8 ms·

You have a web portfolio, a github account with a few open source projects, and an active linkedin presence? That's what lands me jobs. no tech degree. just

You have a web portfolio, a github account with a few open source projects, and an active linkedin presence? That's what lands me jobs. no tech degree. just a couple classes in statistcs & databases under my belt. other than that, self-taught via online resources (videos, ebooks, forums, chatrooms)

7speter 4y ago
I recently went to a virtual meetup for help on a project and the organizer got mad at me for using a tutorial to scaffold my project and called me out on the call. I was so frustrated by the ridiculousness that I just immediately signed off and left the meetup group and discord.
- stefanos82 4y ago
  Oh I have a better story! :D An HR called me after a 1 and a half years I originally applied for a C++ position at a FinTech company to ask me whether I'm still interested in it. I replied "of course I am!" and she asked me to send her my resume, updated. As soon as she received it, she immediately replied back "but here says you are an Assistant Systems Administrator; how about to arrange you another position that is closer to what you are currently doing?". I was like "WOMAN! Read the darn line after what you read that says 'Teaching assistant (C++) during office hours', I have the necessary experience! Are you playing with me now, why did you even call me in the first place?!". I nearly exploded from my nerves and she didn't like it. She started shouting at me and closed the phone. I checked her name online; lo and behold, the very first result Google returned was her (age 23) thanking an Anger Management Center for talking courses how to handle her wrath(!) with annoying customers. I was speechless! You let a young, fresh graduate without previous experience to handle the most difficult department of your work...at a freaking FinTech company that deals with billions of dollars at a global scale? Things have gone very wrong at so many levels...GLOBALLY!
  - ikt 4y ago
    > I nearly exploded from my nerves Why? Why not just calmly explain the situation? Why let your emotion get the best of you? I saw you disregard someone else's advice as well earlier, I think you're forgetting that you have to mould yourself around what the market wants not the other way around.
    - throwawayvibes 4y ago
  - 7speter 4y ago
    Probably a nepotism hire
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    To be fair, you should probably have multiple versions of your resume, each customized for a specific type of job. If this was a C++ job, relevant experience should have been the first item, not SysAdmin. Are there inexperienced (or experienced, but still dumb) HR people? Of course. But knowing that, you didn't present yourself in the best light to overcome a predictable obstacle.
    - rangitatanz 4y ago
      Yeah this is a good approach I try to customize my CV off a base for every role. Even shoving it in a new company-name folder in Dropbox. Even though the person is asking for them to apply they are probably asking a lot of people so are going to scan your resume looking for keywords and alignment to a role
  - dekhn 4y ago
    Let me give you another perspective: you messed this one up. In multiple ways. Maybe the HR person wasn't great or professional, but you did a wide range of things that sort of demonstrated that the company might not have been a good fit for you. I'm trying to say this in the nicest way, but I see multiple red flags that would get you exited from interviews at a wide range of professional companies, and strongly suggest you revisit how you approach these sorts of situations.
  - klyrs 4y ago
    So... you got angry at her and yelled, and then got more angry because she yelled back? Forget qualifications, I wouldn't have hired you either.
    - stefanos82 4y ago
      Thank you for your honesty. I know I did not handle it properly, but since you were not in my shoes at the time of the incident, you should not condemn me nor judge me for my reaction. There's a whole theme behind the scenes with this particular HR that led to this unfortunate reaction; still though, I appreciate your sincerity and I am thankful for that.
