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You're probably disagreeable. I'm struggling too. Have you tried agreeing with absolutely everything? That's what your competition is doing. Next time a compan

You're probably disagreeable. I'm struggling too. Have you tried agreeing with absolutely everything? That's what your competition is doing. Next time a company tells you about their mission statement, stop them midway, eyes open in awe, and say "That's my mission statement." Do the same thing when they tell you about their tech stack. Or anything else. I'm not kidding. The last applicant agreed with everything, and you need to agree with everything harder. Agreeability and disagreeability are two separate skills but the tech industry sees it as a spectrum. They do not hire disagreeable people.

adamredwoods 4y ago
The other reason for this, is you want to present the enthusiastic side of you. A candidate that is energetic, excited, and passionate about programming. Practice this in front of the mirror. Record yourself.
mkw2000 4y ago
Good advice
- rapind 4y ago
  Good advice? This is AMAZING advice! I can't remember the last time I received such great advice. This advice is like a gift from the heavens. Life changing stuff right here.
  - kyleyeats 4y ago
    There's an offer in your inbox.
ineedausername 4y ago
This is an excellent point you made here, I'm not a people pleaser and really need to think about this better.
bloodyplonker22 4y ago
This may be true, but wait until you get hired and you disagree with a lot of what they do or say, internally. You will not be able to let it be known and you will hate the people, your job, and everything. It may be better to find another team that you agree with if you don't desperately need the job.
lupire 4y ago
That transparent obsequiousness would be a huge red flag for me. I guess I'm disagreable.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  The trick is to not be transparent about it.
- mjthrowaway1 4y ago
  You don’t need to be cynical about being agreeable. You can just have a positive disposition, smile when you sit down, and find the positives instead of surfacing the negatives. A lot of people get an ego kick feeling smarter than others because they’re more cynical.
tux 4y ago
"They do not hire disagreeable people." And this is why skilled people can't find a job. Unless you can kiss a*s you won't get hired. This is wrong! If some one agrees with every word you say, this should be a red light. This might means the person don't have a mind of there own. Unless you want to hire a robot ^_^
- gw98 4y ago
  I dunno I'm an asshole and I'm having to beat people off with a stick at the moment. However in UK and there is a market vacuum. Anyway you don't have to kiss ass. All you have to do is have a solution to problems and ability to shape ideas not just cut them off. Unless it's nodejs. That can just fuck off. When I hire people myself I'm looking for people who are opinionated but can back that up with experience and evidence and thought processes which show how the conclusion was reached. I really don't want to hire passive production monkeys.
- popotamonga 4y ago
  It works, the following words made me rich: - Great idea - Makes total sense - That's how I would do it - I agree And this is not a joke.
  - gardenhedge 4y ago
    Well a team has to come together around a shared goal. If a team is made up of people who disagree with what the team is trying to do... it's not a team
    - jasonjmcghee 4y ago
      I think people often share common goals, but “how” is where disagreement tends to be. And I think that’s healthy. Some friction in decision making will often yield better decisions.
      - simplotek 4y ago
        > Some friction in decision making will often yield better decisions. I agree. The problem starts when this sort of friction continues after all the decision-making is done and starts manifesting as contrarian positions towards how the project is being conducted, always insisting that their idea was better, and even assuming aspects of sabotage. It's one thing to determine a path forward, but an entirely different thing to assume a "my way or no way" stance.
jansommer 4y ago
