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The Secret Rules For Getting Hired

190 points by edent 8y ago

reallydontask 8y ago
I totally agree that these rules are absolute BS. The goal of a job interview for me used to be twofold: Can the candidate do the job? Would I want to work with the candidate? Unfortunately, I have got the second one wrong as often as not in the past, so now I just try to find anything that would mean that I wouldn't want to work with the candidate, in other words, are there any red flags? If there aren't then that's good enough.
- vlehto 8y ago
  Could you share some typical red flags?
  - reallydontask 8y ago
    I can't say they are typical, but we've had two candidates become somewhat agitated when challenged about their experience, e.g. you said you were a developer for 2 years at company X but it seems that you mostly did support. This resulted in a tirade about job titles. Another red flag for me is when candidates are asked about their level of expertise on a scale of 1 to 10 on a technology and they reply with anything above 7. Statistically there are people that are going to be able to claim 8 or above out 10 on any technology, they just probably can command a higher salary that the company I work wishes to offer (we put salary ranges on our job ads), which means that they are exaggerating, can't judge their skills (either because of self delusion or because they just think the technology doesn't have that much more to offer) or worse lying. The thing is we were asking this to be able to tailor the questions that we would ask. No point in asking somebody who says their skill level in sql is 2 about pivot tables.
    - alexeiz 8y ago
      The expertise scale level question is bogus. You'll get people with low expertise who believe their level is high because they think that's all there is to know about a technology (advanced beginners), while experienced people would rate themselves lower because they realize how much they don't know yet. And also there will be those who correctly estimate their level as average. Everybody's scale is different. You can't reliably distinguish those groups.
curuinor 8y ago
This is all expressions of power. It won't be overcome until interviewees get leverage and express it. By the structure of the thing they never get leverage, so it will continue because it can.
- vegetablepotpie 8y ago
  The leverage interviewers have is that they know if the candidate can't find a job, that at some point the candidate won't be able to afford rent/mortgage, food, clothing etc. That's a desperate position for a candidate to be in and it puts employers in a position of absolute power. With that type of game it's inevitable that you will see anti-social interview techniques. It would be a sign of high character if an interviewer didn't power trip over a candidate. The changes that would alter that dynamic is either that society should find it acceptable for people to live out of a tent and ask for donations from strangers or guarantee basic needs to all its members. Both of which are socially and politically untenable because it would disrupt the power structure of those well regarded and politically connected business that benefit. So I expect zero change on this issue in perpetuity.
  - blfr 8y ago
    The third option is a tight job market. This is undermined by mass immigration, criticism of which is fought by the establishment even harder than basic income.
- akvadrako 8y ago
  Interviewees have all the power - they can just not work for you. Unless you are hiring desperate people.
sunseb 8y ago
I don't want to work for someone that tries to trick me! And if I had to hire a developer, I would want someone with great coding skills, not someone that makes a good impression at an interview.
- Carpetsmoker 8y ago
  Some people have great coding skills, but are right assholes or otherwise seriously toxic. You definitely need to look for more than just "great coding skills" if you want to hire great employees.
  - cgriswald 8y ago
    Sure, but I don't think "making a good impression in an interview" has a very strong correlation with whether someone is a "right asshole or otherwise seriously toxic." Plenty of decent people don't interview well, and plenty of assholes can put on 'interview face' to get a job.
    - borski 8y ago
      Most assholes are thinly veiled in an interview. Decent people are nervous, and that’s okay - it’s usually pretty clear. Assholes are trying /hard/ not to come off as such, so when the interviewer inevitably challenges them on a piece of code or their background, they usually end up showing their true colors, at least in my experience.
      - autotune 8y ago
        That’s funny because the last bit of feedback I received on an interview that was supposed to be a “preemptive yes” is that I was “a bit nervous” and they wanted to interview more candidates before making a decision. Sometimes you just can’t win.
    - Carpetsmoker 8y ago
      There is probably no fool-proof method to weed out these people – just as there is no fool-proof method to weed out non-great programmers – but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
deleted 8y ago
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wallflower 8y ago
And then you have the famous Liar’s Poker interview question: > Investment bankers had a technique known as the stress interview. If you were invited to Lehman’s New York offices, your first interview might begin with the interviewer asking you to open the window. You were on the forty-third floor overlooking Water Street. The window was sealed shut. That was, of course, the point. The interviewer just wanted to see whether your inability to comply with his request led you to yank, pull, and sweat until finally you melted into a puddle of foiled ambition. Or, as one sad applicant was rumored to have done, threw a chair through the window.
- Carpetsmoker 8y ago
  Was the point to test if people realized the windows were sealed shut, or to test that they would persevere anyway?
- 0db532a0 8y ago
  Did he get the job?
  - koonsolo 8y ago
    Of course, he gets the job done no matter what.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  younger versions of those same guys have hazings, too
- masonic 8y ago
  This reminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru
open-source-ux 8y ago
"A job interview isn't a set of trick questions" This reminds me of this old BBC comedy sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHy06FMsezI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHy06FMsezI
- rzzzt 8y ago
  The job interview sketch from "How to irritate people" is my personal favorite.
- kolanos 8y ago
  John Cleese had a sketch in a similar vein [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4iFzweRf3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4iFzweRf3E Eddit: Another comment beat me to it, but provided link for posterity.
- mips_avatar 8y ago
  This is exactly what those dumb interview tricks are like.
partisan 8y ago
At my last job, my manager “tricked” me during the interview. Apparently, he wanted to see how I dealt with criticism. At least that is how the recruiter justified it when I expressed my dissatisfaction with the experience and my hesitation about working for that person. That manager ended up being all about power trips and it made for a very toxic culture in his team and in interactions with others outside of the team. I left after less than a year despite not having a job lined up. The only bright side is having found a position at a place that is the complete opposite.
deleted 8y ago
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ilaksh 8y ago
This type of thing is a red flag and allows you to weed out companies that would be bad places to work. Of course its a problem if you are actually running low on money and need to find a job soon because that might tempt you to try to work there even though you can tell some of them may be jerks.
dannykwells 8y ago
While in general I agree, I understand the motivation behind these questions. Most jobs require more than just technical skills. They require and ability to think laterally, be independent, work on a team, etc. etc. Questions such as "tell me about a time when" are a reasonable way to assess some of these traits but also are not direct and have their own issues. As long as interviews are consistent and polite I think it's reasonable to push candidates in non traditional ways to understand if they have the soft skills required for a role.
axle334 8y ago
