5 ms·

Going through this latest round of job searching, rapport building/interview success has been so much more difficult over zoom/etc. It makes me wonder how much

Going through this latest round of job searching, rapport building/interview success has been so much more difficult over zoom/etc. It makes me wonder how much of my past success has been from being a tall-ish, attractive-but-not-so-much-it's-threatening, pleasingly built dude, instead of my apparent technical competence. All of my non-verbal rapport building skills really fall flat, and the fact that I'm bumbling, a little haphazard, kind of anxious is less charming quirk and more off putting anti-feature. I'm really pretty good at Scala, though.

kepler1 6y ago
Photographic evidence is required to back up such bold claims lol.
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  I mean, this isn't really about my looks per se, just the growing sense that I've been the beneficiary of positive discrimination to give anecdotal corroboration to the study. That said, people have repeatedly told me I look like Jude Law and Tobey Maguire. I have repeatedly been a focus of group discussion among strangers, "which celebrity does this guy look like?" Strangers also ask "Do I know you from somewhere?" No, I'm just pleasing to look at in a familiar, trustworthy sort of way. In my teens/early 20s was so common for women to approach me and tell me I have beautiful eyes that I didn't realize they were expressing interest. At my first programming job, a chinese woman came up to me and haltingly said (yes, this was a programming joke): "your eyes are so captivating, like a python's." I said thank you. She blushed and rushed away. My control here is that my weight fluctuates between 150-180, though, and when I'm heavier and I don't shave, the attention vanishes. Humans are just apes trying to be near the best apes. I'm glad I got a nice mannequin to walk around in, and I'm glad it compensates for the fact that I'm an objectively pretty weird dude. But it kind of sucks in every direction - beauty prevents people from getting really important negative social feedback, and often just exempts people from social consequences and warps their sense of reality. Likewise, preference-ing physical attributes over competence has to drive hilariously iniquitous outcomes, leaving a lot of smart, capable people in inferior positions. While I'm just talking about random stuff: taking pride in one's appearance is off putting because you didn't earn it. Likewise, being smart/likeable/socially capable are also things that people generally haven't earned. All of the good things in our lives are arbitrary, as are all of the bad things. The things we work for are the only things that are of value - "our actions are our one true possession."
  - kepler1 6y ago
    This is actually better than any photograph.
  - naveen99 6y ago
    Value = resources x effort Beauty and intelligence are in the resources bucket. Just like oil in the ground is valuable, so is beauty and intelligence. Beauty has its professions: politics, movies, modeling, CEO, trophy spouse etc. Intelligence has its professions: engineering, law, medicine, accounting, entrepreneurship, science etc. Einstein doesn’t go and compete in swim suit competition for the brilliant. Don’t worry about people mistakenly hiring you over a more capable programmer because of your height / looks. Worry more about if you are maximizing your potential not putting your height, looks, and intelligence to work more efficiently all together.
  - amvalo 6y ago
    Ok, now I really wanna see a photo.
    - Blahah 6y ago
      Surely you've seen a photo before?
  - jychang 6y ago
    I actually disagree with the last paragraph. Appearance can be earned. Staying fit, learning how to dress, what hairstyles work for you, how to do makeup, correcting your posture, etc. All these take a lot of effort, and makes a big difference in how people perceive you. I have a friend who I met at the gym who’s a software engineer at Amazon, and she has ~50k instagram followers because she lost a lot of weight. Like, from 300lbs to “the fit girl at the gym”. She was used to being bullied when she grew up. Social perception of attraction can definitely be earned. Similarly, being likeable and socially capable is something that can be earned too. From personal experience, it takes a lot of practice and putting in effort to understand others. Even gaining perspectives from MDMA and LSD helps a lot. Human behavior isn’t set in stone, and with effort can be changed.
MoreenDichele 6y ago
Never in my life have I seen someone suck their own dick so hard in the comment section on HN. You deserve some type of award.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
neilv 6y ago
We should all have the problem of fearing that we've been coasting on our ridiculous good looks. :) But seriously, as I think you meant your comments... Videoconferencing seems to encumber both communication and charisma in some ways -- big and small, apparent and subtle. For example, it seems like even slight latency or difficulty hearing people can make a very smooth interaction seem non-smooth. And (as was exceedingly painful to me in a recent team meeting), none of the tools currently available would've come close to having a real-world whiteboard. There have been CSCW research efforts at this for a few decades, but, in practice, at the moment, it's usually just a dumb camera&mic, and sometimes screen-sharing. Maybe, in getting an impression of a person, people haven't yet re-calibrated expectations for the videoconferencing media we're currently stuck with? And maybe there's still some charisma projection adjustments that individual people can try tweaking, if they want, such with lighting, eye contact, lens distortion, etc.? (As someone who once dabbled in studio portraiture, I'm aware of some ways I could look better on videoconf, but it's been a relatively low priority, compared to countless other aspects of startup tech work.)
- roflc0ptic 6y ago
  Hah. All good insights. W/r/t the whiteboard thing - one of my interviews recently used google jamboard, and my input was lagging by like 30 seconds. I was writing a solution, and talking through it, and one of the interviewers started trying to help by starting a solution directly on top of mine. So apparently I just sounded like I was talking about hypothetical code. No harm, really - the interviewer was embarrassed, we moved on. But it was pretty awkward not inhabiting the same visual reality, and thus building divergent mental models of the interaction. I live with a therapist, who confirms that their rapport building is encumbered via video chat. She's incredibly warm and emotive, and I think this compensates: her content is presumably affirming, and her tone (which comes through the thin walls) just oozes authenticity and positive regard. Certainly rapport building isn't dead, but the relative value of the parameters seem to have shifted. You've inspired me to go read one of the guides on videoconferencing lighting I keep seeing. Hopefully to let my, um, inner beauty and competence shine through.
trhway 6y ago
>over zoom/etc. It makes me wonder how much of my past success has been from being a The company behind Invisalign had a blast the last quarter which they attributed to the people doing more Zoom these days. So, it seems it is still about appearances - now it is about whatever appears in the Zoom window. (not a comment on your teeth either way, it is just that Zoom-ing reminded me that my teeth aren't the best around - somehow it looks worse on the computer screen than in the mirror :)

