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I used to work on email archival. Anyone who says they’re passionate about that is either lying or doped up on barbiturates.
by nopassion 9y ago
I used to work on email archival. Anyone who says they’re passionate about that is either lying or doped up on barbiturates.
- stevenwoo 9y agoHow did you get hired for email archival? Started looking at online applications and every single one has something like "Why do you want to work for us?" and yesterday I saw "How do you add to our diversity?"
- gaustin 9y agoWhat's the problem with those questions?
- stevenwoo 9y agoSorry, was trying to figure out how the commenter got past those filtering questions.
- bartread 9y agoI wouldn't be surprised to find that in the UK it's illegal to ask a candidate "How do you add to our diversity?" because it could be seen as a thinly veiled way to, for example, discover a candidate's sexual preference - something you are outright not allowed to ask about, except in very specific circumstances[1]. (Also, it's an insufferably pretentious question, even if not actually illegal.) [1] E.g., it might be legally acceptable for a role in a religious organisation.
- goostavos 9y agoI'd argue that they're stupid questions. What do you stand to learn about the quality/fit of a candidate from the question "why do you want to work with us?" They could give a 100% bombshell answer and yet not at all fit the role.
- tremon 9y agoThe latter is not a question the applicant is qualified to answer. Specifically, "how do you add to <our team>" can only be answered by someone that already knows the team. To me it signals that the recruiter is lazy and expects me, as applicant, to do his job for him.
- nopassion 9y agoInteresting about the diversity one. I’m slightly curious about which company it is (obviously don’t share if you’re uncomfortable), because we’re apparently going to add almost the same question to our application. It’s all very political. It has nothing to do with finding good software devs and everything to do with making sure people conform to a very narrow political view. I’m actually surprised we haven’t been sued yet. And as far as email archival, it was an archival appliance. I had an internship in school and that was the team they put me on. I worked on it full-time after graduation.
- lukeschlather 9y agoIt depends on the content of the emails.
- runevault 9y agoI think there are two sides of equation. You can be passionate about the literal problem (search, AI, whatever) or the underlying problem with tech (I could imagine finding interesting problems around new indexing techniques, rapid access, etc if you wanted to really get into the nitty gritty)