4 ms·

These are such inane questions. > What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there? "Red Hat Linux, and I started there because I found a C

These are such inane questions. > What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there? "Red Hat Linux, and I started there because I found a CD to install it in the cover of Red Hat Linux For Dummies at my local library." What does that say about my qualifications for the job? I can scarcely imagine. Clearly the questions are prompting for answers that will be evaluated in some vague bullshit way, so why not evaluate the questions themselves in the same manner? I see a lot of questions about what I was doing in highschool. I therefore conclude these questions were written up by an airhead do-nothing who's life peaked in highschool and they've been dwelling on the past ever since. Am I doing this right?

corrral 4y ago
Considering another step is psychometric testing, and given the nature of these questions, I assume there's some woo-heavy tea-leaf-reading process to evaluate the submissions. "This person used 'I' too few times while writing about themselves, so they're clearly not confident enough" or whatever.
- robonerd 4y ago
  And if they think this is a good idea for hiring, they probably don't stop there. Imagine all your work emails being run through such evaluations every year during performance review.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > psychometric testing I love these, they always fool employers that I'm a lot better than I actually am. For some strange reason, these tests always determine that the kind of people who write tests are ideal employees. "System builders."
version_five 4y ago
In fairness (not that I think it's a good hiring process), your story about linux obviously shows that you were interested enough to get a linux book with CD from the library. That's more interesting (and in a real interview might lead to a more interesting follow on discussion) than someone who first encountered it in university because it was part of a course.
nix23 4y ago
> What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there? Mandrake Linux because it was the only one that worked with my 56k Zyxel modem ;)
- claytongulick 4y ago
  Mandrake was my first too, but it was because I was at some tech "flea market" show thing in San Diego in the 90s, and they were selling Mandrake CDs for $5. At the time, I was frustrated at the cost of WinGate, a socks proxy, and I wanted to be able to play games with others on my local network with remote friends. I had a clever idea, that I could dynamically rewrite IP packets to an internal IP address based on the port assignment (I had essentially re/invented NAT). So I wrote it in pretty low level c, got it mostly working, then a friend told me about this thing called Linux that had a feature called ip masquerading that did everything I was trying to do. Mandrake had an easy way to compile the kernel with IP masquerading support, and I immediately fell in love with all things Linux. I remember showing friends the customizable desktop, with silly things like snow falling. They thought I was a leet hacker :)
- bladernr 4y ago
  Slackware downloaded in the format of ... 13 or 14 1.44MB floppy images from a BBS using my crappy 2400bps modem over many nights. Got it installed, played with it a bit but realized I couldn't run any of my games, shrugged and re-installed Windows... stayed like that until Red Hat 5.2 and then I've been running Linux as a daily driver ever since.
smcl 4y ago
To be fair, in an in-person interview talking about something like this can be a nice way to settle into the interview and steady any nerves they might have - it's a question that doesn't have a wrong answer and doesn't (or shouldn't) have a "gotcha" attached that the candidate can be afraid of. It can spark a little conversation that could lead to other, more specific topics - but if it doesn't then no worries, it's served its purpose. It's a bit odd to be asked to write this out ahead of time though, because if when it comes up in the interview it's like you're being questioned by the police on a statement you had previously given them and being tested what you said. Weird.
- markshuttle 4y ago
  Or, it allows for the conversation to start naturally from that point. "In your written interview, you observed that... can you expand on that?"
  - smcl 4y ago
    I don't think being confronted with an email I'd sent (or is it a form?) and being asked questions about it is natural at all. It is much weirder than actually having the conversation face-to-face.
    - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
      It’s odd that you approach interviews with a confrontational frame of mind. I would totally expect, and be prepared for, an interviewer asking me to expand or comment on anything I send in as part of the process, be it the CV, application questions, code samples, coding exercises, and whatnot. It’s actually worse when an interviewer asks you questions that show they clearly didn’t read all those materials.
      - smcl 4y ago
        I fully expect to be asked about my CV or experience in an interview, I do not find that or interviews in general to be confrontational. Or even if there was a programming assignment I had to submit, reviewing that stuff is normal. What I find weird is to fill out what is effectively an GTKY interview over text, then have someone pull out it out during an in-person interview to discuss. Also even though I usually don't feel that way, it is completely ok for a candidate to feel confronted or cornered in an interview and not at all odd.
raverbashing 4y ago
Well, as a start, it is a loaded question But I get it. They're trying to get people that "love linux". It's part of the cultural fit, sure Now think for a bit about hiring for people that "love something" and what does that tell about the professional environment of that company. Wouldn't it be better if they actually hired people that are good at the job? For all the talk about diversity and inclusion, this is a very good example of how the opposite looks like.
- markshuttle 4y ago
  Yes, I do want to work with people who are passionate about what we do. It makes for more interesting meetings, more interesting ideas, more interesting software. I love what I do, and I choose to set things up to maximise the chance that the people around me are equally excited about what impact we could have in the world. Life is short, the way I want to use it is to help people who contribute to open source - all open source - have the biggest possible impact from their generosity. By making open source easy and cheap to consume and rely on in production, I think we amplify the contributions of others, and I feel very good about that. We also try to innovate on pieces of the landscape, and those are fun too. But you may be confusing the first step of our hiring process - the written interview - with the whole of the process. If someone does well on the written interview, which is usually twice-assessed and done so on an anonymous basis, they get additional screening tests and interviews to assess professionalism and experience and competence, which helps us place them in the best part of the company for them. It also helps them learn about us and how we work to make sure that they are making the right choice for the next segment of their career. In the past I think we over-prioritised passion-for-Linux relative to competence, and we paid a price for that. So now I'm pretty focused on looking for both, and ensuring discipline in the offers we make across the whole company.
  - raverbashing 4y ago
    Thanks for answering this, and it definitely makes a lot of sense. Last paragraph is an interesting tidbit. My original point was in the sense that passion can also cause a bit of tunnel vision. On the other hand I certainly can't say Canonical isn't innovative.
allarm 4y ago
Funny enough, I have a great answer to this question - my first distro was exactly Ubuntu, in 2005. They shipped me a couple of dozens of CDs that I distributed in my city, mainly to my collagues and members of the local LUG. I think I still have some CDs from this batch.
- markshuttle 4y ago
  You're welcome, and thank you :)
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  LUG == Linux User Group

