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Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

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Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#421
post #417

Its weird to see people encourage the guy for this. If you can't bite your tongue in order deal with someone who is clearly not getting it, what else are you going to slam the brakes on progress for? It was in your best interest to just let it go, then clarify in the follow up interview or when it came to a technically adept person. I get the arguments that the HR recruiter was a bit off a buffoon, but at the abstrac…

It's a new-grad. They're generally not going to be masters of etiquette when facing social challenges.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#422
post #417

Its weird to see people encourage the guy for this. If you can't bite your tongue in order deal with someone who is clearly not getting it, what else are you going to slam the brakes on progress for? It was in your best interest to just let it go, then clarify in the follow up interview or when it came to a technically adept person. I get the arguments that the HR recruiter was a bit off a buffoon, but at the abstrac…

I agree in principle but it seems like his only way to go forward was to either lie about having direct experience with UNIX, or try to explain that POSIX is transferrable. I would have taken the latter route as well, reasoning that if it ended up costing me the job it would have been a big red flag anyway.

I used to interview at Google and I've dealt with entitled candidates, but this reads about as polite as I could expect without being a complete pushover.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#423
post #182
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.

As general career advice going forward, I recommend letting the employers filter you out instead of disqualifying yourself based on technical skills. They're good enough at it themselves, and job listings are oftentimes half-truths at best.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook reaches out to me every few months and don't have a degree. I don't have the time or patience to study for their fresh-out-of-cs-grad style interview process though so only go with companies that test for what actually happens on the job vs in a text book, of which there are plenty.

Honestly, my best guess for why this kind of interview is used is that it's just an intelligence test. It's worked extremely well for me: I'm very upfront about the fact that I don't expect them to _know_ anything (it would probably be tough for me to do something as simple as Dijkstra's on a whiteboard under time pressure), but that I want to see how they think. I recently had a guy with an incredibly impressive res…

Yeah and that's fine, you probably get enough candidates willing to grind through it anyway if you're at The Big 4. Interviewing is a two-way street though so obviously I am going to have it color my decision process. I want to know what challenges actually happen on the job and if I can solve those challenges, and if you ask me to code up a shortest path algorithm on a whiteboard but that never appears on the job, then it seems like a pointless test to me.

Compare this to other companies, both large and small who have asked more reasonable challenges such as; "set up MySQL master/slave replication," "write a script that parses a text file in Python," "build a 2-tier architecture through terraform," "troubleshoot these issues on a broken server." Obviously these aren't as fancy as "implement an algorithm on a whiteboard," but it shows me as a candidate/potential candidate what type of problems to expect on the job. As a DevOps person I don't believe in whiteboarding for interviews, nor do I believe it should be a thing for devs, but if a company prefers to interview with this method like Facebook and Google (have received study material for both), I'll continue to focus on the companies who are practical about interviewing instead as it's worked out fine so far for my career path.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#425
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the sad fact: If I were a hiring manager at Facebook and saw your post, I would slap my forehead in frustration in complete empathy with you. That recruiter is not only clueless, but shows a nearly bot-like level of comprehension of the subject they're supposedly recruiting for, which I personally find quite rude on their part. Then, because I'm at Facebook , I would just move on, because honestly anything tha…

> That recruiter is not only clueless Look on the bright side: automation is likely to put recruiter-as-grep out of a job soon.

At which time faulty pattern-matches will become impossible to argue with, even if you can keep your ego under control.

Yay?

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#426
post #417

Its weird to see people encourage the guy for this. If you can't bite your tongue in order deal with someone who is clearly not getting it, what else are you going to slam the brakes on progress for? It was in your best interest to just let it go, then clarify in the follow up interview or when it came to a technically adept person. I get the arguments that the HR recruiter was a bit off a buffoon, but at the abstrac…

FB haven't used external recruiters for some time now (they did in 2008). It's expected that internal recruiters be capable of understanding the skills they're looking for.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#427
post #417

Its weird to see people encourage the guy for this. If you can't bite your tongue in order deal with someone who is clearly not getting it, what else are you going to slam the brakes on progress for? It was in your best interest to just let it go, then clarify in the follow up interview or when it came to a technically adept person. I get the arguments that the HR recruiter was a bit off a buffoon, but at the abstrac…

It's a new-grad. They're generally not going to be masters of etiquette when facing social challenges.

That actually makes it more problematic. New grads trying to break into an industry should be especially respectful. If someone can't strategically avoid confrontation when the situation calls for it, that does not bode well for their ability to work in a team.

There are many new grads who are capable of appropriately dealing with social challenges. Those who can't have only themselves to blame.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#428
post #364
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…

Commenting just to let you know. You did nothing wrong. Never forget who reached for who. It's FB in desperate need that they pick workers from students these days. Also, trying to (yuck) trick you into providing names of others companies - hahaha - it's like you asking him: what's the maximum salary FB can offer or similar questions. Disgusting simply because any sane person (your friend e.g.) would suggest you neve…

> Commenting just to let you know. You did nothing wrong. > Never forget who reached for who.

This is the most important comment in this entire thread.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#429
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…

While reading the exchange, I totally thought that you were conversing with a bot. Just scanning the resume for missing items and pointing them out in slightly different ways each time. Kind of disturbing, actually.
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