Agreeing is pretty much always the best move in the beginning. If you after careful consideration thinks something is wrong, you better be ready to offer an alternative or make a compelling argument for dropping it. You'll also have to have earned their trust, otherwise you're just some random stranger with an opinion.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Even so, it’s a lot of work trying to get your opinion heard over the noise of people with terrible ideas.
paulcole 4y ago
This is the kind of terrible advice that many people (including many programmers) think is great advice because they don’t see nuance in the world. To get a job you don’t have to agree to the nth degree with everything that’s said to you. You just have to be a nice more-or-less qualified person who’s enjoyable to be around and communicate with. That’s a foreign concept to many people (not just programmers) so they look for some “trick” like never disagreeing. It’s even better that this trick makes them feel better about being a miserable wet blanket because they’re putting one over on the interviewers.
- kentrado 4y ago
  Counterpoint: I interview developers regularly and my current company is 100% looking for agreeable people. If you say you love doing TDD and pair programming, then you are half way through being hired. If you mention reservations about either, that's going to cost you.
  - spacemadness 4y ago
    It may “cost them” but they may not want the job either after that point depending on the context of the question. I really dislike pair programming if it’s required all the time and would kindly thank you for your time and look elsewhere. If they want a job at all costs I guess I can’t speak to that.
    - kentrado 4y ago
      On a side note, oh man the stories I could tell you. Pair programming all the time is like an evolution of Foucault's panopticon. You police yourself because you are closely being watched all the time and your peers will tattletale to your manager if you don't pair hard enough. It's brutal.
      - paulcole 4y ago
        You police yourself so you do well at the thing your bosses want you to do well at? That sounds awful.
zbentley 4y ago
While I'm sure there are places where that's the winning move, I think most companies are just fine hiring from the majority of folks who fall somewhere on the spectrum between "agree with everything as hard as possible" and "argue/complain in the interview to the point that it becomes a culture-fit red flag". If you're looking for technical work and are really getting rejected because of something at the culture-fit level (which is where "agreeableness" falls), I'd say it's less likely that you're insufficiently kiss-ass/agreeable, and more likely that you're being identified as "potential problem teammate" material for other reasons.
furyofantares 4y ago
Maybe hiring is overly biased toward agreeableness but both ends of that spectrum are really bad, one end has people-pleasers and yes-people who provided no feedback but give a false confidence that they do, but at the other end is folks who shut down every idea because they don't immediately know how it can be implemented or it doesn't immediately pass their existing filters. I think there's a middle path and I think I'd try to apply it interviews, rather than "just" daily life and work, and that's to assume there's something of value where the other party is coming from, and use your creative powers to try to find that value. Make an attempt to understand the other party with an understanding that your thought process may have to play with things it reactively thinks are bad and solve within that framework before either rejecting the bad thing or finding out it's wrong. Don't blanket accept or reject their mission statement or tech stack, come with a creative curiosity about it.
FoomFries 4y ago
More relatable perhaps is the idea of charisma. If I’m interviewing a technically skilled person who is a bull in a China shop when it comes to personality, it doesn’t matter what they create - they’re breaking the team with their oblivious nature. If people will actively seeking other teams because of a new member’s personality, it’s something you can bet will be looked for look for in an interview.
abeppu 4y ago
