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> if your typical response to talking to another technical person is immediately to try to one-up them The psychological reality behind all this is even worse.
by yobbo 5y ago
> if your typical response to talking to another technical person is immediately to try to one-up them
The psychological reality behind all this is even worse.
The interviewer is not looking for new colleagues, he is looking to improve his own self-esteem and rank. The reward for rejecting a candidate is a feeling of superiority and an appearance of being irreplaceable.
The interviewer and the candidate have opposing goals, and the interviewer can randomly change the rules at any point.
- mikepurvis 5y agoUgh, that's horrifying. I don't think I've been the interviewer and not felt the exact opposite, like "I'm desperate to have more people on the team ASAP; do we satisfice here and make it work or hold out?" But then I've always been interviewing for my own future colleagues/boss/reports. I guess the dynamics could be different if you're in a huge company and just generically interviewing for new cogs that might get slotted anywhere.
- lizknope 5y agoI'm in semiconductor design not software but my goal is always "I've got way too much work, is this person good enough that after a few months of training they will be able to do some of my work so I can get more sleep?" If the person is smarter than me even better! Instead of spending time teaching them maybe I can learn from them and get into their network so that if I ever need a job in the future they can help me out.
- jbn 5y agothis is very well put, indeed both parties are set up to fail: - the interviewer has an incentive to fail the candidate, whereas the interest of the employer is to actually hire someone eventually.. - the interviewee is rated on something that has little resemblance to the actual job (difficult to succeed when you're not told what the admission criteria are...).