5 ms·

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usual

> You took out the time to go to some office. How about a phone call or a quick email to ask what is their hiring process, what is the work and how it is usually fulfill? In the current market you are not a seller, you are the buyer. Why should I consider working for you?

ivan_gammel 7y ago
In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.
- rightbyte 7y ago
  On a first date you don't do boring everyday stuff becouse you don't want to spend time on that. My experience is that hireing descicion is so noisy that there are no reason to invest too much since the rate of sucess is barely increased anyway. The more picky the employer seems the less reason to apply. It might be a internal candidate allready chosen or they are just hoarding resumés to keep recruiters occipied. The decision is allready made from the from the first minutes ... but you can ruin it of course.
- matwood 7y ago
  > If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right I don't think memorization of an algorithm is what should make a senior level candidate stand out. Senior people need to be able to lead, mentor, self manage (this is a huge one IMO), and understand the bigger picture. "How do we avoid having to balance this tree at all?"
  - davnicwil 7y ago
    This is brilliant! The role of the senior Engineer isn't to tell you how to balance the tree. You, or anyone you instruct to, can simply ask google that or use a library. Their role is to ask why we need to balance the tree. You very definitely can't ask google that, and that's why you need to hire a senior Engineer.
  - ivan_gammel 7y ago
    It’s one of the ways, for sure. But it is really interesting to me how a person without deep knowledge of fundamentals can lead or mentor anyone while being on a non-management position? They are supposed to gain authority from their professionalism, but without theoretical knowledge they won’t be able to justify their decisions, and then what? What exactly they can teach anyone?
    - imhoguy 7y ago
      As a senior/lead developer with years of broad experience you don't need to remember details of every algorithm in existence. But you should keep information scrap in your head to guide you or your apprentice to relevant source of information. "Hi <dev name>! I think we may need to optimize memory consumption of this distinct element counting code a bit; I remember there is some HyperLogLog algorithm which should help here... let's check how it goes... (reading Wikipedia page)[0]" [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperLogLog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperLogLog
wycy 7y ago
Do you take this approach for jobs to which you actively applied in the first place, or only jobs for which they reached out to you first? I'm with your comment's parent: I don't think I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview either, especially for a job I applied to first.
- aloisdg 7y ago
  The last time I applied to a company, I ask them all of this. Something in those lines "Hello, I use your product FooBarTools everyday and it help me a lot. I really like it. It is nice piece of software. bla bla bla. I see that you have some opening positions in your careers page. bla bla bla. I would love to be a part of the improvement of FooBarTools. bla bla. What is your hiring process? What do you expect a senior/midlevel/junior should be able to do? bla bla. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day." For company who reach me, it is mandatory.
  - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    Ya I get emails like this coming in from my contact form too. Honestly though it's very hard to distinguish real ones from spam so I never respond. I'm not sure this is the best approach...
- ScottFree 7y ago
  > I don't think I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview either, especially for a job I applied to first. Have you no common courtesy? I terminate the process as soon as I find out I'm not a good fit for the company or vice versa, no matter who initiated first. Continuing with an interview when I'm sure I'm going to decline is just wasting everybody's time.
  - Zenbit_UX 7y ago
    Maybe, but from a self serving standpoint acquiring multiple offers drastically helps your negotiating position.
    - 7y ago

ivan_gammel 7y ago

In the current market there’s abundance of junior or mid-level developers from body shops applying to senior level positions. If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right, why someone would care hiring you? I can tell you plenty of stories about people who had impressive background and great soft skills, but in the end barely can do their job.

rightbyte 7y ago
On a first date you don't do boring everyday stuff becouse you don't want to spend time on that. My experience is that hireing descicion is so noisy that there are no reason to invest too much since the rate of sucess is barely increased anyway. The more picky the employer seems the less reason to apply. It might be a internal candidate allready chosen or they are just hoarding resumés to keep recruiters occipied. The decision is allready made from the from the first minutes ... but you can ruin it of course.
matwood 7y ago
> If you cannot stand from this crowd and shine by balancing the tree right I don't think memorization of an algorithm is what should make a senior level candidate stand out. Senior people need to be able to lead, mentor, self manage (this is a huge one IMO), and understand the bigger picture. "How do we avoid having to balance this tree at all?"
- davnicwil 7y ago
  This is brilliant! The role of the senior Engineer isn't to tell you how to balance the tree. You, or anyone you instruct to, can simply ask google that or use a library. Their role is to ask why we need to balance the tree. You very definitely can't ask google that, and that's why you need to hire a senior Engineer.
- ivan_gammel 7y ago
  It’s one of the ways, for sure. But it is really interesting to me how a person without deep knowledge of fundamentals can lead or mentor anyone while being on a non-management position? They are supposed to gain authority from their professionalism, but without theoretical knowledge they won’t be able to justify their decisions, and then what? What exactly they can teach anyone?
  - imhoguy 7y ago
    As a senior/lead developer with years of broad experience you don't need to remember details of every algorithm in existence. But you should keep information scrap in your head to guide you or your apprentice to relevant source of information. "Hi <dev name>! I think we may need to optimize memory consumption of this distinct element counting code a bit; I remember there is some HyperLogLog algorithm which should help here... let's check how it goes... (reading Wikipedia page)[0]" [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperLogLog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperLogLog

wycy 7y ago

Do you take this approach for jobs to which you actively applied in the first place, or only jobs for which they reached out to you first? I'm with your comment's parent: I don't think I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview either, especially for a job I applied to first.

aloisdg 7y ago
The last time I applied to a company, I ask them all of this. Something in those lines "Hello, I use your product FooBarTools everyday and it help me a lot. I really like it. It is nice piece of software. bla bla bla. I see that you have some opening positions in your careers page. bla bla bla. I would love to be a part of the improvement of FooBarTools. bla bla. What is your hiring process? What do you expect a senior/midlevel/junior should be able to do? bla bla. Thank you for your time. Have a nice day." For company who reach me, it is mandatory.
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  Ya I get emails like this coming in from my contact form too. Honestly though it's very hard to distinguish real ones from spam so I never respond. I'm not sure this is the best approach...
ScottFree 7y ago
> I don't think I'd have the guts to walk out of an interview either, especially for a job I applied to first. Have you no common courtesy? I terminate the process as soon as I find out I'm not a good fit for the company or vice versa, no matter who initiated first. Continuing with an interview when I'm sure I'm going to decline is just wasting everybody's time.
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  Maybe, but from a self serving standpoint acquiring multiple offers drastically helps your negotiating position.
  - 7y ago