> Do the same thing when they tell you about their tech stack. Or anything else. Another dimension of the "it depends" response to this is seniority. If you're relatively junior, or will appear relatively junior based on your resume, don't express strong disagreement, but rather eagerness to learn. The team wants you to be someone who can contribute, and help them make progress towards their current goals. You're not there to re-evaluate decisions about their stack based on the glimpses get you get during the interview process. But if you're quite senior, the team perhaps wants you to help them level up or improve. Agreeing with everything would also suggest you don't have something new to contribute that helps take them beyond the track they're on now. Don't disagree without a good reason, and be able to explain your thinking. Ask questions before you arrive at a position. Understand why the fence is there before you advocate its removal. But insightful, constructive "disagreement" can still be a way to demonstrate the value you'll bring.
- kyleyeats 4y ago
  Seniority yes but also consulting. Consulting is the only place I've ever found success.
- kcplate 4y ago
  Even if you are senior, I wouldn’t outright disagree. You never want an interview to go a negative direction and disagreement is generally by its nature a negative event. Instead use phrases like “have you considered…”. It doesn’t convey active disagreement, but offers a way to state your direction more hypothetically. Even if the position is there to help them improve, you still need a level of diplomacy and the interview will likely try and reveal that.
  - scarby2 4y ago
    This is general work advice not just interview advice bad: I disagree with the way this is done/this is just bad. Lets do X! good: I see the motivation with the current approach and understand the goals but i wonder if we might be better served by doing X instead. Usually this allows for Y benefits, but I'm open to discussion here. Add some fluff to ensure nobody gets defensive and articulate your flexibility (even if you don't really have it)
JoeMayoBot 4y ago
I'm not sure where OP's question would lead anyone to decide they were disagreeable unless you know them. I also would never advise anyone to lie or mislead during an interview because the people who hired them will know they've been had and that can be harmful for future relationships. My best advice is to always be nice, polite, and kind; and for all we know, OP might be doing that already.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
davidmurdoch 4y ago
Funny, I typically hire people who are skilled, but disagree with me in some way. I want to be challenged and grow a diverse team.
- sph 4y ago
  My previous boss, who offered me a CTO position a couple years after having been hired as a freelancer, said the thing he appreciated from me the most was that I wasn't afraid to say "No, Paul. Let's not do that. Here's why." Sometimes the boss has a bad idea, if you're the tech guy it is your responsibility to decide if it has legs or it's a waste of time. Many consultants say yes to anything because even wild-goose chases are billable. But honesty and integrity tend to pay off in the long run, IME.
klyrs 4y ago
> Next time a company tells you about their mission statement, stop them midway, eyes open in awe, and say "That's my mission statement." As somebody who only does technical interviews, I must say, you better cut that crap out before you get to me. Because I just puked a little.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  I worked at a company with the mission statement "To deliver well-qualified users to customers." Yeah, claiming it's your personal mission statement wouldn't go over so well.
signa11 4y ago
i think w3c really missed out by not specifying a sarcasm tag for html.
- adamredwoods 4y ago
  Right? At least server codes got a teapot!
- kyleyeats 4y ago
  I'd call it hyperbole, not sarcasm, because I do actually agree with the underlying point. I'm a big fan of absurd humor and obtuse humor.
dehrmann 4y ago
Expressing genuine interest in their problem space and challenges will get you further than feigned agreeableness.
givemeethekeys 4y ago
Playing the hiring manager's advocate: Why should I hire you if you don't like my mission, my tech stack or my culture when there are clearly a bunch of talented people who do like all of them? Would it not serve both of us for you to shut up, be grateful for the work while you keep looking for that perfect fit? Or even better, just keep looking and I'll keep looking for someone who genuinely likes the way we do things.
wojciii 4y ago
So you think that they just want to hire simple yes-men? Is is really that simple?
KyeRussell 4y ago
It sounds like the core of your personality issue comes down to you thinking that this is the dichotomy.

