. 5 times in a 45 minute interview he said "Sorry hold that thought, just responding to a customer email real quick"

It was tempting to tell him that we should just wrap this up if he had more important things to do.

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