kepler1 6y ago

Photographic evidence is required to back up such bold claims lol.

roflc0ptic 6y ago
I mean, this isn't really about my looks per se, just the growing sense that I've been the beneficiary of positive discrimination to give anecdotal corroboration to the study. That said, people have repeatedly told me I look like Jude Law and Tobey Maguire. I have repeatedly been a focus of group discussion among strangers, "which celebrity does this guy look like?" Strangers also ask "Do I know you from somewhere?" No, I'm just pleasing to look at in a familiar, trustworthy sort of way. In my teens/early 20s was so common for women to approach me and tell me I have beautiful eyes that I didn't realize they were expressing interest. At my first programming job, a chinese woman came up to me and haltingly said (yes, this was a programming joke): "your eyes are so captivating, like a python's." I said thank you. She blushed and rushed away. My control here is that my weight fluctuates between 150-180, though, and when I'm heavier and I don't shave, the attention vanishes. Humans are just apes trying to be near the best apes. I'm glad I got a nice mannequin to walk around in, and I'm glad it compensates for the fact that I'm an objectively pretty weird dude. But it kind of sucks in every direction - beauty prevents people from getting really important negative social feedback, and often just exempts people from social consequences and warps their sense of reality. Likewise, preference-ing physical attributes over competence has to drive hilariously iniquitous outcomes, leaving a lot of smart, capable people in inferior positions. While I'm just talking about random stuff: taking pride in one's appearance is off putting because you didn't earn it. Likewise, being smart/likeable/socially capable are also things that people generally haven't earned. All of the good things in our lives are arbitrary, as are all of the bad things. The things we work for are the only things that are of value - "our actions are our one true possession."
- kepler1 6y ago
  This is actually better than any photograph.
- naveen99 6y ago
  Value = resources x effort Beauty and intelligence are in the resources bucket. Just like oil in the ground is valuable, so is beauty and intelligence. Beauty has its professions: politics, movies, modeling, CEO, trophy spouse etc. Intelligence has its professions: engineering, law, medicine, accounting, entrepreneurship, science etc. Einstein doesn’t go and compete in swim suit competition for the brilliant. Don’t worry about people mistakenly hiring you over a more capable programmer because of your height / looks. Worry more about if you are maximizing your potential not putting your height, looks, and intelligence to work more efficiently all together.
- amvalo 6y ago
  Ok, now I really wanna see a photo.
  - Blahah 6y ago
    Surely you've seen a photo before?
- jychang 6y ago
  I actually disagree with the last paragraph. Appearance can be earned. Staying fit, learning how to dress, what hairstyles work for you, how to do makeup, correcting your posture, etc. All these take a lot of effort, and makes a big difference in how people perceive you. I have a friend who I met at the gym who’s a software engineer at Amazon, and she has ~50k instagram followers because she lost a lot of weight. Like, from 300lbs to “the fit girl at the gym”. She was used to being bullied when she grew up. Social perception of attraction can definitely be earned. Similarly, being likeable and socially capable is something that can be earned too. From personal experience, it takes a lot of practice and putting in effort to understand others. Even gaining perspectives from MDMA and LSD helps a lot. Human behavior isn’t set in stone, and with effort can be changed.

