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Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

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Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#61

Post by flukus »

obstacle1 wrote: post #59
deathanatos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much more clear poor Stanley can get: > Recruiter: We're looking for students with experience work on Linux and Unix > Stanley: I have experience working on Linux and UNIX > Recruiter: Your email and resume say Unix-like, which is not exactly UNIX. The recruiter, by the end of this exchange has been given the explanation of why "UNIX-like" is the correct term, why it is being used, and why it is rele…

The recruiter's response isn't irrational. Very clear instructions are being given: put UNIX and Linux on your resume . Not tell me via e-mail. Then candidate goes ahead and 'educates' the recruiter, and puts something other than UNIX (UNIX-like) on the resume. i.e., does not follow instructions. Clear no hire.

> Clear no hire.

You'd rather higher a liar and someone that will follow instructions to the letter, even when they're incorrect?

It sounds like you'd hire this useless recruiter.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#62

Post by SteveNuts »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #12

Somewhat on topic. Does anyone use actual Unix? Is it even something you can install anymore?

It's everywhere in large companies.

I was a sysadmin in the internal managed services division of a healthcare company and we had AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, Linux (CentOS, Debian, RHEL), BSD, Open-VMS, and FreeBSD.

We had about 150 Sysadmins to manage it all, a lot of the guys had been doing their respective OS's exclusively for 20+ years.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#63

Post by mquander »

obstacle1 wrote: post #59
deathanatos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how much more clear poor Stanley can get: > Recruiter: We're looking for students with experience work on Linux and Unix > Stanley: I have experience working on Linux and UNIX > Recruiter: Your email and resume say Unix-like, which is not exactly UNIX. The recruiter, by the end of this exchange has been given the explanation of why "UNIX-like" is the correct term, why it is being used, and why it is rele…

The recruiter's response isn't irrational. Very clear instructions are being given: put UNIX and Linux on your resume . Not tell me via e-mail. Then candidate goes ahead and 'educates' the recruiter, and puts something other than UNIX (UNIX-like) on the resume. i.e., does not follow instructions. Clear no hire.

Hey, my grandparent comment clearly instructed you to email me responses, not post them here. Now you go ahead and "send" me this response, but you don't even email me a copy, i.e. do not follow instructions.

Clear no hire.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#64

Post by kev009 »

Sort of off topic but I am just kind of wondering if there is a safety net if I ever burn out, and how much money I am potentially not earning :o)...

Any chance someone on here that was deeply technical transitioned into recruiting? Will you spill the beans like compensation ranges, per head bonus/commission, and satisfaction?

As an engineering manager I've done all my own recruiting and have been recognized by my management chain for doing a stand up job at it.

I know several socialites from High School that are not or barely technical that outwardly seem to be earning a lot of money doing recruiting or contract agency talent management. It seems like way less hours and stress than I've put in to become a systems expert. Maybe that wont last forever with economic waves, but then again neither do a lot of tech jobs.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#65

Post by dave_sullivan »

jdavis703 wrote: post #9

This is not the right attitude to bring in to the workplace. You'll have a range of people from executives, to clients to co-workers in other departments who don't know what UNIX, APIs and POSIX are. If you can't communicate technical matters nicely then you have not yet developed the right attitude for a professional working environment. It's the same thing with doctors when they create metaphors to explain complica…

> You'll have a range of people from executives, to clients to co-workers in other departments who don't know what UNIX, APIs and POSIX are.

Yes, but if a recruiter is attempting to convince the smartest people at top universities to come be an intern at their company, they should know the difference (or practical lack thereof) between linux and unix. Or at least they should be smart enough to not triple-down on that difference when they clearly don't know wtf they're talking about.

Bottom line is OP is a candidate that should have gotten through to the next stage and should not have been disqualified because the front-line recruiter was being an idiot. It's a missed opportunity and there are probably many more like it.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#66

Post by zachrose »

deathanatos wrote: post #34
eridius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A professional communicator tailors their communication to their audience. Stanley's initial explanation was pretty good, but since the recruiter didn't seem to understand it, Stanley should have adjusted his approach instead of doubling down.

