4 ms·

>Be myself Super important, and easier said than done. I was too much "myself" during an interview, and I ended up disparaging their choice of Visual Basic as

by vdnkh 11y ago

>Be myself Super important, and easier said than done. I was too much "myself" during an interview, and I ended up disparaging their choice of Visual Basic as their main language (at a trendy startup in 2015) a bit too heavily. Said I passed the interview except for that bit. Did a similar thing recently during a phone interview. Another trendy startup who acquired a legacy .NET product and were looking for engineers to "automate" it. Sorry, I'm not buying what you're selling.

gohrt 11y ago
You have options: * Stop being yourself in the interview, and then have a bad experience on the job, battling over your disagrements. * Be yourself, and get a job that fits you. * Change yourself, then be yourself and get a job that fits you.
rifung 11y ago
I disagree that you were "too much" yourself, because if being yourself means you aren't a good fit for the company, it's better for both parties that you don't join the company. I'd argue that it just wasn't a good fit. I've definitely faked my way through interviews in the past, basically saying what I thought they wanted to hear. However, it just leads to being unhappy on the job because presumably you aren't going to fake it your whole time working there, or, even if you are, you're at a place where you constantly disagree with everyone on the inside.
s73v3r 11y ago
It should go without saying that "be yourself" does not mean be an asshole.
pc86 11y ago
To be fair there's nothing you can do in VB that you can't do in C# with an order of magnitude more available talent. Half my VS extensions are C#-only, to boot.
rwallace 11y ago
If you're going to have a policy of being yourself, that needs to go with an understanding that yourself is mutable, and a policy of changing yourself to be better adapted to your environment. In this case, it's important to realize that the days when choice of programming language was very important are long past. Pay, working conditions, not having to live in a very expensive area are important. Programming language is a minor detail, not worth getting worked up about.
- jghn 11y ago
  It depends. There are languages I have no desire to work with and others which I very much would prefer to work with. It's a factor even if it's no longer the factor.
jghn 11y ago
Much easier said than done. I still tend to revert back to "OMG, I'm in an interview! What do I say? What do I do?". It's a process.

by vdnkh 11y ago

gohrt 11y ago

You have options: * Stop being yourself in the interview, and then have a bad experience on the job, battling over your disagrements. * Be yourself, and get a job that fits you. * Change yourself, then be yourself and get a job that fits you.

rifung 11y ago

I disagree that you were "too much" yourself, because if being yourself means you aren't a good fit for the company, it's better for both parties that you don't join the company. I'd argue that it just wasn't a good fit. I've definitely faked my way through interviews in the past, basically saying what I thought they wanted to hear. However, it just leads to being unhappy on the job because presumably you aren't going to fake it your whole time working there, or, even if you are, you're at a place where you constantly disagree with everyone on the inside.

s73v3r 11y ago

It should go without saying that "be yourself" does not mean be an asshole.

pc86 11y ago

To be fair there's nothing you can do in VB that you can't do in C# with an order of magnitude more available talent. Half my VS extensions are C#-only, to boot.

rwallace 11y ago

If you're going to have a policy of being yourself, that needs to go with an understanding that yourself is mutable, and a policy of changing yourself to be better adapted to your environment. In this case, it's important to realize that the days when choice of programming language was very important are long past. Pay, working conditions, not having to live in a very expensive area are important. Programming language is a minor detail, not worth getting worked up about.

jghn 11y ago
It depends. There are languages I have no desire to work with and others which I very much would prefer to work with. It's a factor even if it's no longer the factor.

jghn 11y ago

Much easier said than done. I still tend to revert back to "OMG, I'm in an interview! What do I say? What do I do?". It's a process.