MoreenDichele 6y ago

Never in my life have I seen someone suck their own dick so hard in the comment section on HN. You deserve some type of award.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

neilv 6y ago

We should all have the problem of fearing that we've been coasting on our ridiculous good looks. :) But seriously, as I think you meant your comments... Videoconferencing seems to encumber both communication and charisma in some ways -- big and small, apparent and subtle. For example, it seems like even slight latency or difficulty hearing people can make a very smooth interaction seem non-smooth. And (as was exceedingly painful to me in a recent team meeting), none of the tools currently available would've come close to having a real-world whiteboard. There have been CSCW research efforts at this for a few decades, but, in practice, at the moment, it's usually just a dumb camera&mic, and sometimes screen-sharing. Maybe, in getting an impression of a person, people haven't yet re-calibrated expectations for the videoconferencing media we're currently stuck with? And maybe there's still some charisma projection adjustments that individual people can try tweaking, if they want, such with lighting, eye contact, lens distortion, etc.? (As someone who once dabbled in studio portraiture, I'm aware of some ways I could look better on videoconf, but it's been a relatively low priority, compared to countless other aspects of startup tech work.)

roflc0ptic 6y ago
Hah. All good insights. W/r/t the whiteboard thing - one of my interviews recently used google jamboard, and my input was lagging by like 30 seconds. I was writing a solution, and talking through it, and one of the interviewers started trying to help by starting a solution directly on top of mine. So apparently I just sounded like I was talking about hypothetical code. No harm, really - the interviewer was embarrassed, we moved on. But it was pretty awkward not inhabiting the same visual reality, and thus building divergent mental models of the interaction. I live with a therapist, who confirms that their rapport building is encumbered via video chat. She's incredibly warm and emotive, and I think this compensates: her content is presumably affirming, and her tone (which comes through the thin walls) just oozes authenticity and positive regard. Certainly rapport building isn't dead, but the relative value of the parameters seem to have shifted. You've inspired me to go read one of the guides on videoconferencing lighting I keep seeing. Hopefully to let my, um, inner beauty and competence shine through.

trhway 6y ago

>over zoom/etc. It makes me wonder how much of my past success has been from being a The company behind Invisalign had a blast the last quarter which they attributed to the people doing more Zoom these days. So, it seems it is still about appearances - now it is about whatever appears in the Zoom window. (not a comment on your teeth either way, it is just that Zoom-ing reminded me that my teeth aren't the best around - somehow it looks worse on the computer screen than in the mirror :)