I'm not sure how much more clear poor Stanley can get: > Recruiter: We're looking for students with experience work on Linux and Unix > Stanley: I have experience working on Linux and UNIX > Recruiter: Your email and resume say Unix-like, which is not exactly UNIX. The recruiter, by the end of this exchange has been given the explanation of why "UNIX-like" is the correct term, why it is being used, and why it is rele…

It's tricky because from the layperson's perspective Microsoft Windows, VxWorks, and whatever runs on a TI-86 graphic calculator could be "UNIX-like" in that they are operating systems, yet none of these things are what they're actually looking for.

Still it's sort of amazing that the recruiter could be both so wrong and so confident.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#67

Post by shermozle »

type0 wrote: post #8

Recruiter: We're looking for someone to fix the pipes. You: Yes, I'm a qualified plumber and can do the job. Recruiter: Sure, but can you fix our pipes? You: Off course, that is is what I was trained to do. Recruiter: You keep saying you're a plumber but we need someone to fix our pipes You: I can do it. Recruiter: we need someone who have worked with pipes. You: I have worked with those. Recruiter: Sure, but we need…

I remember in about 1998 seeing a job ad for a dev with 7 years of Java. Yeah good luck with that one! I'm sure they found someone willing to put that on their CV.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#68

Post by tacotaco98 »

sithadmin wrote: post #58
pacman128 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Years ago I had a recruiter pull a list of questions from their technical guy to ask. The first question was something about constructors in C. I carefully explained that the question made no sense for C but would for C++. They insisted the question was correct, so I told them what the answer would be in C++. They also asked me about if I had experience with the EMACS editor, but spelled out the letter E-M-A-C-S. Why…

Regarding the Emacs question - could be a weedout/profiling question. I've asked recruiters in the past to screen candidates for familiarity with certain tools as a shortcut for identifying candidates with higher aptitude for what I'm hiring for. For instance, when I'm hiring a vSphere admin, and I ask my recruiters to put anybody that wasn't immediately familiar with RVTools (among other things) at the bottom of the…

But a text editor? Sorry, but that's just ridiculous. There are plenty of good developers who have never heard of Emacs, and plenty of shit developers who have. Is this really what passes for interviewing in the software world? Useless trivia questions about text editors because you think that weeds people out? Have you been sued yet? Because you should probably get sued.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#69

Post by jacques_chester »

pweissbrod wrote: post #25
jacques_chester wrote: post #10

Put yourself in the recruiter's shoes for a second. Facebook has a vast array of technologies in use, from the top to the bottom of the stack and across a wide breadth of problem domains. A lot of the time there are competing technologies. No one engineer at Facebook is familiar with the sum of technologies worked on by engineers at Facebook. It stands to reason that recruiters are in the same boat. So if someone com…

If I'm a recruiter and an intelligent-sounding person comes to me and says theyve used Oberon which is like Modula I would do 30 seconds research and understand if that is true, maybe reach out to my peers for more info. If I didnt bother accepting anything beyond an exact keyword match of something I didnt understand then I was probably a lousy recruiter and likely not worth my paycheck.

I'm not a recruiter, but I'd hope that's how it goes normally.

If you can't find someone to answer your question, or don't even know how to start to find someone inside the org, what do you do?

I guess my position is that I dislike beating up on people simply for not knowing something that's not common knowledge in their own area of expertise.

Re: Facebook recruiting and Unix systems

#70

Post by ams6110 »

gargarplex wrote: post #20

Facepalm. Somebody show this to Zuck. Change needs to begin at the top. EDIT: Is it possible that they actually want people with actual UNIX experience? They are recruiting students. Maybe they want someone who has used an actual UNIX system on some kind of emulator for some sort of secret retro initiative. EDIT2: http://www.jbox.dk/sanos/pdp11.htm

Zuck seems to0 busy with his political career these days.
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