These "rules" miss the big picture. People react in certain ways for entirely different reasons. Example: Recruiter mispronounces my name. I don't say anything. This can be because: 1) I'm a coward. 2) I don't care. 3) I care and am not a coward, but think it would be petty to interrupt the conversation to point this out. 4) I'm overly practical and don't care about this kind of details. 5) I think the other person may feel bad if I correct them. 6) I accept that people make sometimes mistakes. Maybe I'll point it out if they do it 3 times or more. Etc. Which is it? You'd have to know the person better to know. Even if the person is just a coward, this could be based on specific traumatic experiences other persons didn't have and which affect only minimally the rest of the personality. Same applies to thank you emails, coming late to the interview etc. With such subtle situations, you need to know _why_ somebody act the way they did, and without knowing the person, which you usually don't, when interviewing, you just can't. These are just BS rules with which recruiters try to make their work easier. Similar to Codility & co. tests for software developers. Well, bad news, recruiting is hard. You'll have to take the time to listen to and think about your candidates.
- yial 8y ago
  I agree about the name mispronouncing thing. My first name is very easily mispronounced for most people. Even when they’ve just heard me pronounce it for some reason. I usually don’t bother correcting people unless they ask— and even if they do I usually tell them it’s truly not a big deal, and they can call me whatever they would like. (I say / word this in a way that makes sure it’s humorous).
- cgriswald 8y ago
  Indeed. My last name is not pronounced correctly by English speakers (even when they assume the name is French, which it isn't). Only twice has someone interviewing me gotten it correct, and in both cases it turns out they knew a distant relative of mine. I only bother correcting people when we are going to have a lasting relationship. In an interview? We aren't there yet. I have no idea how this would even play out for "Bob Anderson." "When interviewing, I go for lunch with the candidate. I ask the waiter to subtly get their order wrong. A great test of the interviewee's character!" Or the waiter's character. "We always leave candidates waiting half an hour before calling them in. How do they cope with delays?" I cope with delays of longer than 15 minutes by first trying to communicate about the delay and then by leaving. Dear recruiter, what do you think that says about me? If I find out a recruiter has intentionally done any of these, the interview is over. I'm looking for a good fit. Duplicity, manipulation, lack of integrity... these are not qualities that ingratiate me to anyone. Some people might say, "Well, yeah, but you can afford to do that. Not everyone can." But I did it when I couldn't afford to do it too. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of my employers have been awesome.
chaseha 8y ago
There are lots of issues with traditional hiring approaches - would recommend looking into Performance-Based Hiring if you are a hiring manager looking to improve your process and outcomes
chiefalchemist 8y ago
From what I've seen and experienced most people doing the hiring are clueless. What's worse is most of them are insane. That is, they keep doing the same but expect different results. Personally, I still shocked - and am mindful of the red flag - when they don't realize I'm interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me.
- max76 8y ago
  I'm a software engineer that's been involved in hiring decisions in the past. When we make a bad hire we do a post-mortem just like we would for a critical production bug. We adjust the interview process or evaluation criteria every time a bad hire is made. We also give the same interview for every role. We spend 80% of the time asking the same questions, and leave 20% of the time for the free flow conversation and interviewee questions.
  - SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
    I've seen that kind of thing too. What I've never seen, and what the article is focused on, is a serious correction for failures to hire. It seems like most companies would rather slowly strangle their hiring pipeline than tell people "your dealbreakers are dumb and you're no longer allowed to use them".
  - itronitron 8y ago
    Do you include the 'bad hire' in the post mortem as well?
    - max76 8y ago
      We do exit interviews, which is reviewed in the post mortem. Failure is defined as a hire that lasts less than one year.
  - koonsolo 8y ago
    Aren't you afraid that you focus too much on avoiding the bad ones, and not on trying to hire the top ones? You cannot do a postmortem for failing to hire top talent, because you will never know. What I want to say is that a bad hire is probably less important than missing out on a top candidate. Because you can always fire as soon as you find out. The other error cannot be corrected.
danso 8y ago
FWIW, the author (exec managing editor of Insider) of the "thank you email" blog post shared it on Twitter, and has received a large and largely negative response: https://twitter.com/jessicaliebman/status/1114160523581501440 https://twitter.com/jessicaliebman/status/111416052358150144...
- dentemple 8y ago
  When the highest reply is a firm rebuttal from Scott Hanselman, you're probably on the wrong side of the argument.
gumby 8y ago
> "The whole team thought you were great. You were probably the strongest candidate overall, but we were looking for someone with experience in XYZ." Wow, my GF just related this to me literally last week. She liked the team she interviewed with as well. (I'm relieved actually as she got a job offer in hand for a place much closer to home).
- Grustaf 8y ago
  If you have a skill that might be relevant to the company you're applying to, wouldn't it be in your best interest to emphasize that? Sure, recruiters are often quite clueless, but that's just how it is, so we have to increase our chances given the circumstances.
  - gumby 8y ago
    You don't always know what skills are appropriate -- that's part of the purpose of the interview, for you to learn what the job, team, and company are like.
- jimmydddd 8y ago
  I think sometimes the HR person just makes up a reason. It's counter-productive to read too much into it. One time I was told I was great, but they needed someone with XYZ experience. It was very important. They ended up hiring my friend, who had even less XYZ experience than I did.
  - itronitron 8y ago
    Yeah, I could see the HR person just reaching the conclusion on their own that the candidate must not have XYZ since the team chose not to hire them.
cgriswald 8y ago
> Why would people want to work in such a homogeneous culture? Why would they want to work for someone who couldn't even be bothered to search the web for "How to pronounce Nguyen"? Hilariously, I did a search for "How to pronounce $my_last_name" and each result I checked mispronounced it the same way English speakers always mispronounce it.
- mnm1 8y ago
  Yeah seriously. Almost every single American mispronounces my name even after I say it multiple times. Hell, they mispronounce common, one syllable American names like "Lou" more than half the time. When I tell them my name is like another name they can pronounce except without the "o" at the end, they still can't pronounce it despite being able to pronounce my name with an "o" at the end. After three decades of this, I've given up trying to correct people, trying to go with the Americanized pronunciation, or even using my full name at all. It's pointless. Americans are simply incapable of pronouncing anything even remotely foreign even if I enunciate it for them. I don't even bother with my last name. However they say it is fine because it's always wrong. I would recommend people adopt very simple American nicknames if they move here like many Chinese do, even if the name seems like it would be easy to pronounce. There's just no hope in getting people to pronounce your name right. Or accept the American wrong pronunciation and go with that. I've used all these strategies at some point in my life so now I have three names.
  - kitten_mittens_ 8y ago
    Germans pronouncing my American first name is the same way. It's a boring common Old Testament name. German has all the phonemes they need to say it too, even if the vowel is off a bit. It's just something that happens, and I don't blame them for it after so long. I get the feeling that Anglicizing or Deutchifying names is universal.
    - mnm1 8y ago
