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How to Ace a Phone Screen

engineering.zenefits.com

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Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#41

Post by codeonfire »

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…

Yeah, lets pretend there is a perfect process and also punish people who own up to mistakes. That is stupidly what most companies do: add more process, make developers stand on their heads. The fact is that certain types of logic errors are likely never to be caught by SCA, code reviews, test cases, or anything else. It's just a fact that bugs are going to get through no matter what. It's is far better to have an environment where fault tolerance is built in AND there is no punishment culture for bringing bugs to light. If you rely on process you will get a) people hiding bugs, b) blame culture c) more disasterous failures.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#42

Post by codeonfire »

Trying to flatter an employer by doing a lot of pointless work is dumb and says something negative about the employers who respond. The "typical" way to ace a phone screen is: 1. be young and just out of college 2. pay more money to the person who wrote cracking the code interview and memorize the problems 3. Scan glassdoor and other sites for interview questions that the interviewers will, as predicted, lazily reuse. The real way to ace a phone screen is not to be involved in one.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#43

Post by robalfonso »

Anyone else getting spammed by these guys? I got like 3-4 emails the other day from them, really annoying too, saying the'd looked into what we were doing for our HR etc and thought they could help, except for they were sending emails to an employee who hadn't been with us for a year (email forwarded to me), so not really looking at what we do and how we do it, just disingenuous marketing drivel.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#44

Post by crucini »

Albert's hack is definitely impressive, and would make him stand out. I'm surprised at some nay-sayers here. Suggesting he use SVG? Nothing impressive about that.

I phone screen a lot, and would be impressed by Albert. However, if you are strong on resume, knowledge, and interviewing, you don't need any special tricks. I think such tricks are important if your resume does not support the position you're seeking: either a mediocre school, no degree, long unemployment, or switching industries.

As for acing a phone screen - no silver bullets here, but it pays to know something about the company and the screener. I know we're just company #923 to you, but don't show that.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#45

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#47

Post by coleifer »

Funnily enough I used to work with Albert Treat at the "biotech startup" in South San Francisco. He's an incredibly talented individual, very driven, and contributed massively to the work done at that company.

Great advice, Albert! I'm glad you like your new job, too :)

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#48

Post by fortpoint »

Speaking as a hiring manager, showing me a cool hack is nice but acing a phone screen requires:

* you know something about my company and why you want to work here (visit our corp. site, interrogate the recruiter, read up on our press and know something about our space)

* you know what we're looking for and understand that we're talking to you because there's some intersection between your experience and our search criteria.

* for that intersection in the venn diagram of our candidate requirements and your resume, brush up a little so that you can speak to how you used technology X. If it was 2 years ago or less know it well... if we're talking 10 years ago being more general is fine.

* be able to describe how you got to where you are in your career and where you want to go.

* know who you're talking to in the phone screen and LISTEN to what they're asking you. i can't count how many folks i ask to describe how they built a particular solution go on to just ramble on about feature descriptions and process without ever getting to how something was built.

Re: How to Ace a Phone Screen

#49

Post by brogrammer90 »

fortpoint wrote: post #48

Speaking as a hiring manager, showing me a cool hack is nice but acing a phone screen requires: * you know something about my company and why you want to work here (visit our corp. site, interrogate the recruiter, read up on our press and know something about our space) * you know what we're looking for and understand that we're talking to you because there's some intersection between your experience and our search c…

Anybody with actual experience and skills doesn't give a rats ass about your company's mission. And are you seriously asking devs about where they want to be in 5 years? I hope you're not any older than 30.
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