      - freedom2099 4y ago
        There is almost never a good reason to be impolite! Sometimes in interviews they try to piss you off with the exact purpose to see how you handle these kind of situation… you clearly failed! My first job after university was for a big tech company… during the interview the interviewer was very aggressive and borderline impolite trying to push me “over the edge”… I handle it with calm and politeness. Needless to say I was offered the job on the spot at the end of the interview (in real life the interviewer was a delightful kind person and all the rudeness was an interviewing technique)
      - klyrs 4y ago
        Rest assured, I don't condemn you. But given what you've said about the experience, I would have judged you as unfit to employ in that moment. I'm curious about your focus on the HR person's history taking anger management classes: do you think that your own anger could be better managed?
        stefanos82 4y ago
        I think we have a clash of cultures here, so I don't expect people to understand how insulting was her behavior in the first place that led to my reaction. Let me remind you: > An HR called me after a 1 and a half years I originally applied for a C++ position at a FinTech company to ask me whether I'm still interested in it. She literally ghosted me for 1.5 years while I was sending emails for months without response; even my calls were ignored, so I decided to stop trying...and then she decided to check her Discard email folder to look for possible candidates and when she read my updated resume, she went "oh, you are not a good fit"! Then why did you even call?! Could not you just send me an email and ask me for an updated resume so you can check whether I'm suited or not for your company's needs? I honestly don't understand you people, seriously.
stefanos82 4y ago
* Not everyone is for web development, even though I'm very fascinated with back-end development and solving sophisticated problems that are considered unsolvable. I have a Computer Science degree (a 2-year diploma, which basically is nothing comparing it to a bachelor's or a master's) and still cannot please them. * My important projects were in-house for certain clients under NDA, which ties my hands and cannot demonstrate any of them. * I had LinkedIn account and closed it after getting spammed countless of times. I have informed the company at that time and instead of fixing my problem, they would start sending me their own ads for Linkedin Learning courses instead LOL!
- fy20 4y ago
  I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I mean it in a good way, but I want to point out that reading this comment you come across as someone who is difficult to work with. If you gave me that impression in an interview I'd probably pass on you too, no matter how great your technical skills are. The most important skill for me is how you can work in a team (what education you have isn't at all important). I'm not Google or Facebook, but there's a million people like me When I ask you to tell me about your experience, I understand that you can't tell me all the details, but even with an NDA you can tell me roughly what you did. Maybe if you worked on a secret project for Apple that hasn't yet launched it would be different - but if you gave that as an answer I'd understand and move onto other questions. If you just said "it's under NDA" I'd assume you are trying to hide something. Who cares if LinkedIn wants to spam you? The only purpose of it is to help me look attractive to potential employees, so I keep it up to date but don't pay any attention to it. I turned off all email notifications and they don't email me, but if they did I'd just set up a filter. I get hundreds of recruiters spamming me, but that's just what recruiters do. I ignore them and get on with my life. Interviewing is a skill, and it's something you can learn, so focus on that. Apply for jobs that you don't even care about just for the interview experience, maybe you'll get an offer and decide to take it :-) Skip FAANG or whatever requires you do 7 technical interviews where you reverse red black trees of doubly linked lists, go for smaller companies where the interview is typically just a few informal chats.
  - stefanos82 4y ago