      British people usually have no problem with my name. I guess my issue is that people don't even make an effort. It's one thing to Americanize the name when you've never heard it pronounced correctly, it's another to continue pronouncing it that way after you've heard the correct pronunciation. But yeah, I've given up on this long ago.
Grustaf 8y ago
Maybe it's just me but I don't understand this article, it doesn't seem to be related to getting a job, seems more like some random musings on hiring? As to saying thank you, that's not sycophantic, it's common courtesy. It's not that hard. Anyway, what's with the hangup on names lately in the "tech" community? Every other podcast I listen to people keep excusing themselves for "mispronouncing" peoples' names. Newsflash: unless your name is English, people are guaranteed to mispronounce your name. You know they don't speak your language, so how could you expect them to pronounce your name in your language? I have never ever had a foreigner pronounce my name correctly in my language, and it doesn't bother me at all. I would be extremely surprised if they did, and my name is just outside of the comfort-zone of English orthography. Could someone from the easily offended camp please explain your reasoning to me?
- dentemple 8y ago
  The polite thing to do, I think, is to ask how to pronounce their name at the start of the conversation. Or ask how they would prefer to be referred to. (Many of my asian relatives have an anglo pronounciation they'd be willing to offer).
  - Grustaf 8y ago
    Exactly, if you care about how people with other native languages pronounce your name, I feel that it's up to you to help them do that. Either by coming up with a more reasonable version of it or choosing some local name, like many Chinese do. When I lived in China I certainly didn't expect anyone to even come close to pronouncing my name in proper Swedish. That would have been absurd. My name is Gustaf and that simply can't be rendered in Chinese, so how would they be able to do it, even if they wanted to? Most people at my school ended up calling me Difdif.
    - dentemple 8y ago
      Yeah, but if others are just bulldozing through a pronunciation, they haven't actually given you the chance to help them with it. When exchanging the usual pleasantries, it's often the interviewer who is the first one to attempt the name, not the interviewee. If I were to answer my phone every time, "Hi, this Nguyen, my last name is pronounced pronounced S-- E--- O--- whatever", it would come off as a little odd. And possibly as annoyance or haughtiness on my part. All this goes to show that the "rules of politeness", themselves, are part of the secret hiring process.
pooya13 8y ago
It’s just lazy when the interviewer benchmarks the interviewe against their own knowledge. I was once interviewing for a QR position at a supposedly prestigious company and the guy was asking me questions such as “what is the latest MacOS version number?” What that tells me is that they promote on non relevant criteria so I declined their offer no matter how “competitive” their compensation was. On the other end of the spectrum I don’t understand why some ask questions such as: “If you were a ..., which ... would you be?” (E.g. candy bar, kitchen appliance, etc.)
MaulingMonkey 8y ago
I'm more than happy to send a thank you email... in response to one. Responding in kind is reasonable enough - social pleasantries exchanged between those who want them, skipped for the busy who would rather get down to business. If that disqualifies me from some jobs, that's a feature. Uneven expectations here comes across as demanding respect while showing none, which speaks poorly of the work environment. Hard pass.
jayalpha 8y ago
There are very few rules in getting hired. A few are: 1. First class people hire first class people. 2. Second class people hire third class people. 3. People like to hire people similar to themselves. 4. Not getting a job does not really say anything about you, but the guy they hired says a lot about the company. PS: 5. Most companies, when offered unexperienced talent and an experienced idiot, will hire the experienced idiot. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM and he had the experience on his resume.
- paulcole 8y ago
  6. People overestimate which category they fall in and everyone thinks they're an "A player."
  - tsukikage 8y ago
    It goes both ways: people may feel they have to say that in public, but impostor syndrome is also a thing.
- overgard 8y ago
  I don't really like the idea of A/B/C players. In my opinion context is king. Let's say you're a very creative person, you might struggle at a big shop where the hard problems are mostly solved and maintenance and teamwork are the main things which are valued. On the other hand, you might be excellent at a small company that's finding its way. Or vice versa -- some people really need the structure a more established company can offer. You even see this in CXX level positions. A person might be an excellent CEO for a company that's just starting, and a terrible CEO for a multibillion dollar established business. So a first class player in one context can easily be a third class person in another.
- taurath 8y ago
  On 5 - nowadays I’d probably look to get rid of someone who suggested IBM in most companies... that’s a decision made on a golf course that engineers quit over.
- andyidsinga 8y ago
esotericn 8y ago
I don't think that this sort of rant is useful. In everyday life people understand that there are individuals they won't get on with. Not everyone is going to be your friend. You don't want to be everyone's friend (if you do, that's an ephemeral state that will likely bite you eventually). When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the interviewer were different; etc; then it'd all be different, they'd get the job and live happily ever after. Realistically? You'd end up working with a bunch of people who at best make questionable business decisions; at worst are completely opposed to your personality and make work a hellish place to be. Maybe I'm missing something entirely and this is intended to be some bizarre sort of humour.
- pm90 8y ago
  > When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the interviewer were different; etc; then it'd all be different, they'd get the job and live happily ever after. I agree that you shouldn't hire people who may not be the right fit and whom you have reason to believe may not succeed or thrive on your team. However, it seems apparent that most people (and I would include myself) may not really be good judges of that. There may be things that are "Red Flags" or "something's off" to us, simply because of the way we were brought up (cultural differences), the way we speak etc. I guess what I'm saying is that in an increasingly diverse world, the markers of success that we look for (or conversely the markers of failure) may not be accurate and we thus miss out on candidates who might actually be a great fit. Personally, I used to judge interviewees pretty hard on the things I thought weren't appropriate, or things I considered unprofessional. But then I realized that isn't really my job as a technical interviewer. As long as the folks demonstrate the technical skills and a thirst for learning, that's good enough for me. Which isn't to say there aren't red flags. Lying for instance; pathological liars will totally wreck your organization.
- overgard 8y ago
  The interview techniques he's describing, IMO, aren't subjective. They're objectively not useful for determining if someone is a good candidate
brandonmenc 8y ago
>"If someone doesn't send a thank you email, don't hire them". I recently went through a short job search for programming work in Austin. I made it all the way to the final, on-site interview at three places before landing an offer. Every time I did not get an offer, I would get an email saying "thank you so much for your time, please reply with your concerns or questions!" And so, each time, I sent and email asking "what did I do wrong, and what could I improve?" making it very clear I was just looking for a quick, single sentence answer like "more github projects" or "you smell." I didn't get a single reply. Not one. After that, I quit playing the ultra polite send-a-thank-you for every single phone call or meeting I was graced with, and sure enough, I got a couple job offers after that. If anything, the whole experience convinced me that no one maybe outside of sales or filling an executive position really cares about this kind of business etiquette - either in giving it or receiving it.
- rhizome 8y ago
