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All my career rejections
41–50 of 224 posts
Re: All my career rejections
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
The CV only contains a subset of all acceptances
Not to be harsh, but maybe this guy just isn't a good engineer / academic? This is why I switched from EE to CS, I found it far more interesting and could execute doing software stuff at a very high level even with my piss poor academic record. Never do something you're mediocre at, life just isn't going to be a good time if that's your approach. Tbh, if I was this guy I would've just switched industries and done som…
I never thought I was bad at my job and I have equal/higher acceptance rates than my friends, but thanks for the vote of confidence! Rejection is very common in academia and I wish people talked about it more.
Re: All my career rejections
#43Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true. That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and…
It looks like it's pretty common to go interview just to "keep the skills sharp." What do folks think of this practice? I feel like I would have a hard time doing it while hiding my true motives. And what if they make an offer?
Re: All my career rejections
#44Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true. That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and…
>I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true.
Same. I've been extremely lucky that the only layoff I experienced was on first job out of school and on the first day ("we hired too many people").
The worst rejection I experienced was for a consulting position with a Big 4 consulting firm 10+ years ago. I bombed the brain teaser/problem solving question in the last round (IIRC, why are manhole covers round?). I could tell the interview went downhill after that exchange. At the time I had no prior consulting experience therefore I really wanted to pivot into consulting with that opening.
Come to think of it, I have never asked any brain teaser questions like that in any of the interviews I conducted - maybe that's why. :)
>just get practice interviewing and learning how other companies run the process
I did it a few times but never felt the experience is comparable to looking for work "for real".
Re: All my career rejections
#45Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true. That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and…
It looks like it's pretty common to go interview just to "keep the skills sharp." What do folks think of this practice? I feel like I would have a hard time doing it while hiding my true motives. And what if they make an offer?
I think practice interviews are a thing but people generally do it only when they're actively in the process of moving jobs.
e.g., I want a job at Facebook, so I'm going to go interview at some random startups first for sharpness.
I haven't heard of anyone actually taking that advice literally and just randomly giving out interviews even when they have no intention of actually moving from their jobs.
Re: All my career rejections
#46Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true. That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and…
It looks like it's pretty common to go interview just to "keep the skills sharp." What do folks think of this practice? I feel like I would have a hard time doing it while hiding my true motives. And what if they make an offer?
I've always wondered about this too - I feel like I am wasting their time.
> And what if they make an offer?
I guess you choose whether to accept it or not. An offer does not oblige you to accept.
Re: All my career rejections
#47Interesting to see the differences in people. I've had a long career with very few rejections, but it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't apply to places unless I am really confident I am definitely going to be the best candidate, and that's generally been true. That said, I encourage folks on my team to interview regularly just to know how to value themselves and to see that there are other opportunities, and…
It looks like it's pretty common to go interview just to "keep the skills sharp." What do folks think of this practice? I feel like I would have a hard time doing it while hiding my true motives. And what if they make an offer?
Just be honest with yourself and them. Say that you have a job that you are happy with, but assessing other opportunities. If they make an offer, you should be able to decide if it's right for you or not and move truthfully from there.
Re: All my career rejections
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Truth is, I am not as enamored about the company as I was before, and that's what I tell myself, but it's still sour grapes syndrome. It would still be an astronomical step up for me careerwise. I would literally throw away my senior SWE status to join any of the aforementioned companies as a junior SWE level.
Join the data team or the enterprise engineering side. Or join as a solution architect. Maybe there's a business unit that needs software engineers but can't get them the normal way. Your senior engineer skills will go a lot further there than competing in the general engineering pool. I know these positions exist in all companies. Find the unseemly but necessary work and deliver. The current CEO of Google worked on…
My understanding and experience is that nearly all tech companies will still subject you to the whiteboard interviews for any role that involves coding, regardless of experience and even regardless of whether you have connections inside vouching for you.
I've had great pre-interview conversations with hiring managers discussing technical topics, several concluding with them saying that they'd love to have me on their team. Have had friends/excoworkers vouching for me sometimes. Then I go screw up on the leetcode interview, and that ends the story.
Pretty much have been drilling leetcode every day since my last failure at FB last year. (Bad) luck of the draw saw to it that I drew a question I couldn't tackle.
Re: All my career rejections
#49I’ve had a lot of rejections in my career and I have learned that the best advantage I have that I can bring to an interview is my conversation skills. I may not be as good as another engineer on paper, but if I can get an interview that usually changes.
Re: All my career rejections
#50I’ve been rejected 5 times from Google. And yet every year like clockwork they email me again asking to interview. At this point I just say yes every couple of years and try again because why not. I think I do well enough to deserve a call-back but never good enough to get hired (I made it to the hiring committee though).
I’ve had that happen a couple of times. Do a video/phone call with an SME that goes really well... then it doesn’t.
The second time they were locking down a time I could fly somewhere and the whole thing went poof. Fortunately I was in a good job and it was no big deal, but it would have been very stressful if I was between gigs.