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Taking control audition style may work if you're a consultant trying to convince a client to hire them, but you had better know their business backwards and for

Taking control audition style may work if you're a consultant trying to convince a client to hire them, but you had better know their business backwards and forwards, and unless you're in a very well defined space (like their football coaching example), you probably don't. However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. There's a set of questions you need to work through and attempting to go off script is not going to be appreciated. Pretty much the only exception is leadership roles, particularly when the brief is "we need somebody who can turn around/10x our floundering business".

fizx 8y ago
It's worthwhile to distinguish between decision-makers and information-gatherers. FAANG interviewers have notoriously little decision-making power, though if you're given a time slot with your potential hiring manager, this approach might be worth a shot.
- closeparen 8y ago
  A good interviewer wants to stay on their script not because they're a disempowered automaton, but so that they can contextualize your performance relative to others they've given the same questions. Your job on an interview loop is to collect the best signal you can about the candidate's strengths in the assigned topic. You have broad latitude to use your professional judgement in going about that, but what makes your assessment persuasive in a debrief is calibration. An "original" interview may be a useful and necessary cost paid by the employer to train and calibrate a new interviewer, but opinions based on that interview have to be discounted appropriately in actually assessing the candidate. On the other hand, if you're a seasoned interviewer with a long-term favorite question, and report that the candidate's performance is an outlier in either direction, your voice alone could completely change the debrief room's opinion.
  - walshemj 8y ago
    But Most FANG interviewers don't seem to have any training
    - closeparen 8y ago
      Yes. Not all engineers take interviewing seriously, and even fewer actually want to be doing it in the moment. It can be seen as a too-frequent interruption that drags down productivity. This creates pressure to put interviewers in rotation who are not ready (so that more senior people can do their actual jobs) and can lead to a bad time when an otherwise-good interviewer betrays his annoyance at having you appear on his calendar. A disturbing proportion of your success as a candidate depends on luck of the draw.
      - walshemj 8y ago
        That always struck me as odd given Americas litigious nature. I worked for a big UK company in the past and you had to pass a 2 or 3 day residential course before you where allowed to interview anyone.
        closeparen 8y ago
        Aside from discriminating on protected characteristics, white-collar employment decisions are not really subject to judicial review.
        walshemj 8y ago
        They are in labour courts (assuming the USA) and at Tribunals in the UK - and a mistake in procedure is an automatic loss for employer side.
nikofeyn 8y ago
what is FAANG?
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  FB AMZN AAPL NFLX GOOG
  - pc86 8y ago
    Wow you sure saved a lot of time by not just writing a complete sentence.
- blackoil 8y ago
  Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google
k__ 8y ago
"audition style may work if you're a consultant trying to convince a client to hire them" That's one of the main reasons I'm self employed. Getting a job is mostly doing dumb interviews, tests and crap. Getting a project is mostly telling the client that I can do it for an amount of money they find okay.
- chatmasta 8y ago
  As a consultant you are much more in control of your working relationships than as an employee. A consultant has many clients; an employee only has one employer. That alone provides sufficient leverage to dictate the terms of the role, which is a major advantage of self-employment.
  - jaggederest 8y ago
    I think it's basically the same deal PG is always talking about: Nobody is willing to pay triple for an employee which is actually three times as productive, but a consultant can honestly charge three to five times as much in order to provide equivalent return on investment. I also find that in general, people who won't listen to an employee are excited about collaborating with a consultant - even when you're the same person making the same contributions. I find it pretty frustrating - I have long-term views and I want to make a significant, long term impact on the companies I work for, and being a consultant means it's all about quarterly results. That being said, I'll take sober consideration from day one over "time over grade equals seriousness" any day.
- kelvin0 8y ago
  Totally agree, as a veteran Software Dev, been consulting for 2 years now. Most customers want some degree of assurance that you can solve their problem and that you also have a track record of proven success (no FizzBuzz BS). The downside is that most customers are also non-technical, so it becomes challenging (for me at least) to explain some concepts which impact the ongoing project. This is where I think building trust within a business relationship is important, and why you should avoid any customers who distrust you and your credentials. Because the bottom line is : if you can't explain all the finer details to someone, but they trust your judgement and ability, everything else becomes much easier.
raverbashing 8y ago
> However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. Agreed, do you know why? They're looking for yes men. (Ok, maybe not the A later in the alphabet - not sure today) Now if you meet someone "higher up the chain" outside of a formal setting, this might work.
- occamrazor 8y ago