  After that, I quit playing the ultra polite send-a-thank-you for every single phone call or meeting I was graced with, and sure enough, I got a couple job offers after that. I wouldn't be surprised if deciding not to worry about details with unknowable significance and inconsistent response allowed you to relax a bit more in future interviews.
  - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
    Same trick worked for young me when I started dating...
    - meansSomething 8y ago
      Probably means trying to master that one little trick (interviewers hate him) is for the birds.
  - noitsnot 8y ago
    Confidence is key and they need to be selling themselves as much or more than you. You don't really need the job. If there is a way to swing disinterested interviewers is another story.
overgard 8y ago
It's almost not worth complaining about because of the ubiquitous of it, but I absolutely hate and make a point of never doing this if I'm interviewing someone: 1) Puzzle questions not related to the work they'd be doing. It's ok to have a somewhat puzzling geometry puzzle if they're doing, say, 3d work, but for a web dev? Etc. etc. 2) Coding on a white board. Can't you just setup a laptop in a conference room? Or have them bring in a laptop and show some of their work? Nobody ever codes on a white board!! Plus seeing them use a computer tells me way more. Can they type? That's important. I know some really good coders that can't type well, but it's more the exception than the rule. Do they know their tools well? Those things are all actually relevant to the work. Also here's the other thing: there's essentially no cost or barrier to writing code (IE, you're not using up precious materials or something), so I don't understand why employers want to PROJECT how someone MIGHT write code via puzzles and white board writing when they can literally just pair up and watch the person solve an actual real world problem on an actual computer, with google and stack overflow like they'd actually have access to, and then they don't need to project anything, because they know what it looks like when the person actually writes real world code! Spending a grand on a cheap laptop for this with a few software/IDE licenses is a lot cheaper than making a bad hire.
- IshKebab 8y ago
  I write code on a whiteboard, when discussing how to solve a problem with colleagues. Almost exactly like in an interview. Do people really not do this?
  - overgard 8y ago
    I have literally never done this in a job outside of interviews, and I haven't had anyone else do it either. They might draw class diagrams or concepts, but writing code by hand is error prone and pretty pointless. Regardless, most modern offices have a projector or a TV in conference rooms. I just don't understand why you'd use a white board when you can easily project a text editor. The problem with writing code in handwriting is you can't move it, so you have to do it all linearly. If you need to introduce a variable or a new scope it gets messy incredibly quickly. When I code I almost am never thinking linearly, and I'm constantly adding things above and below, and doing that on a white board is a NIGHTMARE.
fopen64 8y ago
I flip a bird every time I read about this subject. How did we allow the hiring process get such bizarre when we are the scarce resource?
- mistrial9 8y ago
  super trendy SF "hot" company with increasing investment.. word is that they are going through engineers left and right.. they do all the recruitment, get super-high octane output from the hires, and then dump them at the first error or problem.. no end of candidates for this company, is the second part, due to positioning and mission.. The ones that stay tend to be "pleasers" who will take this kind of treatment and perform.. rumors only ymmv
sametmax 8y ago
I think one mistake from the author is the believe that somehow, an interview process is supposed to be fair. It's not. Nature is not fair. School is not fair. Dating is not fair. And so on. We try to build fair societies, but right now, they are not. And interview processes are really, really unfair. Being disappointed they are not and writing a rant about how to them more fair is very naive. Interviews are most of the time social evaluations packed with negotiation. Very often, even the ones that pretend to be technical interviews. Why ? Because humans are imperfect and limited. Most interviewers are just not capable of an effective recruitment process, no matter how they believe they are, not to mention a fair one. So the advice to send here is not "make your recruitment process better". People that are able to will, and don't need this article to do so. People that can won't, and the article won't change their mind. No, the advice is to the people looking for a job: don't take it personally, randomness takes big role in the process. But if you want to maximize your chances, you need to work on your social skills. Especially the ones that make them feel good about the interview, and value you. You need technical skills to be good at your job. To be able to apply at high skill ones, to network with people with alike skills, to have fun, to negociate money. But to nail the interview, you need more.
- simondedalus 8y ago
  "Don't do that. A job interview is a structured process designed to let you consistently evaluate multiple candidates. If you are asking each candidate different questions, that's not a fair test." if this is the thing you're responding to, you're misunderstanding the post entirely. "fair test" here is not about morals, it's about results. if i want to evaluate 2 candidates, i want the test to be as "fair" as possible so that i have the most relevant, fine grained information as possible. i want to render the candidates commensurable so i can make a better decision for my own purposes. "life's not fair" in this context sounds like some kind of systems pessimism. it sounds like you're saying "stuff doesn't work." but of course it does. of course asking this question and not that question gives me more relevant hiring information. it's totally insane to think otherwise.
aboutruby 8y ago
The "thank you" emails seems to be a tradition/expectation of the classic corporate culture where the employer has a extreme amount of candidates for each opening and each candidate must please the interviewer at all cost. (e.g. a extreme imbalance in power between employer/candidate). Quite contrary to the "startup" culture where there is a limited amount of candidates for each opening and where it's acknowledged that candidates might get multiple offers (e.g. a more balanced employer/candidate power)
elamje 8y ago
One must learn that there are very few "rules" to anything in life. You must be skeptical that a person sharing their "rules" has a major experiential, interest driven ruleset they are trying to project onto every other domain.
test6554 8y ago
I always send a thank you letter to anyone who interviews me. This includes the person from HR, their hiring manager, and anybody else who was in the room whose email I can get.
Madmallard 8y ago
It is definitely about attitude and if you can convey yourself from the perspective that they'd be lucky to have you, only serious issues needing fixing will do you in.
alkonaut 8y ago
What’s this thing about the thank you emails? Thank who? When? Do people send thank you emails after going to an interview but before they are offered/not offered the job? Or when is it? And why?
pascalxus 8y ago
At first I thought this article was for job seekers but actually it's for those hungering. These are some great tips for companies highering
ezoe 8y ago
> "When interviewing, I go for lunch with the candidate. I ask the waiter to subtly get their order wrong. A great test of the interviewee's character!" I'll silently pass such a company because I cannot stand working with psychopass. > "We always leave candidates waiting half an hour before calling them in. How do they cope with delays?" That is a traditional technique for fraud. Getting them tired and lose the decision making ability. If not, the company are horrible at time-keeping. Not worth it.
alexeiz 8y ago
> "The whole team thought you were great. You were probably the strongest candidate overall, but we were looking for someone with experience in XYZ." That happened to me. I suspect the experience requirement somehow changed during the interview process. So at the end of the multi-week interview process they realized they were looking for something different than what was listed on the position requirements. I'm not very upset about it. The time was wasted, sure. But I made some connections that may help later.

