4 ms·

I think the real issue is that there are practically an infinite set of unique circumstances (the time, the economic situation, the current company atmosphere,

by z9znz 4y ago

I think the real issue is that there are practically an infinite set of unique circumstances (the time, the economic situation, the current company atmosphere, and dozens more variables) which all can impact hiring. One very simple example which can result in a good candidate who got far through the process hitting a wall is that a key person in the company became overwhelmed with something unrelated. Suddenly they don't have the bandwidth (or have left the company perhaps), and the progress is now halted. That's just one little common example, but there are so many more. Unless you have an insider who can investigate, you just don't know. Wondering is futile, especially as many of us assume it was some failure of our own which caused the process to end. In the last year I had several very promising applications which went through multiple phases, all seemingly very positive, which ended abruptly and shockingly (with a "Sorry"). From the other side, we have seen posts here on HN where the person says, "I applied to 100 jobs and this is what happened." If you take a shotgun approach, you absolutely will get something. There are many problems with this approach, especially if you are more senior and have opinions about things. For example, there may be some industries or companies which you would not work for regardless of the money. There are also some companies that you know would be horrible to work for, so you would skip those. It is possible some of us filter out possible companies a bit too heavily, building our hopes on 1-3. And 1-3 is not a big enough set to reliably make it to the end. My new strong feeling is that those of us with a little runway (as in 1-3 months, not "rich") should just find a personal passion project and build it. Then maybe the project makes money, or maybe it's just a showpiece to pass some of the dumber interview processes which want you to solve unrealistic CS300 level algorithm tests in a crappy web UI with a timer and audience. But I totally relate about the feeling. Just one of several examples: There's a company that advertises jobs on HN at least once a month. They are hiring many people for this role. I went through two verbal interviews, two live coding test interviews, and finally an interview with the CTO (or at least the tech guy responsible for a big chunk of the devs in the company). Then I got a no. Either I offended the guy (which seemed difficult to do as he showed up to the interview apparently disinterested and unable/unwilling to ever look at me in the camera), or I failed earlier in the process and nobody stopped the show. But given how simple the programming challenges were and how I was able to suggest multiple solutions, I don't think it was that. So I was baffled. I have more stories not so different. You just _never_ know wtf is going on.

yunohn 4y ago
> There's a company that advertises jobs on HN at least once a month. Flexport? I had the same experience.
- z9znz 4y ago
  An interesting thing I learned in the interview process was that the AI and automation that was supposedly powering the new efficient global shipping was actually 95% humans doing the normal human work, not some great technical system. But to be fair, I also worked for an "AI" startup which was going to revolutionize a certain type of business payment processing system with AI, but in fact it was just another paypal or stripe. Talk big, and maybe if you get enough funding and have enough time you can actually fulfill the promises you've made. If not, maybe you can at least get a nice exit. $$$.
  - yunohn 4y ago
    Kinda nice to hear I wasn’t the only one with such an experience with Flexport. Indeed, I also found it surprising that it wasn’t as automated as they hype it to be. Felt mostly like a glorified CRM, which I guess in the shipping industry of pen & paper is seen as a massive improvement.
  - ZeroSolstice 4y ago
    Yup, I took an applied machine learning course which shed light that most vendors oversell what they call AI and ML processing. Perusing through the company structure provides some insight into how invested a company is within the AI operating space. You should be able to find some papers or people at the company that work in the AI/ML space.
ZeroSolstice 4y ago
| My new strong feeling is that those of us with a little runway (as in 1-3 | months, not "rich") should just find a personal passion project and build it. | Then maybe the project makes money, or maybe it's just a showpiece to pass some | of the dumber interview processes which want you to solve unrealistic CS300 | level algorithm tests in a crappy web UI with a timer and audience. This is the conclusion I came to as well. I started working on a cybersecurity threat hunting, analysis, website/blog. At a minimum I hope to give some insight and formal processing (albeit limited to my experience and exposure to threats) back to other interested practitioners or students. If the interview ends up being a wash the questions / context end up being good things to write up about. This also helps with the take-home or questionnaire type items as I can reference my github and ask for more context surrounding any questions. I.E. I see you are asking about xyz are you expecting a similar output to github/abc-project/results. | But I totally relate about the feeling...two verbal interviews, two live coding test interviews, and finally an | interview with the CTO...Then I got a no. Another consideration is you are just a candidate filling a required, "interviewed outside people" checkbox for what has already been deemed an inside hire. Or internal recruiters have to talk to "X" number of candidates for their status report this week. Which is why I usually don't "prepare" for an interview. If you read up every week and have a general following of your subject area I wouldn't see this as an issue. If I'm not regularly working within a subject area, isn't that obvious from my resume? This is also a good tell within the interview if its kinda BS when you are asked items that don't appear to be related. I usually follow up a bit on how that question relates to my experience or the job posting. Lastly, It seems kinda obvious that if you aren't going to hire people to grow into the role then you attract people that already know everything about the role, which mostly then leads to the money hopping that some employers comment on. Why stay at my current company if I can do the same thing elsewhere for more. A few tips I've picked up when interviewing (your experience may vary*): - When I see senior roles at a company I ask if its new or an existing position. You _might_ follow up with asking if anyone internally has applied. This also gives you insight into wether they want you to share your skills to train junior people. Thats worth more money so don't leave that on the table, esp. if you are looking to continue more of a IC role. - Ask if the person interviewing you will be working with you, same department, related department, etc. This can help shape how you answer or what clarifications to ask about. - Ask about tooling and day to day processes. Use the job posting as list to go through. I.e "The posting lists threat modeling and reporting, what tooling do you currently use for that?" This can also be a good segue into you expounding on a subject area. A lot of companies try to put up a good front by asking about unrelated topics that they themselves don't use and/or you find out they are looking to expand into that area. - Everyone is replaceable, no job is guaranteed. Any interview, especially VC funded startup, that has (5) or more interviews is a waste of time and speaks to a highly inefficient company. If anyone wants to dispute that they can provide the evidence collected and studied for their company or industry that shows differently. Otherwise its just all random. * This is all based on having the runway the OP posted above. If you really need the job you might just have to "play" the game.