  > They're looking for yes men. Or maybe they hire thousands each year and want to ensure some consistency in the candidate selection criteria. This could result in hiring more yes-men, but the _intention_ may be different.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I would die a thousand deaths working in a company like that. How can you possibly build your resume if everything on starts off with, "I worked on a team that did X?" at a small company you can say "I did X, Y, Z".
    - capitalsigma 8y ago
      Believe it or not, engineering is highly collaborative. If your dream is to work by yourself so that nobody else can take any credit, you might be better off in a different field.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        There is a wide spectrum between “working by yourself” and working for a large beuracratic company where you’re just a number. I can take credit for leading a lot of initiatives at the companies I’ve worked for without being in management. It’s the difference betweeen working for small companies - or larger companies with a small development shop - and massive companies. I would never know as much as I know about networking, infrastructure, devops, architecture, security, etc. in addition to development if I spent all of my life in a large company.
- 8y ago
scarface74 8y ago
There are millions of companies out there that are not part of the big big 5. I don’t need to know their business backwards and forward and I probably won’t know enough about their internal pain points until I get there. But I’ve noticed over the years, that most companies that are interested in hiring me, have the same sort of issues when it comes to trying to deliver their product.
- whitexn--g28h 8y ago
  It's the big 4 now. See Enron, and Anderson.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Big 5 was in reference to the technology companies FAANG - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. I have no idea why people include Netflix and not Microsoft.
    - jogjayr 8y ago
      > I have no idea why people include Netflix and not Microsoft. Netflix pays outlandishly well - which is why engineers include it on their list of big companies. Leaving that aside Netflix is a giant: $150B market cap as of this writing. The term "FANG" was created by TV stock pundit Jim Cramer to describe tech stocks that have done particularly well over the last 7-8 years[1]. Maybe he felt MSFT's stock performance wasn't that strong or that he couldn't make a catchy acronym if he included it? 1. https://www.thestreet.com/story/13230576/1/what-are-fang-stocks-and-why-does-jim-cramer-love-them.html https://www.thestreet.com/story/13230576/1/what-are-fang-sto...
      - scarface74 8y ago
        I would have thought Microsoft was a has been before Satya Nadella took over so that assessment was fair. He hadn't been the CEO for long in 2015. I guess as an outside developer, I'm looking at things from the perspective of platforms. Netflix isn't a platform that you build on.
js8 8y ago
> However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. It's kind of "offense is the best defense" method. I haven't done many interviews, but I found a good strategy is to have some questions about the technology the company is using. Then you can both show interest and turn the interview on the head, instead of them asking you technical questions (for which you might not know the answer), you ask technical questions that show you have done some basic research and have basic understanding. I have used a similar strategy on some oral exams at the university. Many people (especially specialists) are not natural examiners, and are delighted to talk about their field with someone who has some understanding of it, regardless of the fact that they should conduct an interview or exam. But then again, it takes a certain type of character to do it (since I am a curious person, it comes somewhat naturally). You can't really fake it, you have to put in some effort of learning about the technology in question in advance.
- toast0 8y ago
  I've had this happen to me as an interviewer. It seems good at first, but when I eventually bring the interview back into my 'can you design a simple data format, and then use the format you just designed' problem, I usually find the answer is no. I try not to let this bias me when I realize the candidate had led me astray, but it's hard when every candidate that leads me astray can't do my problem.
Silhouette 8y ago
However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. Indeed, but someone willing and able to do this well probably isn't applying to work at Facebook today, they're applying to be co-founder or employee #1 of a business that might be the next Facebook.
vinceguidry 8y ago
Yeah, the one thing I kept thinking about when I was reading Ryan's essay was, "yeah this won't work in a real meat grinder, audacity isn't the right choice for every situation." Of course, knowing Ryan, the answer to that situation is going to be, "don't put yourself through a meat grinder."
whack 8y ago
It also depends heavily on what kind of role you're applying for. If you're applying as a product manager, then sure, present your big audacious vision on how you're going to transform XYZ widget. Even if they don't actually do it, it's a good way to showcase your capabilities. But if you're applying as a software engineer? What exactly are you going to present then? Nobody wants to work with a guy who's never seen the code base, but wants to rewrite the whole thing in Rust.
- ryanbrunner 8y ago
  You don't necessarily need to present a vision for the specific things you can do for the company, but you can take the initiative and present why your specific set of skills will be well suited for the company in question. I do agree that you need to be careful with this - many companies will want to put you through "their process", and attempting to take control of the conversation when it's not welcome will tank your chances at a position, but I do think it's worthwhile to try.