7speter 4y ago

I recently went to a virtual meetup for help on a project and the organizer got mad at me for using a tutorial to scaffold my project and called me out on the call. I was so frustrated by the ridiculousness that I just immediately signed off and left the meetup group and discord.

stefanos82 4y ago
Oh I have a better story! :D An HR called me after a 1 and a half years I originally applied for a C++ position at a FinTech company to ask me whether I'm still interested in it. I replied "of course I am!" and she asked me to send her my resume, updated. As soon as she received it, she immediately replied back "but here says you are an Assistant Systems Administrator; how about to arrange you another position that is closer to what you are currently doing?". I was like "WOMAN! Read the darn line after what you read that says 'Teaching assistant (C++) during office hours', I have the necessary experience! Are you playing with me now, why did you even call me in the first place?!". I nearly exploded from my nerves and she didn't like it. She started shouting at me and closed the phone. I checked her name online; lo and behold, the very first result Google returned was her (age 23) thanking an Anger Management Center for talking courses how to handle her wrath(!) with annoying customers. I was speechless! You let a young, fresh graduate without previous experience to handle the most difficult department of your work...at a freaking FinTech company that deals with billions of dollars at a global scale? Things have gone very wrong at so many levels...GLOBALLY!
- ikt 4y ago
  > I nearly exploded from my nerves Why? Why not just calmly explain the situation? Why let your emotion get the best of you? I saw you disregard someone else's advice as well earlier, I think you're forgetting that you have to mould yourself around what the market wants not the other way around.
  - throwawayvibes 4y ago
- 7speter 4y ago
  Probably a nepotism hire
- listenallyall 4y ago
  To be fair, you should probably have multiple versions of your resume, each customized for a specific type of job. If this was a C++ job, relevant experience should have been the first item, not SysAdmin. Are there inexperienced (or experienced, but still dumb) HR people? Of course. But knowing that, you didn't present yourself in the best light to overcome a predictable obstacle.
  - rangitatanz 4y ago
    Yeah this is a good approach I try to customize my CV off a base for every role. Even shoving it in a new company-name folder in Dropbox. Even though the person is asking for them to apply they are probably asking a lot of people so are going to scan your resume looking for keywords and alignment to a role
- dekhn 4y ago
  Let me give you another perspective: you messed this one up. In multiple ways. Maybe the HR person wasn't great or professional, but you did a wide range of things that sort of demonstrated that the company might not have been a good fit for you. I'm trying to say this in the nicest way, but I see multiple red flags that would get you exited from interviews at a wide range of professional companies, and strongly suggest you revisit how you approach these sorts of situations.
- klyrs 4y ago
  So... you got angry at her and yelled, and then got more angry because she yelled back? Forget qualifications, I wouldn't have hired you either.
  - stefanos82 4y ago
    Thank you for your honesty. I know I did not handle it properly, but since you were not in my shoes at the time of the incident, you should not condemn me nor judge me for my reaction. There's a whole theme behind the scenes with this particular HR that led to this unfortunate reaction; still though, I appreciate your sincerity and I am thankful for that.
    - freedom2099 4y ago
      There is almost never a good reason to be impolite! Sometimes in interviews they try to piss you off with the exact purpose to see how you handle these kind of situation… you clearly failed! My first job after university was for a big tech company… during the interview the interviewer was very aggressive and borderline impolite trying to push me “over the edge”… I handle it with calm and politeness. Needless to say I was offered the job on the spot at the end of the interview (in real life the interviewer was a delightful kind person and all the rudeness was an interviewing technique)
    - klyrs 4y ago
      Rest assured, I don't condemn you. But given what you've said about the experience, I would have judged you as unfit to employ in that moment. I'm curious about your focus on the HR person's history taking anger management classes: do you think that your own anger could be better managed?
      - stefanos82 4y ago
        I think we have a clash of cultures here, so I don't expect people to understand how insulting was her behavior in the first place that led to my reaction. Let me remind you: > An HR called me after a 1 and a half years I originally applied for a C++ position at a FinTech company to ask me whether I'm still interested in it. She literally ghosted me for 1.5 years while I was sending emails for months without response; even my calls were ignored, so I decided to stop trying...and then she decided to check her Discard email folder to look for possible candidates and when she read my updated resume, she went "oh, you are not a good fit"! Then why did you even call?! Could not you just send me an email and ask me for an updated resume so you can check whether I'm suited or not for your company's needs? I honestly don't understand you people, seriously.

stefanos82 4y ago

* Not everyone is for web development, even though I'm very fascinated with back-end development and solving sophisticated problems that are considered unsolvable. I have a Computer Science degree (a 2-year diploma, which basically is nothing comparing it to a bachelor's or a master's) and still cannot please them. * My important projects were in-house for certain clients under NDA, which ties my hands and cannot demonstrate any of them. * I had LinkedIn account and closed it after getting spammed countless of times. I have informed the company at that time and instead of fixing my problem, they would start sending me their own ads for Linkedin Learning courses instead LOL!

fy20 4y ago
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, I mean it in a good way, but I want to point out that reading this comment you come across as someone who is difficult to work with. If you gave me that impression in an interview I'd probably pass on you too, no matter how great your technical skills are. The most important skill for me is how you can work in a team (what education you have isn't at all important). I'm not Google or Facebook, but there's a million people like me When I ask you to tell me about your experience, I understand that you can't tell me all the details, but even with an NDA you can tell me roughly what you did. Maybe if you worked on a secret project for Apple that hasn't yet launched it would be different - but if you gave that as an answer I'd understand and move onto other questions. If you just said "it's under NDA" I'd assume you are trying to hide something. Who cares if LinkedIn wants to spam you? The only purpose of it is to help me look attractive to potential employees, so I keep it up to date but don't pay any attention to it. I turned off all email notifications and they don't email me, but if they did I'd just set up a filter. I get hundreds of recruiters spamming me, but that's just what recruiters do. I ignore them and get on with my life. Interviewing is a skill, and it's something you can learn, so focus on that. Apply for jobs that you don't even care about just for the interview experience, maybe you'll get an offer and decide to take it :-) Skip FAANG or whatever requires you do 7 technical interviews where you reverse red black trees of doubly linked lists, go for smaller companies where the interview is typically just a few informal chats.
- stefanos82 4y ago