adamredwoods 4y ago

The other reason for this, is you want to present the enthusiastic side of you. A candidate that is energetic, excited, and passionate about programming. Practice this in front of the mirror. Record yourself.

mkw2000 4y ago

Good advice

rapind 4y ago
Good advice? This is AMAZING advice! I can't remember the last time I received such great advice. This advice is like a gift from the heavens. Life changing stuff right here.
- kyleyeats 4y ago
  There's an offer in your inbox.

ineedausername 4y ago

This is an excellent point you made here, I'm not a people pleaser and really need to think about this better.

bloodyplonker22 4y ago

This may be true, but wait until you get hired and you disagree with a lot of what they do or say, internally. You will not be able to let it be known and you will hate the people, your job, and everything. It may be better to find another team that you agree with if you don't desperately need the job.

lupire 4y ago

That transparent obsequiousness would be a huge red flag for me. I guess I'm disagreable.

Aeolun 4y ago
The trick is to not be transparent about it.
mjthrowaway1 4y ago
You don’t need to be cynical about being agreeable. You can just have a positive disposition, smile when you sit down, and find the positives instead of surfacing the negatives. A lot of people get an ego kick feeling smarter than others because they’re more cynical.

tux 4y ago

"They do not hire disagreeable people." And this is why skilled people can't find a job. Unless you can kiss a*s you won't get hired. This is wrong! If some one agrees with every word you say, this should be a red light. This might means the person don't have a mind of there own. Unless you want to hire a robot ^_^

gw98 4y ago
I dunno I'm an asshole and I'm having to beat people off with a stick at the moment. However in UK and there is a market vacuum. Anyway you don't have to kiss ass. All you have to do is have a solution to problems and ability to shape ideas not just cut them off. Unless it's nodejs. That can just fuck off. When I hire people myself I'm looking for people who are opinionated but can back that up with experience and evidence and thought processes which show how the conclusion was reached. I really don't want to hire passive production monkeys.
popotamonga 4y ago
It works, the following words made me rich: - Great idea - Makes total sense - That's how I would do it - I agree And this is not a joke.
- gardenhedge 4y ago
  Well a team has to come together around a shared goal. If a team is made up of people who disagree with what the team is trying to do... it's not a team
  - jasonjmcghee 4y ago
    I think people often share common goals, but “how” is where disagreement tends to be. And I think that’s healthy. Some friction in decision making will often yield better decisions.
    - simplotek 4y ago
      > Some friction in decision making will often yield better decisions. I agree. The problem starts when this sort of friction continues after all the decision-making is done and starts manifesting as contrarian positions towards how the project is being conducted, always insisting that their idea was better, and even assuming aspects of sabotage. It's one thing to determine a path forward, but an entirely different thing to assume a "my way or no way" stance.

jansommer 4y ago

Agreeing is pretty much always the best move in the beginning. If you after careful consideration thinks something is wrong, you better be ready to offer an alternative or make a compelling argument for dropping it. You'll also have to have earned their trust, otherwise you're just some random stranger with an opinion.

Aeolun 4y ago
Even so, it’s a lot of work trying to get your opinion heard over the noise of people with terrible ideas.

paulcole 4y ago

This is the kind of terrible advice that many people (including many programmers) think is great advice because they don’t see nuance in the world. To get a job you don’t have to agree to the nth degree with everything that’s said to you. You just have to be a nice more-or-less qualified person who’s enjoyable to be around and communicate with. That’s a foreign concept to many people (not just programmers) so they look for some “trick” like never disagreeing. It’s even better that this trick makes them feel better about being a miserable wet blanket because they’re putting one over on the interviewers.

kentrado 4y ago
Counterpoint: I interview developers regularly and my current company is 100% looking for agreeable people. If you say you love doing TDD and pair programming, then you are half way through being hired. If you mention reservations about either, that's going to cost you.
- spacemadness 4y ago
  It may “cost them” but they may not want the job either after that point depending on the context of the question. I really dislike pair programming if it’s required all the time and would kindly thank you for your time and look elsewhere. If they want a job at all costs I guess I can’t speak to that.
  - kentrado 4y ago
    On a side note, oh man the stories I could tell you. Pair programming all the time is like an evolution of Foucault's panopticon. You police yourself because you are closely being watched all the time and your peers will tattletale to your manager if you don't pair hard enough. It's brutal.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      You police yourself so you do well at the thing your bosses want you to do well at? That sounds awful.

zbentley 4y ago

While I'm sure there are places where that's the winning move, I think most companies are just fine hiring from the majority of folks who fall somewhere on the spectrum between "agree with everything as hard as possible" and "argue/complain in the interview to the point that it becomes a culture-fit red flag". If you're looking for technical work and are really getting rejected because of something at the culture-fit level (which is where "agreeableness" falls), I'd say it's less likely that you're insufficiently kiss-ass/agreeable, and more likely that you're being identified as "potential problem teammate" material for other reasons.

furyofantares 4y ago

Maybe hiring is overly biased toward agreeableness but both ends of that spectrum are really bad, one end has people-pleasers and yes-people who provided no feedback but give a false confidence that they do, but at the other end is folks who shut down every idea because they don't immediately know how it can be implemented or it doesn't immediately pass their existing filters. I think there's a middle path and I think I'd try to apply it interviews, rather than "just" daily life and work, and that's to assume there's something of value where the other party is coming from, and use your creative powers to try to find that value. Make an attempt to understand the other party with an understanding that your thought process may have to play with things it reactively thinks are bad and solve within that framework before either rejecting the bad thing or finding out it's wrong. Don't blanket accept or reject their mission statement or tech stack, come with a creative curiosity about it.

