5 ms·

> The specific problem was that I was speaking of broad patterns and forces, when my interlocutors were asking about specific, tangible incidents and tools. In

by d23 11y ago

> The specific problem was that I was speaking of broad patterns and forces, when my interlocutors were asking about specific, tangible incidents and tools. Interviewing is a two-way street. If you actually do feel that you were the ideal candidate based on what they said they were looking for, didn't they blow it as well? When you went high level, did they give any immediate feedback that indicated you were speaking at a level of abstraction above what they were looking for? If not, the failure is just as much on them.

sfilipov 11y ago
True, if real life conversations were like interview conversations, we would judge people/friends whether they gave us the answer we expected when we asked them a question or not. That's ridiculous. People misunderstand questions. If what you get is not what you expect, you can always ask clarifying questions.
- Double_Cast 11y ago
  I was poking around his blog. Fwiw, it appears he's well aware of this. He calls interviewers who ask vague questions and expect particular answers "Carnac the Magnificent" [0]. [0] http://raganwald.com/2015/05/08/carnac-the-magnificent.html http://raganwald.com/2015/05/08/carnac-the-magnificent.html
rubidium 11y ago
The article makes it seem like they were asking those questions, he was just missing it. To your blaming the interviewers, part of being VP level is being able to pick up on stuff like that. He admits he missed it. They may be concerned, as a result, that he'll "miss it" in other ways too. Very humble article, and great lesson learned by the author.
- braythwayt 11y ago
  I interview candidates a lot, and I see this pattern many times. I can't remember how aggressively those particular people followed up with me, but I can tell you that I have had conversations like this: --- Tell me about something specific you did to improve the productivity/velocity of your colleagues. "I'm a big believer in unit tests. When you have a lot of code coverage, other people can make changes without worrying they'll break things." Ok, I get that, we write tests too. But what, specifically, did you do with respect to testing? And what, specifically was the result? "Well, I write tests for all my code first. TDD leads to better designs, and that's better for everyone." I know what TDD is, and I admire people with the discipline to practice it consistently. Now tell mw what, specifically, you did with TDD to improve the productivity of the team. Did you introduce the idea? Did you introduce some process around TDD? Did you introduce some TDD tooling? "I use Mock Objects."
  - xigency 11y ago
    That's a great point. I think a mistake a number of interviewers make, and maybe they aren't used to the idea of interviewing for a position, is that they aren't interactive enough in their questions. In this case, it sounds like the founders made a bit of a mistake. Even if they were able to find someone who could explain things to them more directly, like they wanted, during the interview, it doesn't mean that the candidate is more qualified for the job. In general, communicating with management or founders won't necessarily be the same as communicating with engineers. For me, I had an interview about a year ago with Google and they were basically so uninterested in asking questions that they didn't learn anything useful about me, so it wasn't surprising that I was rejected. Sometimes interviewers don't realize that it's a two-way street, and that they need to be just as interested in hiring a candidate as an interviewee is excited about working for them. And I think if you're serious about hiring someone that you should be excited no matter what, especially if you know they're qualified.
    - rogerbinns 11y ago
      When I am an interviewer, I do sometimes just shut up and see what the interviewee does answering a question. One pattern I see is that people who are uncertain (or outright lying) about something tend to keep embellishing when you give them the space to do so. You then need to circle back to see if they were nervous etc and do have a reasonable grasp, or are misrepresenting themselves (eg doesn't match the resume claims). Doing it for everything is not useful or productive. Interviewers also need to realise they are selling the company, and while they may not hire the candidate, that candidate will have a career, colleagues, influence etc in the future. I am very wary of some companies and their products (and former employees for that matter) because of the interviewing experience.
  - johnrob 11y ago
    Your question seems unexpected, and not necessarily in the charter of every programming gig. I happen to have a great answer to it, after making big improvements to build times, but that is pure chance. The comment at the top of this whole thread has the right idea: sometimes candidates randomly meet unknown expectations, and sometimes the opposite happens.

by d23 11y ago

sfilipov 11y ago

True, if real life conversations were like interview conversations, we would judge people/friends whether they gave us the answer we expected when we asked them a question or not. That's ridiculous. People misunderstand questions. If what you get is not what you expect, you can always ask clarifying questions.

Double_Cast 11y ago
I was poking around his blog. Fwiw, it appears he's well aware of this. He calls interviewers who ask vague questions and expect particular answers "Carnac the Magnificent" [0]. [0] http://raganwald.com/2015/05/08/carnac-the-magnificent.html http://raganwald.com/2015/05/08/carnac-the-magnificent.html

rubidium 11y ago

The article makes it seem like they were asking those questions, he was just missing it. To your blaming the interviewers, part of being VP level is being able to pick up on stuff like that. He admits he missed it. They may be concerned, as a result, that he'll "miss it" in other ways too. Very humble article, and great lesson learned by the author.

braythwayt 11y ago
I interview candidates a lot, and I see this pattern many times. I can't remember how aggressively those particular people followed up with me, but I can tell you that I have had conversations like this: --- Tell me about something specific you did to improve the productivity/velocity of your colleagues. "I'm a big believer in unit tests. When you have a lot of code coverage, other people can make changes without worrying they'll break things." Ok, I get that, we write tests too. But what, specifically, did you do with respect to testing? And what, specifically was the result? "Well, I write tests for all my code first. TDD leads to better designs, and that's better for everyone." I know what TDD is, and I admire people with the discipline to practice it consistently. Now tell mw what, specifically, you did with TDD to improve the productivity of the team. Did you introduce the idea? Did you introduce some process around TDD? Did you introduce some TDD tooling? "I use Mock Objects."
- xigency 11y ago
  That's a great point. I think a mistake a number of interviewers make, and maybe they aren't used to the idea of interviewing for a position, is that they aren't interactive enough in their questions. In this case, it sounds like the founders made a bit of a mistake. Even if they were able to find someone who could explain things to them more directly, like they wanted, during the interview, it doesn't mean that the candidate is more qualified for the job. In general, communicating with management or founders won't necessarily be the same as communicating with engineers. For me, I had an interview about a year ago with Google and they were basically so uninterested in asking questions that they didn't learn anything useful about me, so it wasn't surprising that I was rejected. Sometimes interviewers don't realize that it's a two-way street, and that they need to be just as interested in hiring a candidate as an interviewee is excited about working for them. And I think if you're serious about hiring someone that you should be excited no matter what, especially if you know they're qualified.
  - rogerbinns 11y ago
    When I am an interviewer, I do sometimes just shut up and see what the interviewee does answering a question. One pattern I see is that people who are uncertain (or outright lying) about something tend to keep embellishing when you give them the space to do so. You then need to circle back to see if they were nervous etc and do have a reasonable grasp, or are misrepresenting themselves (eg doesn't match the resume claims). Doing it for everything is not useful or productive. Interviewers also need to realise they are selling the company, and while they may not hire the candidate, that candidate will have a career, colleagues, influence etc in the future. I am very wary of some companies and their products (and former employees for that matter) because of the interviewing experience.
- johnrob 11y ago
  Your question seems unexpected, and not necessarily in the charter of every programming gig. I happen to have a great answer to it, after making big improvements to build times, but that is pure chance. The comment at the top of this whole thread has the right idea: sometimes candidates randomly meet unknown expectations, and sometimes the opposite happens.