190 points by edent 8y ago

I totally agree that these rules are absolute BS. The goal of a job interview for me used to be twofold: Can the candidate do the job? Would I want to work with the candidate? Unfortunately, I have got the second one wrong as often as not in the past, so now I just try to find anything that would mean that I wouldn't want to work with the candidate, in other words, are there any red flags? If there aren't then that's good enough.

vlehto 8y ago
Could you share some typical red flags?
- reallydontask 8y ago
  I can't say they are typical, but we've had two candidates become somewhat agitated when challenged about their experience, e.g. you said you were a developer for 2 years at company X but it seems that you mostly did support. This resulted in a tirade about job titles. Another red flag for me is when candidates are asked about their level of expertise on a scale of 1 to 10 on a technology and they reply with anything above 7. Statistically there are people that are going to be able to claim 8 or above out 10 on any technology, they just probably can command a higher salary that the company I work wishes to offer (we put salary ranges on our job ads), which means that they are exaggerating, can't judge their skills (either because of self delusion or because they just think the technology doesn't have that much more to offer) or worse lying. The thing is we were asking this to be able to tailor the questions that we would ask. No point in asking somebody who says their skill level in sql is 2 about pivot tables.
  - alexeiz 8y ago
    The expertise scale level question is bogus. You'll get people with low expertise who believe their level is high because they think that's all there is to know about a technology (advanced beginners), while experienced people would rate themselves lower because they realize how much they don't know yet. And also there will be those who correctly estimate their level as average. Everybody's scale is different. You can't reliably distinguish those groups.

curuinor 8y ago

This is all expressions of power. It won't be overcome until interviewees get leverage and express it. By the structure of the thing they never get leverage, so it will continue because it can.

vegetablepotpie 8y ago
The leverage interviewers have is that they know if the candidate can't find a job, that at some point the candidate won't be able to afford rent/mortgage, food, clothing etc. That's a desperate position for a candidate to be in and it puts employers in a position of absolute power. With that type of game it's inevitable that you will see anti-social interview techniques. It would be a sign of high character if an interviewer didn't power trip over a candidate. The changes that would alter that dynamic is either that society should find it acceptable for people to live out of a tent and ask for donations from strangers or guarantee basic needs to all its members. Both of which are socially and politically untenable because it would disrupt the power structure of those well regarded and politically connected business that benefit. So I expect zero change on this issue in perpetuity.
- blfr 8y ago
  The third option is a tight job market. This is undermined by mass immigration, criticism of which is fought by the establishment even harder than basic income.
akvadrako 8y ago
Interviewees have all the power - they can just not work for you. Unless you are hiring desperate people.

sunseb 8y ago

I don't want to work for someone that tries to trick me! And if I had to hire a developer, I would want someone with great coding skills, not someone that makes a good impression at an interview.

Carpetsmoker 8y ago
Some people have great coding skills, but are right assholes or otherwise seriously toxic. You definitely need to look for more than just "great coding skills" if you want to hire great employees.
- cgriswald 8y ago
  Sure, but I don't think "making a good impression in an interview" has a very strong correlation with whether someone is a "right asshole or otherwise seriously toxic." Plenty of decent people don't interview well, and plenty of assholes can put on 'interview face' to get a job.
  - borski 8y ago
    Most assholes are thinly veiled in an interview. Decent people are nervous, and that’s okay - it’s usually pretty clear. Assholes are trying /hard/ not to come off as such, so when the interviewer inevitably challenges them on a piece of code or their background, they usually end up showing their true colors, at least in my experience.
    - autotune 8y ago
      That’s funny because the last bit of feedback I received on an interview that was supposed to be a “preemptive yes” is that I was “a bit nervous” and they wanted to interview more candidates before making a decision. Sometimes you just can’t win.
  - Carpetsmoker 8y ago
    There is probably no fool-proof method to weed out these people – just as there is no fool-proof method to weed out non-great programmers – but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

deleted 8y ago

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wallflower 8y ago

And then you have the famous Liar’s Poker interview question: > Investment bankers had a technique known as the stress interview. If you were invited to Lehman’s New York offices, your first interview might begin with the interviewer asking you to open the window. You were on the forty-third floor overlooking Water Street. The window was sealed shut. That was, of course, the point. The interviewer just wanted to see whether your inability to comply with his request led you to yank, pull, and sweat until finally you melted into a puddle of foiled ambition. Or, as one sad applicant was rumored to have done, threw a chair through the window.

Carpetsmoker 8y ago
Was the point to test if people realized the windows were sealed shut, or to test that they would persevere anyway?
0db532a0 8y ago
Did he get the job?
- koonsolo 8y ago
  Of course, he gets the job done no matter what.
mistrial9 8y ago
younger versions of those same guys have hazings, too
masonic 8y ago
This reminds me of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru

open-source-ux 8y ago

"A job interview isn't a set of trick questions" This reminds me of this old BBC comedy sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHy06FMsezI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHy06FMsezI

rzzzt 8y ago
The job interview sketch from "How to irritate people" is my personal favorite.
kolanos 8y ago
John Cleese had a sketch in a similar vein [0]. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4iFzweRf3E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4iFzweRf3E Eddit: Another comment beat me to it, but provided link for posterity.
mips_avatar 8y ago
This is exactly what those dumb interview tricks are like.

partisan 8y ago

At my last job, my manager “tricked” me during the interview. Apparently, he wanted to see how I dealt with criticism. At least that is how the recruiter justified it when I expressed my dissatisfaction with the experience and my hesitation about working for that person. That manager ended up being all about power trips and it made for a very toxic culture in his team and in interactions with others outside of the team. I left after less than a year despite not having a job lined up. The only bright side is having found a position at a place that is the complete opposite.

deleted 8y ago

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ilaksh 8y ago

This type of thing is a red flag and allows you to weed out companies that would be bad places to work. Of course its a problem if you are actually running low on money and need to find a job soon because that might tempt you to try to work there even though you can tell some of them may be jerks.

dannykwells 8y ago

While in general I agree, I understand the motivation behind these questions. Most jobs require more than just technical skills. They require and ability to think laterally, be independent, work on a team, etc. etc. Questions such as "tell me about a time when" are a reasonable way to assess some of these traits but also are not direct and have their own issues. As long as interviews are consistent and polite I think it's reasonable to push candidates in non traditional ways to understand if they have the soft skills required for a role.

