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Number 1: I think this is due to specializing in Ruby on Rails which is falling out of favor? Or your city location? I know in my location the average job hunt

Number 1: I think this is due to specializing in Ruby on Rails which is falling out of favor? Or your city location? I know in my location the average job hunt is 2 weeks. Number 2: As someone that interviews people alot, this is cuz MANY people who apply CANNOT code, no matter what their resume says. We have had people leave and never come back during our console app on site test (read in a text file and print out its contents with some minor formatting). This is resumes with 10 years plus experience in the language supposedly. And the computer has whatever IDE they prefer and full internet access! Number 3: I agree that CS type questions are pointless unless you are doing stuff like that on the job. We have stopped using those. Number 4: We now require an onsite 2 hour code project (designed to fit in that time frame) Number 5: True Number 6: We use headhunters to weed people out but that is about it. For one position the head hunter roughly run 15 people applying for each 1 possible person to pass to us for the next step. Again, most fail a mind boggling simple phone interview process for people who claim 10 plus years experience in coding. Not knowing what the static keyword means in C# when they say they are skilled in C# for instance. Number 7: Don't have an opinion on this Number 8: Again this seems to be your physical location. At ours there is roughly 3 open positions for each matching person. Number 9: Our company does not discriminate on age and are desperate for qualified people with experience. Many times a candidate regardless of age is stuck in one tech (winforms, MVC, Ruby on Rails (:P)) and we more discrimate on someone who is not showing growth in their tech skillset. For example, are you learning the basics of a cloud stack such as AWS/Google/Azure? At the end of the interview, I would recommend asking "are there any concerns or issues you would have with hiring me for this position?" and LISTEN to their feedback. I am sure there are some bad companies but for the most part it feels like you are not interviewing well for whatever reason. Maybe you are coming off as defensive or hostile when questioned? I would also reach back to the company and ask why they did not choose you. Most companies are way to busy to tell each person why they were passed over, but if you show an interest they will usually respond. Anyway good post and good luck to you!

jiveturkey 8y ago
> At the end of the interview, I would recommend asking "are there any concerns or issues you would have with hiring me for this position?" and LISTEN to their feedback. At the end of each interviewer. Asking the HR person at the end of it all is a waste of time for 2 reasons: 1. they won’t know yet 2. they won’t tell you but the tech interviewer almost certainly isn’t trained to keep his mouth shut and also generally isn’t expecting this question. caught off guard, you can usually get a close to honest response. you do have to interpret a little because people generally don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings right to their face. apply modern day party invite response rules: yes: maybe maybe: no no: fuck no
- ianhowson 8y ago
  "We will need to compare feedback but I'm confident we will be in touch soon".
- Humdeee 8y ago
  My SO is a HR manager, many times as a screen for tech roles. It's interesting hearing it from the other side. She's a brick wall with regards to sensitive job information that lie past her scope of knowledge. She just won't release it. She says the same thing as you however: if you want the good stuff, you have to attack the social vulnerabilities of tech people. They generally aren't trained to know what to say or not to say past the obvious. With carefully constructed questions, you can often get the information you're after.
alacombe 8y ago
> Many times a candidate regardless of age is stuck in one tech Because companies themselves don't understand that the full stack developer, from kernel work to UI is a real thing, ie. you can easily transfer competence from one tech to the other.
- kenoyer130 8y ago
  If you come into the interview and say "I am a kernal developer but I want to work on mobile" and you show us a working mobile app you developed on your own, we would consider it. If you come in and say "I am a kernal developer and I want you to take a chance and pay for me to get up to speed on mobile development" that is a harder sell. If you ran a business, would you choose that person or the person who comes in with actual mobile experience and hits the ground running. I sense a lot of hostility in this thread from people who have never been on the other side of the desk. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who interviews a ton of people, and where hiring the wrong person is much worse then not hiring the right person.
  - kenoyer130 8y ago
    Also if your trying to make that drastic a switch, are you willing to take a paycut? Just because someone has 15 years kernal experience does not mean they deserve the same pay for mobile (or visa versa).
    - alacombe 8y ago
      You are greatly over-estimating kernel developer's pay. Unless you're an open-source rock-star (ie. Linus & a few other), kernel development does not pay bazillions. A local shop was looking for Android kernel dev for CAN$75k (USD$60k). Any entry level mobile dev can easily make that much in USD. Even an Amazon SDIII isn't paying that much (~CAD$110k in the Vancouver area). I've been talking with other larger hardware manufacturer and their offers are roughly of the same order (in high living cost area).
Lich 8y ago
@#2: Wow, you mean like they leave without saying anything during the interview?
- kenoyer130 8y ago
  They asked to use the restroom and never came back. True story.

jiveturkey 8y ago

> At the end of the interview, I would recommend asking "are there any concerns or issues you would have with hiring me for this position?" and LISTEN to their feedback. At the end of each interviewer. Asking the HR person at the end of it all is a waste of time for 2 reasons: 1. they won’t know yet 2. they won’t tell you but the tech interviewer almost certainly isn’t trained to keep his mouth shut and also generally isn’t expecting this question. caught off guard, you can usually get a close to honest response. you do have to interpret a little because people generally don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings right to their face. apply modern day party invite response rules: yes: maybe maybe: no no: fuck no

ianhowson 8y ago
"We will need to compare feedback but I'm confident we will be in touch soon".
Humdeee 8y ago
My SO is a HR manager, many times as a screen for tech roles. It's interesting hearing it from the other side. She's a brick wall with regards to sensitive job information that lie past her scope of knowledge. She just won't release it. She says the same thing as you however: if you want the good stuff, you have to attack the social vulnerabilities of tech people. They generally aren't trained to know what to say or not to say past the obvious. With carefully constructed questions, you can often get the information you're after.

alacombe 8y ago

> Many times a candidate regardless of age is stuck in one tech Because companies themselves don't understand that the full stack developer, from kernel work to UI is a real thing, ie. you can easily transfer competence from one tech to the other.

kenoyer130 8y ago
If you come into the interview and say "I am a kernal developer but I want to work on mobile" and you show us a working mobile app you developed on your own, we would consider it. If you come in and say "I am a kernal developer and I want you to take a chance and pay for me to get up to speed on mobile development" that is a harder sell. If you ran a business, would you choose that person or the person who comes in with actual mobile experience and hits the ground running. I sense a lot of hostility in this thread from people who have never been on the other side of the desk. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who interviews a ton of people, and where hiring the wrong person is much worse then not hiring the right person.
- kenoyer130 8y ago
  Also if your trying to make that drastic a switch, are you willing to take a paycut? Just because someone has 15 years kernal experience does not mean they deserve the same pay for mobile (or visa versa).
  - alacombe 8y ago
    You are greatly over-estimating kernel developer's pay. Unless you're an open-source rock-star (ie. Linus & a few other), kernel development does not pay bazillions. A local shop was looking for Android kernel dev for CAN$75k (USD$60k). Any entry level mobile dev can easily make that much in USD. Even an Amazon SDIII isn't paying that much (~CAD$110k in the Vancouver area). I've been talking with other larger hardware manufacturer and their offers are roughly of the same order (in high living cost area).

Lich 8y ago

@#2: Wow, you mean like they leave without saying anything during the interview?

kenoyer130 8y ago
They asked to use the restroom and never came back. True story.