Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

imgur.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 497 posts

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#341

Post by renaudg »

aspyrx wrote: post #182
chis wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This follow-up shows a lot of maturity. Both sides are obviously at fault here, although you instigated it. I suspect you could still get the internship if you send an apology like "Sorry for my previous emails they were out of line. You're essentially correct and here's an updated resume to reflect that."

Thank you - I actually did send an apology email, but since I'm pretty sure I'm not quite qualified for the position, I didn't bother pursuing it any further than that.

Are you insisting that you're not qualified for the position on the basis of that Linux / Unix distinction alone ?

If so, that's really really sad. Even more so if you thought "Unix-like" genuinely disqualifies you because it's not strictly "Unix" !

You need to be more confident about your skills. Most interns don't know how POSIX relates to UNIX and Linux like you do, if they are even familiar with the word !

Look, I'm a former Facebook production engineer. I won't exactly reveal a secret by saying that FB is wholly Linux based. It's not a bank with legacy commercial Unix systems, and you were of course right about the 1970s engineers comment.

Positions requiring expertise with a specific brand of Unix are less and less common, and these would always mention the flavor they're after anyway (mostly Solaris, possibly some AIX/HP-UX).

One more general piece of advice : let others decide that you're not qualified for, don't self-censor before you even get a chance to fight.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#344

Post by tankenmate »

L_Rahman wrote: post #214
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…

Hi, I think you could have massaged the snark in the sentence that says "Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do not have experience with a true UNIX OS" but other than that I think you should walk away thinking that your communication was clear, straight-forward and respectful. Here's what happened - the recruiter had a list of keywords, received a large volume of inbound resumes…

And yet engineers are taught to be liberal in what they accept and strict in what they send. It would seem that most recruiters are taught the opposite.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#345

Post by mto »

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…

Ah, don't worry - as others said, most of us did something similar at some point. I'd even say that it's good to keep our profession strong by not playing the game of the business and HR people.

I always envy my friends in medicine. They have a strong union and stand together, pushing salaries for all of them and don't accept anyone above them who is not also from their profession (even if that's often hell of arrogant...).

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#347

Post by joatmon-snoo »

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?

Because this is one of hundreds (if not thousands) of recruiters that Facebook has ever employed ;)

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#348

Post by walrus1066 »

You should have just appended UNIX to the CV and been done with it. You just have to play the game and keep a long 'experience tuple' of keywords.

The recruiter was basically trying to help you, most would have just filtered you out and not even replied.

Recruiters don't have technical experience, so don't expect them to understand the nuances of OSes etc.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#349

Post by walrus1066 »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #119
tw1010 wrote: post #91

In situations like these you really aught to ask yourself what your end-goal with being elitist like that is really trying to serve. In engineering situations usually the purpose is some form of disguised signaling. This is the purpose of most sentences that start with "technically". But when you're talking to a recruiter that kind of move is unlikely to be effective. It's unlikely to affect your application positive…

I disagree. It looks like the recruiter is clueless or maybe even trolling, and applicant was going out of their way to be helpful. They could have just updated their resume, and allowed the recruiter to remain ignorant, but imo that would have been very rude.

On the contrary, he seems to be trying to help the applicant, most would just not reply to a candidate filtered out because their 'experience tuple' didn't contain a certain keyword (UNIX & LINUX in this case)

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#350

Post by falsedan »

L_Rahman wrote: post #214
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…

Hi, I think you could have massaged the snark in the sentence that says "Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do not have experience with a true UNIX OS" but other than that I think you should walk away thinking that your communication was clear, straight-forward and respectful. Here's what happened - the recruiter had a list of keywords, received a large volume of inbound resumes…

> A bit of advice: When you encounter imperfect systems like this in the future a good practice is to ask yourself if you know what the actual desired outcome is, and give the lossy filter the input it needs to get you to the next round.

This is extremely condescending. The article displayed a supercilious tone towards the recruiter, clearly making it known that "I (the erudite developer) know more about how to filter candidates than you (the ignoramus recruiter). I am right, and I will only adjust my position under duress to the bare minimum which meets your requirements".

But, as a recruiter, I would be delighted to glean this insight into a candidate's mindset, and gladly put them into the "struggles with collaboration" reject pile.

Facebook employ canny recruiters. If this interaction seems odd to the "well actually" crowd, please be advised that it makes perfect sense to those involved in hiring decisions.

Post reply on HN