axle334 8y ago

These "rules" miss the big picture. People react in certain ways for entirely different reasons. Example: Recruiter mispronounces my name. I don't say anything. This can be because: 1) I'm a coward. 2) I don't care. 3) I care and am not a coward, but think it would be petty to interrupt the conversation to point this out. 4) I'm overly practical and don't care about this kind of details. 5) I think the other person may feel bad if I correct them. 6) I accept that people make sometimes mistakes. Maybe I'll point it out if they do it 3 times or more. Etc. Which is it? You'd have to know the person better to know. Even if the person is just a coward, this could be based on specific traumatic experiences other persons didn't have and which affect only minimally the rest of the personality. Same applies to thank you emails, coming late to the interview etc. With such subtle situations, you need to know _why_ somebody act the way they did, and without knowing the person, which you usually don't, when interviewing, you just can't. These are just BS rules with which recruiters try to make their work easier. Similar to Codility & co. tests for software developers. Well, bad news, recruiting is hard. You'll have to take the time to listen to and think about your candidates.

yial 8y ago
I agree about the name mispronouncing thing. My first name is very easily mispronounced for most people. Even when they’ve just heard me pronounce it for some reason. I usually don’t bother correcting people unless they ask— and even if they do I usually tell them it’s truly not a big deal, and they can call me whatever they would like. (I say / word this in a way that makes sure it’s humorous).
cgriswald 8y ago
Indeed. My last name is not pronounced correctly by English speakers (even when they assume the name is French, which it isn't). Only twice has someone interviewing me gotten it correct, and in both cases it turns out they knew a distant relative of mine. I only bother correcting people when we are going to have a lasting relationship. In an interview? We aren't there yet. I have no idea how this would even play out for "Bob Anderson." "When interviewing, I go for lunch with the candidate. I ask the waiter to subtly get their order wrong. A great test of the interviewee's character!" Or the waiter's character. "We always leave candidates waiting half an hour before calling them in. How do they cope with delays?" I cope with delays of longer than 15 minutes by first trying to communicate about the delay and then by leaving. Dear recruiter, what do you think that says about me? If I find out a recruiter has intentionally done any of these, the interview is over. I'm looking for a good fit. Duplicity, manipulation, lack of integrity... these are not qualities that ingratiate me to anyone. Some people might say, "Well, yeah, but you can afford to do that. Not everyone can." But I did it when I couldn't afford to do it too. Perhaps not surprisingly, most of my employers have been awesome.

chaseha 8y ago

There are lots of issues with traditional hiring approaches - would recommend looking into Performance-Based Hiring if you are a hiring manager looking to improve your process and outcomes

chiefalchemist 8y ago

From what I've seen and experienced most people doing the hiring are clueless. What's worse is most of them are insane. That is, they keep doing the same but expect different results. Personally, I still shocked - and am mindful of the red flag - when they don't realize I'm interviewing them as much as they are interviewing me.

max76 8y ago
I'm a software engineer that's been involved in hiring decisions in the past. When we make a bad hire we do a post-mortem just like we would for a critical production bug. We adjust the interview process or evaluation criteria every time a bad hire is made. We also give the same interview for every role. We spend 80% of the time asking the same questions, and leave 20% of the time for the free flow conversation and interviewee questions.
- SpicyLemonZest 8y ago
  I've seen that kind of thing too. What I've never seen, and what the article is focused on, is a serious correction for failures to hire. It seems like most companies would rather slowly strangle their hiring pipeline than tell people "your dealbreakers are dumb and you're no longer allowed to use them".
- itronitron 8y ago
  Do you include the 'bad hire' in the post mortem as well?
  - max76 8y ago
    We do exit interviews, which is reviewed in the post mortem. Failure is defined as a hire that lasts less than one year.
- koonsolo 8y ago
  Aren't you afraid that you focus too much on avoiding the bad ones, and not on trying to hire the top ones? You cannot do a postmortem for failing to hire top talent, because you will never know. What I want to say is that a bad hire is probably less important than missing out on a top candidate. Because you can always fire as soon as you find out. The other error cannot be corrected.

danso 8y ago

FWIW, the author (exec managing editor of Insider) of the "thank you email" blog post shared it on Twitter, and has received a large and largely negative response: https://twitter.com/jessicaliebman/status/1114160523581501440 https://twitter.com/jessicaliebman/status/111416052358150144...

dentemple 8y ago
When the highest reply is a firm rebuttal from Scott Hanselman, you're probably on the wrong side of the argument.

gumby 8y ago

> "The whole team thought you were great. You were probably the strongest candidate overall, but we were looking for someone with experience in XYZ." Wow, my GF just related this to me literally last week. She liked the team she interviewed with as well. (I'm relieved actually as she got a job offer in hand for a place much closer to home).

Grustaf 8y ago
If you have a skill that might be relevant to the company you're applying to, wouldn't it be in your best interest to emphasize that? Sure, recruiters are often quite clueless, but that's just how it is, so we have to increase our chances given the circumstances.
- gumby 8y ago
  You don't always know what skills are appropriate -- that's part of the purpose of the interview, for you to learn what the job, team, and company are like.
jimmydddd 8y ago
I think sometimes the HR person just makes up a reason. It's counter-productive to read too much into it. One time I was told I was great, but they needed someone with XYZ experience. It was very important. They ended up hiring my friend, who had even less XYZ experience than I did.
- itronitron 8y ago
  Yeah, I could see the HR person just reaching the conclusion on their own that the candidate must not have XYZ since the team chose not to hire them.

cgriswald 8y ago

> Why would people want to work in such a homogeneous culture? Why would they want to work for someone who couldn't even be bothered to search the web for "How to pronounce Nguyen"? Hilariously, I did a search for "How to pronounce $my_last_name" and each result I checked mispronounced it the same way English speakers always mispronounce it.

mnm1 8y ago
Yeah seriously. Almost every single American mispronounces my name even after I say it multiple times. Hell, they mispronounce common, one syllable American names like "Lou" more than half the time. When I tell them my name is like another name they can pronounce except without the "o" at the end, they still can't pronounce it despite being able to pronounce my name with an "o" at the end. After three decades of this, I've given up trying to correct people, trying to go with the Americanized pronunciation, or even using my full name at all. It's pointless. Americans are simply incapable of pronouncing anything even remotely foreign even if I enunciate it for them. I don't even bother with my last name. However they say it is fine because it's always wrong. I would recommend people adopt very simple American nicknames if they move here like many Chinese do, even if the name seems like it would be easy to pronounce. There's just no hope in getting people to pronounce your name right. Or accept the American wrong pronunciation and go with that. I've used all these strategies at some point in my life so now I have three names.
- kitten_mittens_ 8y ago
  Germans pronouncing my American first name is the same way. It's a boring common Old Testament name. German has all the phonemes they need to say it too, even if the vowel is off a bit. It's just something that happens, and I don't blame them for it after so long. I get the feeling that Anglicizing or Deutchifying names is universal.
  - mnm1 8y ago
    British people usually have no problem with my name. I guess my issue is that people don't even make an effort. It's one thing to Americanize the name when you've never heard it pronounced correctly, it's another to continue pronouncing it that way after you've heard the correct pronunciation. But yeah, I've given up on this long ago.