corrral 4y ago

Considering another step is psychometric testing, and given the nature of these questions, I assume there's some woo-heavy tea-leaf-reading process to evaluate the submissions. "This person used 'I' too few times while writing about themselves, so they're clearly not confident enough" or whatever.

robonerd 4y ago
And if they think this is a good idea for hiring, they probably don't stop there. Imagine all your work emails being run through such evaluations every year during performance review.
pessimizer 4y ago
> psychometric testing I love these, they always fool employers that I'm a lot better than I actually am. For some strange reason, these tests always determine that the kind of people who write tests are ideal employees. "System builders."

version_five 4y ago

In fairness (not that I think it's a good hiring process), your story about linux obviously shows that you were interested enough to get a linux book with CD from the library. That's more interesting (and in a real interview might lead to a more interesting follow on discussion) than someone who first encountered it in university because it was part of a course.

nix23 4y ago

> What was your first Linux distribution, and why did you start there? Mandrake Linux because it was the only one that worked with my 56k Zyxel modem ;)

claytongulick 4y ago
Mandrake was my first too, but it was because I was at some tech "flea market" show thing in San Diego in the 90s, and they were selling Mandrake CDs for $5. At the time, I was frustrated at the cost of WinGate, a socks proxy, and I wanted to be able to play games with others on my local network with remote friends. I had a clever idea, that I could dynamically rewrite IP packets to an internal IP address based on the port assignment (I had essentially re/invented NAT). So I wrote it in pretty low level c, got it mostly working, then a friend told me about this thing called Linux that had a feature called ip masquerading that did everything I was trying to do. Mandrake had an easy way to compile the kernel with IP masquerading support, and I immediately fell in love with all things Linux. I remember showing friends the customizable desktop, with silly things like snow falling. They thought I was a leet hacker :)
bladernr 4y ago
Slackware downloaded in the format of ... 13 or 14 1.44MB floppy images from a BBS using my crappy 2400bps modem over many nights. Got it installed, played with it a bit but realized I couldn't run any of my games, shrugged and re-installed Windows... stayed like that until Red Hat 5.2 and then I've been running Linux as a daily driver ever since.