fizx 8y ago

It's worthwhile to distinguish between decision-makers and information-gatherers. FAANG interviewers have notoriously little decision-making power, though if you're given a time slot with your potential hiring manager, this approach might be worth a shot.

closeparen 8y ago
A good interviewer wants to stay on their script not because they're a disempowered automaton, but so that they can contextualize your performance relative to others they've given the same questions. Your job on an interview loop is to collect the best signal you can about the candidate's strengths in the assigned topic. You have broad latitude to use your professional judgement in going about that, but what makes your assessment persuasive in a debrief is calibration. An "original" interview may be a useful and necessary cost paid by the employer to train and calibrate a new interviewer, but opinions based on that interview have to be discounted appropriately in actually assessing the candidate. On the other hand, if you're a seasoned interviewer with a long-term favorite question, and report that the candidate's performance is an outlier in either direction, your voice alone could completely change the debrief room's opinion.
- walshemj 8y ago
  But Most FANG interviewers don't seem to have any training
  - closeparen 8y ago
    Yes. Not all engineers take interviewing seriously, and even fewer actually want to be doing it in the moment. It can be seen as a too-frequent interruption that drags down productivity. This creates pressure to put interviewers in rotation who are not ready (so that more senior people can do their actual jobs) and can lead to a bad time when an otherwise-good interviewer betrays his annoyance at having you appear on his calendar. A disturbing proportion of your success as a candidate depends on luck of the draw.
    - walshemj 8y ago
      That always struck me as odd given Americas litigious nature. I worked for a big UK company in the past and you had to pass a 2 or 3 day residential course before you where allowed to interview anyone.
      - closeparen 8y ago
        Aside from discriminating on protected characteristics, white-collar employment decisions are not really subject to judicial review.
        walshemj 8y ago
        They are in labour courts (assuming the USA) and at Tribunals in the UK - and a mistake in procedure is an automatic loss for employer side.

nikofeyn 8y ago

what is FAANG?

newnewpdro 8y ago
FB AMZN AAPL NFLX GOOG
- pc86 8y ago
  Wow you sure saved a lot of time by not just writing a complete sentence.
blackoil 8y ago
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google

k__ 8y ago

"audition style may work if you're a consultant trying to convince a client to hire them" That's one of the main reasons I'm self employed. Getting a job is mostly doing dumb interviews, tests and crap. Getting a project is mostly telling the client that I can do it for an amount of money they find okay.

chatmasta 8y ago
As a consultant you are much more in control of your working relationships than as an employee. A consultant has many clients; an employee only has one employer. That alone provides sufficient leverage to dictate the terms of the role, which is a major advantage of self-employment.
- jaggederest 8y ago
  I think it's basically the same deal PG is always talking about: Nobody is willing to pay triple for an employee which is actually three times as productive, but a consultant can honestly charge three to five times as much in order to provide equivalent return on investment. I also find that in general, people who won't listen to an employee are excited about collaborating with a consultant - even when you're the same person making the same contributions. I find it pretty frustrating - I have long-term views and I want to make a significant, long term impact on the companies I work for, and being a consultant means it's all about quarterly results. That being said, I'll take sober consideration from day one over "time over grade equals seriousness" any day.
kelvin0 8y ago
Totally agree, as a veteran Software Dev, been consulting for 2 years now. Most customers want some degree of assurance that you can solve their problem and that you also have a track record of proven success (no FizzBuzz BS). The downside is that most customers are also non-technical, so it becomes challenging (for me at least) to explain some concepts which impact the ongoing project. This is where I think building trust within a business relationship is important, and why you should avoid any customers who distrust you and your credentials. Because the bottom line is : if you can't explain all the finer details to someone, but they trust your judgement and ability, everything else becomes much easier.

raverbashing 8y ago

> However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. Agreed, do you know why? They're looking for yes men. (Ok, maybe not the A later in the alphabet - not sure today) Now if you meet someone "higher up the chain" outside of a formal setting, this might work.