Grustaf 8y ago

Maybe it's just me but I don't understand this article, it doesn't seem to be related to getting a job, seems more like some random musings on hiring? As to saying thank you, that's not sycophantic, it's common courtesy. It's not that hard. Anyway, what's with the hangup on names lately in the "tech" community? Every other podcast I listen to people keep excusing themselves for "mispronouncing" peoples' names. Newsflash: unless your name is English, people are guaranteed to mispronounce your name. You know they don't speak your language, so how could you expect them to pronounce your name in your language? I have never ever had a foreigner pronounce my name correctly in my language, and it doesn't bother me at all. I would be extremely surprised if they did, and my name is just outside of the comfort-zone of English orthography. Could someone from the easily offended camp please explain your reasoning to me?

dentemple 8y ago
The polite thing to do, I think, is to ask how to pronounce their name at the start of the conversation. Or ask how they would prefer to be referred to. (Many of my asian relatives have an anglo pronounciation they'd be willing to offer).
- Grustaf 8y ago
  Exactly, if you care about how people with other native languages pronounce your name, I feel that it's up to you to help them do that. Either by coming up with a more reasonable version of it or choosing some local name, like many Chinese do. When I lived in China I certainly didn't expect anyone to even come close to pronouncing my name in proper Swedish. That would have been absurd. My name is Gustaf and that simply can't be rendered in Chinese, so how would they be able to do it, even if they wanted to? Most people at my school ended up calling me Difdif.
  - dentemple 8y ago
    Yeah, but if others are just bulldozing through a pronunciation, they haven't actually given you the chance to help them with it. When exchanging the usual pleasantries, it's often the interviewer who is the first one to attempt the name, not the interviewee. If I were to answer my phone every time, "Hi, this Nguyen, my last name is pronounced pronounced S-- E--- O--- whatever", it would come off as a little odd. And possibly as annoyance or haughtiness on my part. All this goes to show that the "rules of politeness", themselves, are part of the secret hiring process.

pooya13 8y ago

It’s just lazy when the interviewer benchmarks the interviewe against their own knowledge. I was once interviewing for a QR position at a supposedly prestigious company and the guy was asking me questions such as “what is the latest MacOS version number?” What that tells me is that they promote on non relevant criteria so I declined their offer no matter how “competitive” their compensation was. On the other end of the spectrum I don’t understand why some ask questions such as: “If you were a ..., which ... would you be?” (E.g. candy bar, kitchen appliance, etc.)

MaulingMonkey 8y ago

I'm more than happy to send a thank you email... in response to one. Responding in kind is reasonable enough - social pleasantries exchanged between those who want them, skipped for the busy who would rather get down to business. If that disqualifies me from some jobs, that's a feature. Uneven expectations here comes across as demanding respect while showing none, which speaks poorly of the work environment. Hard pass.

jayalpha 8y ago

There are very few rules in getting hired. A few are: 1. First class people hire first class people. 2. Second class people hire third class people. 3. People like to hire people similar to themselves. 4. Not getting a job does not really say anything about you, but the guy they hired says a lot about the company. PS: 5. Most companies, when offered unexperienced talent and an experienced idiot, will hire the experienced idiot. Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM and he had the experience on his resume.

paulcole 8y ago
6. People overestimate which category they fall in and everyone thinks they're an "A player."
- tsukikage 8y ago
  It goes both ways: people may feel they have to say that in public, but impostor syndrome is also a thing.
overgard 8y ago
I don't really like the idea of A/B/C players. In my opinion context is king. Let's say you're a very creative person, you might struggle at a big shop where the hard problems are mostly solved and maintenance and teamwork are the main things which are valued. On the other hand, you might be excellent at a small company that's finding its way. Or vice versa -- some people really need the structure a more established company can offer. You even see this in CXX level positions. A person might be an excellent CEO for a company that's just starting, and a terrible CEO for a multibillion dollar established business. So a first class player in one context can easily be a third class person in another.
taurath 8y ago
On 5 - nowadays I’d probably look to get rid of someone who suggested IBM in most companies... that’s a decision made on a golf course that engineers quit over.
andyidsinga 8y ago

esotericn 8y ago

I don't think that this sort of rant is useful. In everyday life people understand that there are individuals they won't get on with. Not everyone is going to be your friend. You don't want to be everyone's friend (if you do, that's an ephemeral state that will likely bite you eventually). When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the interviewer were different; etc; then it'd all be different, they'd get the job and live happily ever after. Realistically? You'd end up working with a bunch of people who at best make questionable business decisions; at worst are completely opposed to your personality and make work a hellish place to be. Maybe I'm missing something entirely and this is intended to be some bizarre sort of humour.

pm90 8y ago
> When it comes to careers I often see expressed on here the attitude that somehow if the interview process were better; if the interviewer were different; etc; then it'd all be different, they'd get the job and live happily ever after. I agree that you shouldn't hire people who may not be the right fit and whom you have reason to believe may not succeed or thrive on your team. However, it seems apparent that most people (and I would include myself) may not really be good judges of that. There may be things that are "Red Flags" or "something's off" to us, simply because of the way we were brought up (cultural differences), the way we speak etc. I guess what I'm saying is that in an increasingly diverse world, the markers of success that we look for (or conversely the markers of failure) may not be accurate and we thus miss out on candidates who might actually be a great fit. Personally, I used to judge interviewees pretty hard on the things I thought weren't appropriate, or things I considered unprofessional. But then I realized that isn't really my job as a technical interviewer. As long as the folks demonstrate the technical skills and a thirst for learning, that's good enough for me. Which isn't to say there aren't red flags. Lying for instance; pathological liars will totally wreck your organization.
overgard 8y ago
The interview techniques he's describing, IMO, aren't subjective. They're objectively not useful for determining if someone is a good candidate

brandonmenc 8y ago

>"If someone doesn't send a thank you email, don't hire them". I recently went through a short job search for programming work in Austin. I made it all the way to the final, on-site interview at three places before landing an offer. Every time I did not get an offer, I would get an email saying "thank you so much for your time, please reply with your concerns or questions!" And so, each time, I sent and email asking "what did I do wrong, and what could I improve?" making it very clear I was just looking for a quick, single sentence answer like "more github projects" or "you smell." I didn't get a single reply. Not one. After that, I quit playing the ultra polite send-a-thank-you for every single phone call or meeting I was graced with, and sure enough, I got a couple job offers after that. If anything, the whole experience convinced me that no one maybe outside of sales or filling an executive position really cares about this kind of business etiquette - either in giving it or receiving it.