by z9znz 4y ago

yunohn 4y ago

> There's a company that advertises jobs on HN at least once a month. Flexport? I had the same experience.

z9znz 4y ago
An interesting thing I learned in the interview process was that the AI and automation that was supposedly powering the new efficient global shipping was actually 95% humans doing the normal human work, not some great technical system. But to be fair, I also worked for an "AI" startup which was going to revolutionize a certain type of business payment processing system with AI, but in fact it was just another paypal or stripe. Talk big, and maybe if you get enough funding and have enough time you can actually fulfill the promises you've made. If not, maybe you can at least get a nice exit. $$$.
- yunohn 4y ago
  Kinda nice to hear I wasn’t the only one with such an experience with Flexport. Indeed, I also found it surprising that it wasn’t as automated as they hype it to be. Felt mostly like a glorified CRM, which I guess in the shipping industry of pen & paper is seen as a massive improvement.
- ZeroSolstice 4y ago
  Yup, I took an applied machine learning course which shed light that most vendors oversell what they call AI and ML processing. Perusing through the company structure provides some insight into how invested a company is within the AI operating space. You should be able to find some papers or people at the company that work in the AI/ML space.

ZeroSolstice 4y ago

| My new strong feeling is that those of us with a little runway (as in 1-3 | months, not "rich") should just find a personal passion project and build it. | Then maybe the project makes money, or maybe it's just a showpiece to pass some | of the dumber interview processes which want you to solve unrealistic CS300 | level algorithm tests in a crappy web UI with a timer and audience. This is the conclusion I came to as well. I started working on a cybersecurity threat hunting, analysis, website/blog. At a minimum I hope to give some insight and formal processing (albeit limited to my experience and exposure to threats) back to other interested practitioners or students. If the interview ends up being a wash the questions / context end up being good things to write up about. This also helps with the take-home or questionnaire type items as I can reference my github and ask for more context surrounding any questions. I.E. I see you are asking about xyz are you expecting a similar output to github/abc-project/results. | But I totally relate about the feeling...two verbal interviews, two live coding test interviews, and finally an | interview with the CTO...Then I got a no. Another consideration is you are just a candidate filling a required, "interviewed outside people" checkbox for what has already been deemed an inside hire. Or internal recruiters have to talk to "X" number of candidates for their status report this week. Which is why I usually don't "prepare" for an interview. If you read up every week and have a general following of your subject area I wouldn't see this as an issue. If I'm not regularly working within a subject area, isn't that obvious from my resume? This is also a good tell within the interview if its kinda BS when you are asked items that don't appear to be related. I usually follow up a bit on how that question relates to my experience or the job posting. Lastly, It seems kinda obvious that if you aren't going to hire people to grow into the role then you attract people that already know everything about the role, which mostly then leads to the money hopping that some employers comment on. Why stay at my current company if I can do the same thing elsewhere for more. A few tips I've picked up when interviewing (your experience may vary*): - When I see senior roles at a company I ask if its new or an existing position. You _might_ follow up with asking if anyone internally has applied. This also gives you insight into wether they want you to share your skills to train junior people. Thats worth more money so don't leave that on the table, esp. if you are looking to continue more of a IC role. - Ask if the person interviewing you will be working with you, same department, related department, etc. This can help shape how you answer or what clarifications to ask about. - Ask about tooling and day to day processes. Use the job posting as list to go through. I.e "The posting lists threat modeling and reporting, what tooling do you currently use for that?" This can also be a good segue into you expounding on a subject area. A lot of companies try to put up a good front by asking about unrelated topics that they themselves don't use and/or you find out they are looking to expand into that area. - Everyone is replaceable, no job is guaranteed. Any interview, especially VC funded startup, that has (5) or more interviews is a waste of time and speaks to a highly inefficient company. If anyone wants to dispute that they can provide the evidence collected and studied for their company or industry that shows differently. Otherwise its just all random. * This is all based on having the runway the OP posted above. If you really need the job you might just have to "play" the game.