occamrazor 8y ago
> They're looking for yes men. Or maybe they hire thousands each year and want to ensure some consistency in the candidate selection criteria. This could result in hiring more yes-men, but the _intention_ may be different.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I would die a thousand deaths working in a company like that. How can you possibly build your resume if everything on starts off with, "I worked on a team that did X?" at a small company you can say "I did X, Y, Z".
  - capitalsigma 8y ago
    Believe it or not, engineering is highly collaborative. If your dream is to work by yourself so that nobody else can take any credit, you might be better off in a different field.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      There is a wide spectrum between “working by yourself” and working for a large beuracratic company where you’re just a number. I can take credit for leading a lot of initiatives at the companies I’ve worked for without being in management. It’s the difference betweeen working for small companies - or larger companies with a small development shop - and massive companies. I would never know as much as I know about networking, infrastructure, devops, architecture, security, etc. in addition to development if I spent all of my life in a large company.
8y ago

scarface74 8y ago

There are millions of companies out there that are not part of the big big 5. I don’t need to know their business backwards and forward and I probably won’t know enough about their internal pain points until I get there. But I’ve noticed over the years, that most companies that are interested in hiring me, have the same sort of issues when it comes to trying to deliver their product.

whitexn--g28h 8y ago
It's the big 4 now. See Enron, and Anderson.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Big 5 was in reference to the technology companies FAANG - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google. I have no idea why people include Netflix and not Microsoft.
  - jogjayr 8y ago
    > I have no idea why people include Netflix and not Microsoft. Netflix pays outlandishly well - which is why engineers include it on their list of big companies. Leaving that aside Netflix is a giant: $150B market cap as of this writing. The term "FANG" was created by TV stock pundit Jim Cramer to describe tech stocks that have done particularly well over the last 7-8 years[1]. Maybe he felt MSFT's stock performance wasn't that strong or that he couldn't make a catchy acronym if he included it? 1. https://www.thestreet.com/story/13230576/1/what-are-fang-stocks-and-why-does-jim-cramer-love-them.html https://www.thestreet.com/story/13230576/1/what-are-fang-sto...
    - scarface74 8y ago
      I would have thought Microsoft was a has been before Satya Nadella took over so that assessment was fair. He hadn't been the CEO for long in 2015. I guess as an outside developer, I'm looking at things from the perspective of platforms. Netflix isn't a platform that you build on.

js8 8y ago

> However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. It's kind of "offense is the best defense" method. I haven't done many interviews, but I found a good strategy is to have some questions about the technology the company is using. Then you can both show interest and turn the interview on the head, instead of them asking you technical questions (for which you might not know the answer), you ask technical questions that show you have done some basic research and have basic understanding. I have used a similar strategy on some oral exams at the university. Many people (especially specialists) are not natural examiners, and are delighted to talk about their field with someone who has some understanding of it, regardless of the fact that they should conduct an interview or exam. But then again, it takes a certain type of character to do it (since I am a curious person, it comes somewhat naturally). You can't really fake it, you have to put in some effort of learning about the technology in question in advance.

toast0 8y ago
I've had this happen to me as an interviewer. It seems good at first, but when I eventually bring the interview back into my 'can you design a simple data format, and then use the format you just designed' problem, I usually find the answer is no. I try not to let this bias me when I realize the candidate had led me astray, but it's hard when every candidate that leads me astray can't do my problem.

Silhouette 8y ago

However, if you attempt this at a standard FAANG job interview, it is emphatically not going to work. Indeed, but someone willing and able to do this well probably isn't applying to work at Facebook today, they're applying to be co-founder or employee #1 of a business that might be the next Facebook.

vinceguidry 8y ago

Yeah, the one thing I kept thinking about when I was reading Ryan's essay was, "yeah this won't work in a real meat grinder, audacity isn't the right choice for every situation." Of course, knowing Ryan, the answer to that situation is going to be, "don't put yourself through a meat grinder."

whack 8y ago

It also depends heavily on what kind of role you're applying for. If you're applying as a product manager, then sure, present your big audacious vision on how you're going to transform XYZ widget. Even if they don't actually do it, it's a good way to showcase your capabilities. But if you're applying as a software engineer? What exactly are you going to present then? Nobody wants to work with a guy who's never seen the code base, but wants to rewrite the whole thing in Rust.

ryanbrunner 8y ago
You don't necessarily need to present a vision for the specific things you can do for the company, but you can take the initiative and present why your specific set of skills will be well suited for the company in question. I do agree that you need to be careful with this - many companies will want to put you through "their process", and attempting to take control of the conversation when it's not welcome will tank your chances at a position, but I do think it's worthwhile to try.