rhizome 8y ago
After that, I quit playing the ultra polite send-a-thank-you for every single phone call or meeting I was graced with, and sure enough, I got a couple job offers after that. I wouldn't be surprised if deciding not to worry about details with unknowable significance and inconsistent response allowed you to relax a bit more in future interviews.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  Same trick worked for young me when I started dating...
  - meansSomething 8y ago
    Probably means trying to master that one little trick (interviewers hate him) is for the birds.
- noitsnot 8y ago
  Confidence is key and they need to be selling themselves as much or more than you. You don't really need the job. If there is a way to swing disinterested interviewers is another story.

overgard 8y ago

It's almost not worth complaining about because of the ubiquitous of it, but I absolutely hate and make a point of never doing this if I'm interviewing someone: 1) Puzzle questions not related to the work they'd be doing. It's ok to have a somewhat puzzling geometry puzzle if they're doing, say, 3d work, but for a web dev? Etc. etc. 2) Coding on a white board. Can't you just setup a laptop in a conference room? Or have them bring in a laptop and show some of their work? Nobody ever codes on a white board!! Plus seeing them use a computer tells me way more. Can they type? That's important. I know some really good coders that can't type well, but it's more the exception than the rule. Do they know their tools well? Those things are all actually relevant to the work. Also here's the other thing: there's essentially no cost or barrier to writing code (IE, you're not using up precious materials or something), so I don't understand why employers want to PROJECT how someone MIGHT write code via puzzles and white board writing when they can literally just pair up and watch the person solve an actual real world problem on an actual computer, with google and stack overflow like they'd actually have access to, and then they don't need to project anything, because they know what it looks like when the person actually writes real world code! Spending a grand on a cheap laptop for this with a few software/IDE licenses is a lot cheaper than making a bad hire.

IshKebab 8y ago
I write code on a whiteboard, when discussing how to solve a problem with colleagues. Almost exactly like in an interview. Do people really not do this?
- overgard 8y ago
  I have literally never done this in a job outside of interviews, and I haven't had anyone else do it either. They might draw class diagrams or concepts, but writing code by hand is error prone and pretty pointless. Regardless, most modern offices have a projector or a TV in conference rooms. I just don't understand why you'd use a white board when you can easily project a text editor. The problem with writing code in handwriting is you can't move it, so you have to do it all linearly. If you need to introduce a variable or a new scope it gets messy incredibly quickly. When I code I almost am never thinking linearly, and I'm constantly adding things above and below, and doing that on a white board is a NIGHTMARE.

fopen64 8y ago

I flip a bird every time I read about this subject. How did we allow the hiring process get such bizarre when we are the scarce resource?

mistrial9 8y ago
super trendy SF "hot" company with increasing investment.. word is that they are going through engineers left and right.. they do all the recruitment, get super-high octane output from the hires, and then dump them at the first error or problem.. no end of candidates for this company, is the second part, due to positioning and mission.. The ones that stay tend to be "pleasers" who will take this kind of treatment and perform.. rumors only ymmv

sametmax 8y ago

I think one mistake from the author is the believe that somehow, an interview process is supposed to be fair. It's not. Nature is not fair. School is not fair. Dating is not fair. And so on. We try to build fair societies, but right now, they are not. And interview processes are really, really unfair. Being disappointed they are not and writing a rant about how to them more fair is very naive. Interviews are most of the time social evaluations packed with negotiation. Very often, even the ones that pretend to be technical interviews. Why ? Because humans are imperfect and limited. Most interviewers are just not capable of an effective recruitment process, no matter how they believe they are, not to mention a fair one. So the advice to send here is not "make your recruitment process better". People that are able to will, and don't need this article to do so. People that can won't, and the article won't change their mind. No, the advice is to the people looking for a job: don't take it personally, randomness takes big role in the process. But if you want to maximize your chances, you need to work on your social skills. Especially the ones that make them feel good about the interview, and value you. You need technical skills to be good at your job. To be able to apply at high skill ones, to network with people with alike skills, to have fun, to negociate money. But to nail the interview, you need more.

simondedalus 8y ago
"Don't do that. A job interview is a structured process designed to let you consistently evaluate multiple candidates. If you are asking each candidate different questions, that's not a fair test." if this is the thing you're responding to, you're misunderstanding the post entirely. "fair test" here is not about morals, it's about results. if i want to evaluate 2 candidates, i want the test to be as "fair" as possible so that i have the most relevant, fine grained information as possible. i want to render the candidates commensurable so i can make a better decision for my own purposes. "life's not fair" in this context sounds like some kind of systems pessimism. it sounds like you're saying "stuff doesn't work." but of course it does. of course asking this question and not that question gives me more relevant hiring information. it's totally insane to think otherwise.

aboutruby 8y ago

The "thank you" emails seems to be a tradition/expectation of the classic corporate culture where the employer has a extreme amount of candidates for each opening and each candidate must please the interviewer at all cost. (e.g. a extreme imbalance in power between employer/candidate). Quite contrary to the "startup" culture where there is a limited amount of candidates for each opening and where it's acknowledged that candidates might get multiple offers (e.g. a more balanced employer/candidate power)

elamje 8y ago

One must learn that there are very few "rules" to anything in life. You must be skeptical that a person sharing their "rules" has a major experiential, interest driven ruleset they are trying to project onto every other domain.

test6554 8y ago

I always send a thank you letter to anyone who interviews me. This includes the person from HR, their hiring manager, and anybody else who was in the room whose email I can get.

Madmallard 8y ago

It is definitely about attitude and if you can convey yourself from the perspective that they'd be lucky to have you, only serious issues needing fixing will do you in.

alkonaut 8y ago

What’s this thing about the thank you emails? Thank who? When? Do people send thank you emails after going to an interview but before they are offered/not offered the job? Or when is it? And why?

pascalxus 8y ago

At first I thought this article was for job seekers but actually it's for those hungering. These are some great tips for companies highering

ezoe 8y ago

> "When interviewing, I go for lunch with the candidate. I ask the waiter to subtly get their order wrong. A great test of the interviewee's character!" I'll silently pass such a company because I cannot stand working with psychopass. > "We always leave candidates waiting half an hour before calling them in. How do they cope with delays?" That is a traditional technique for fraud. Getting them tired and lose the decision making ability. If not, the company are horrible at time-keeping. Not worth it.

alexeiz 8y ago

> "The whole team thought you were great. You were probably the strongest candidate overall, but we were looking for someone with experience in XYZ." That happened to me. I suspect the experience requirement somehow changed during the interview process. So at the end of the multi-week interview process they realized they were looking for something different than what was listed on the position requirements. I'm not very upset about it. The time was wasted, sure. But I made some connections that may help later.