smcl 4y ago

To be fair, in an in-person interview talking about something like this can be a nice way to settle into the interview and steady any nerves they might have - it's a question that doesn't have a wrong answer and doesn't (or shouldn't) have a "gotcha" attached that the candidate can be afraid of. It can spark a little conversation that could lead to other, more specific topics - but if it doesn't then no worries, it's served its purpose. It's a bit odd to be asked to write this out ahead of time though, because if when it comes up in the interview it's like you're being questioned by the police on a statement you had previously given them and being tested what you said. Weird.

markshuttle 4y ago
Or, it allows for the conversation to start naturally from that point. "In your written interview, you observed that... can you expand on that?"
- smcl 4y ago
  I don't think being confronted with an email I'd sent (or is it a form?) and being asked questions about it is natural at all. It is much weirder than actually having the conversation face-to-face.
  - loloquwowndueo 4y ago
    It’s odd that you approach interviews with a confrontational frame of mind. I would totally expect, and be prepared for, an interviewer asking me to expand or comment on anything I send in as part of the process, be it the CV, application questions, code samples, coding exercises, and whatnot. It’s actually worse when an interviewer asks you questions that show they clearly didn’t read all those materials.
    - smcl 4y ago
      I fully expect to be asked about my CV or experience in an interview, I do not find that or interviews in general to be confrontational. Or even if there was a programming assignment I had to submit, reviewing that stuff is normal. What I find weird is to fill out what is effectively an GTKY interview over text, then have someone pull out it out during an in-person interview to discuss. Also even though I usually don't feel that way, it is completely ok for a candidate to feel confronted or cornered in an interview and not at all odd.

raverbashing 4y ago

Well, as a start, it is a loaded question But I get it. They're trying to get people that "love linux". It's part of the cultural fit, sure Now think for a bit about hiring for people that "love something" and what does that tell about the professional environment of that company. Wouldn't it be better if they actually hired people that are good at the job? For all the talk about diversity and inclusion, this is a very good example of how the opposite looks like.

markshuttle 4y ago
Yes, I do want to work with people who are passionate about what we do. It makes for more interesting meetings, more interesting ideas, more interesting software. I love what I do, and I choose to set things up to maximise the chance that the people around me are equally excited about what impact we could have in the world. Life is short, the way I want to use it is to help people who contribute to open source - all open source - have the biggest possible impact from their generosity. By making open source easy and cheap to consume and rely on in production, I think we amplify the contributions of others, and I feel very good about that. We also try to innovate on pieces of the landscape, and those are fun too. But you may be confusing the first step of our hiring process - the written interview - with the whole of the process. If someone does well on the written interview, which is usually twice-assessed and done so on an anonymous basis, they get additional screening tests and interviews to assess professionalism and experience and competence, which helps us place them in the best part of the company for them. It also helps them learn about us and how we work to make sure that they are making the right choice for the next segment of their career. In the past I think we over-prioritised passion-for-Linux relative to competence, and we paid a price for that. So now I'm pretty focused on looking for both, and ensuring discipline in the offers we make across the whole company.
- raverbashing 4y ago
  Thanks for answering this, and it definitely makes a lot of sense. Last paragraph is an interesting tidbit. My original point was in the sense that passion can also cause a bit of tunnel vision. On the other hand I certainly can't say Canonical isn't innovative.

allarm 4y ago

Funny enough, I have a great answer to this question - my first distro was exactly Ubuntu, in 2005. They shipped me a couple of dozens of CDs that I distributed in my city, mainly to my collagues and members of the local LUG. I think I still have some CDs from this batch.

markshuttle 4y ago
You're welcome, and thank you :)
aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
LUG == Linux User Group