FoomFries 4y ago

More relatable perhaps is the idea of charisma. If I’m interviewing a technically skilled person who is a bull in a China shop when it comes to personality, it doesn’t matter what they create - they’re breaking the team with their oblivious nature. If people will actively seeking other teams because of a new member’s personality, it’s something you can bet will be looked for look for in an interview.

abeppu 4y ago

> Do the same thing when they tell you about their tech stack. Or anything else. Another dimension of the "it depends" response to this is seniority. If you're relatively junior, or will appear relatively junior based on your resume, don't express strong disagreement, but rather eagerness to learn. The team wants you to be someone who can contribute, and help them make progress towards their current goals. You're not there to re-evaluate decisions about their stack based on the glimpses get you get during the interview process. But if you're quite senior, the team perhaps wants you to help them level up or improve. Agreeing with everything would also suggest you don't have something new to contribute that helps take them beyond the track they're on now. Don't disagree without a good reason, and be able to explain your thinking. Ask questions before you arrive at a position. Understand why the fence is there before you advocate its removal. But insightful, constructive "disagreement" can still be a way to demonstrate the value you'll bring.

kyleyeats 4y ago
Seniority yes but also consulting. Consulting is the only place I've ever found success.
kcplate 4y ago
Even if you are senior, I wouldn’t outright disagree. You never want an interview to go a negative direction and disagreement is generally by its nature a negative event. Instead use phrases like “have you considered…”. It doesn’t convey active disagreement, but offers a way to state your direction more hypothetically. Even if the position is there to help them improve, you still need a level of diplomacy and the interview will likely try and reveal that.
- scarby2 4y ago
  This is general work advice not just interview advice bad: I disagree with the way this is done/this is just bad. Lets do X! good: I see the motivation with the current approach and understand the goals but i wonder if we might be better served by doing X instead. Usually this allows for Y benefits, but I'm open to discussion here. Add some fluff to ensure nobody gets defensive and articulate your flexibility (even if you don't really have it)

JoeMayoBot 4y ago

I'm not sure where OP's question would lead anyone to decide they were disagreeable unless you know them. I also would never advise anyone to lie or mislead during an interview because the people who hired them will know they've been had and that can be harmful for future relationships. My best advice is to always be nice, polite, and kind; and for all we know, OP might be doing that already.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

davidmurdoch 4y ago

Funny, I typically hire people who are skilled, but disagree with me in some way. I want to be challenged and grow a diverse team.

sph 4y ago
My previous boss, who offered me a CTO position a couple years after having been hired as a freelancer, said the thing he appreciated from me the most was that I wasn't afraid to say "No, Paul. Let's not do that. Here's why." Sometimes the boss has a bad idea, if you're the tech guy it is your responsibility to decide if it has legs or it's a waste of time. Many consultants say yes to anything because even wild-goose chases are billable. But honesty and integrity tend to pay off in the long run, IME.

klyrs 4y ago

> Next time a company tells you about their mission statement, stop them midway, eyes open in awe, and say "That's my mission statement." As somebody who only does technical interviews, I must say, you better cut that crap out before you get to me. Because I just puked a little.

dehrmann 4y ago
I worked at a company with the mission statement "To deliver well-qualified users to customers." Yeah, claiming it's your personal mission statement wouldn't go over so well.

signa11 4y ago

i think w3c really missed out by not specifying a sarcasm tag for html.

adamredwoods 4y ago
Right? At least server codes got a teapot!
kyleyeats 4y ago
I'd call it hyperbole, not sarcasm, because I do actually agree with the underlying point. I'm a big fan of absurd humor and obtuse humor.

dehrmann 4y ago

Expressing genuine interest in their problem space and challenges will get you further than feigned agreeableness.

givemeethekeys 4y ago

Playing the hiring manager's advocate: Why should I hire you if you don't like my mission, my tech stack or my culture when there are clearly a bunch of talented people who do like all of them? Would it not serve both of us for you to shut up, be grateful for the work while you keep looking for that perfect fit? Or even better, just keep looking and I'll keep looking for someone who genuinely likes the way we do things.

wojciii 4y ago

So you think that they just want to hire simple yes-men? Is is really that simple?

KyeRussell 4y ago

It sounds like the core of your personality issue comes down to you thinking that this is the dichotomy.