13 ms·

Leveling up in job interviews for software engineers (2022)

176 points by 0x54MUR41 3y ago

rightbyte 3y ago
I find the author giving just plain bad advice. "The tech stack in your CV should NOT look like this: [fig of bullet points of techs]" Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. "If you have worked with a technology years ago, your experiences is not up to date anymore. Tech evolves so fast, and you get rusty and forget things." This is a trope. Tech hardly move at all and it is way faster to refresh, dunno, 8 year old Java Spring experience, than learn it from scratch. The hiring manager might believe that you need recent experience though ...
- iamcreasy 3y ago
  > Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. I think - what he meant was - only to include ones strongly applicable to the job.
- onion2k 3y ago
  Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. It depends if you want to work for a company that hires based on keywords on resumes, or one where the hiring manager reads and understands resumes. In my experience the second type of company is a lot better to work for.
  - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
    In no desirable company has the hiring manager enough time to read every resume that comes in as they get spammed with them. They all go through an automatic filter, then an HR/recruiter filter before reaching the hiring manager. So if you don't pass those filters you're not getting to the hiring manager.
    - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
      This is not true. Basically only large, non-tech enterprises use the keyword stuffing automated scanning process. Source: I don't do this, and basically never get a call back from anyone using Taleo, but almost always get call backs from Big Tech/startups with humans that look at resumes (tbh I suspect my pdf format also causes issues here).
      - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
        Not the case where I live in Europe (German speaking countries). From what I've been told by people in HR, lot of people desperate to emigrate from Africa and East-Asia will spam every tech company with applications even if they don't fit the job requirements or the company doesn't offer visa sponsorship so even small-ish companies use automated filters as they get too many applications that don't fit the job description and overwhelm the short staffed HR department. Also, what is a "tech company" to you? Does making SW & HW scanning and moving devices for the semiconductor, automotive and shipping industry not count as "tech"? I feel like SV has stolen the word "tech" from "technology" to now mean "disruptive VC funded mobile web start-up founded to make money on advertising, skirting regulations and tracking users", the same way cryptocurrencies have stolen the "crypto" from "cryptography".
        disgruntledphd2 3y ago
        Yeah I'm in Ireland, mostly applying to consumer tech companies run out of the US, so quite different. That being said, a lot of my roles have come through external recruiters so maybe that's what saves me. It's odd that Ireland wouldn't see the same spamming though, given that we're an English speaking country with lots of tech roles.
        ChuckNorris89 3y ago
        How do you know your companies haven't gotten spammed? If you come through human recruiters then you bypass any automated filtering system.
  - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
    Keyword matching is exactly what recruitment companies do, even the good ones, and I worked directly for one of the best ones in London.
    - onion2k 3y ago
      What criteria are you using to define 'best'? I'd have thought "can't be replaced with a simple regex" would be a reasonable heuristic, but if you're right then that can't be it...
      - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
        You're right, scrub 'best'. In their particular area of recruitment, the largest and arguably best known in london. (No names if you don't mind).
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      I only worked with local recruitment companies back i the day. I’ve met plenty of recruiters in their office an for lunch. This was pre-remote work. Even now, I wouldn’t just random work with recruitment companies. I work with people. I would reach out to a recruiter on LinkedIn and start a conversation. Honestly though, at this point in my career, I doubt that I would ever go through a third party recruiter again just because I do have a network.
  - KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
    > It depends if you want to work for a company that hires based on [X] Must we always presume malice? I'm so tired of this piece of conjecture. Big companies have layers of candidate filtering because of _scale_, not because they unanimously and comprehensively don't know how to do hiring in the right way. I can see how this might look malicious from the POV of someone who hasn't been involved in every part of the hiring process (as the OP clearly hasn't) but it's no coincidence that the most respected companies with the most talented engineers all read from the same hymn book. Anyone involved in hiring on either side of the table also needs to understand that companies aren't looking for their soul mate in every role they hire for, and that noone is sitting around pondering the 10x dev who might have been. Good enough processes for getting engineers/hires of the desired quality or higher: this has always been the goal. Anything more is corporate masturbation; something to scoff about in LinkedIn posts and appeal to those who, as I said, must always assume malice.
  - Geezus_42 3y ago
    I don't care about what kind of company it is. I just want someone to give me money in return for service so I can feed my family.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      I can’t speak about the current job market. But once you get experience and build a network and a reputation, you can start being real picky. On top of that, once you “get in a position of f*%# you” (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI) your shit tolerance level starts going way down.
  - drewcoo 3y ago
    > if you want to work for a company that hires based on I've found that engineering culture rarely matches how HR/recruiting works, especially as companies grow but even in startups often times.
- austin-cheney 3y ago
  The advice on this is all over the place. It comes down to a matter of to whom you should appeal. Are you trying to pass an HR filter so that a human actually reads the resume or do you appeal to common sense and write a resume actually intended to be read by humans but immediately rejected by HR staff?
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Ye well circumstances matter and if the author himself is hiring his advice is obviously good to follow to be hired by him. I think any reasonable hiring manager understands why resumes are blend buzzword essays.
- Daub 3y ago
  > In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. I agree with this. One way or another, as an interviewer I need to know what your skill/experience set is. Skills/experience can always be developed, but that should be a known factor at the point of hire. One positive point that TFA made was the need to 'Listen Carefully and Answer on Point'. As someone who interviews regularly, I cannot count the number of times that interviewees have not followed this simple advice. To the question "Give an example of when you last frustulated a gibbet..." they will describe in detail their general thoughts on the many finer points of gibbet frustulation, but not actually give an example. Also, be "Concise and Offer Details on Demand" Top tip: when you have finished answering a question, stop answering the question.
  - Geezus_42 3y ago
    I hate the "give me an example when" questions because as soon as I hear them I forget everything I've ever done lol. Also, they can be so ridiculously stupid, "Tell me about a time you worked well under stress?" Like, why can't I just tell you that I'm not going to lose my shit when it hits the fan instead of playing stupid word games.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Recent pass behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. You don’t truly know what you would do in a situation until you’ve been tested.
      - brightlancer 3y ago
        > Recent pass behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. > You don’t truly know what you would do in a situation until you’ve been tested. I had an interviewer ask a broad "What can you do with X" question, and my mind went blank. Five minutes later, he asked about solving a problem and I said "Well I would use X to..." Open-ended "give me an example" questions are not a situation folks encounter in their job. It's entirely an interview question. It's entirely a shitty interview question.
- Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
  Listing all the tech you've worked with is pretty pointless in my opinion. If you've learnt all that, you can learn to use more. At most I would detail what you feel your expertise is and what other skills you have that the company is asking for. Have you programmed in C# for 5+ years and continue to do so? You might think you're really good at it, so make that point. Did you use React for a little while and the job asks for that experience? Mention it. Did you use OCaml 5 years ago and not touch it since? Probably don't mention it. CVs should always be tailored for the job. It's not a life story, it's an advertisement. Car advertisements don't list page after page of tech specs. They focus on the key things they think are selling points. You should do the same for your CV and that will change depending on the requirements of the job you apply for.
  - badpun 3y ago
    > If you've learnt all that, you can learn to use more. From my experience, at least in Europe, companies are paying the most for people who can "hit the ground running", i.e. being able to contribute from day one - both in terms of code as well design/architecture decisions. That neccesitates knowing their exact tech stack.
    - rightbyte 3y ago
      How does that even work though. "Hit the ground running"? It takes me months to get into a codebase and such a small thing as get it to build might be a multiple week hurdle if the guy you replace is gone.
      - odshoifsdhfs 3y ago
        Is this a US/SV thing? I hear it here over and over but in 20+ years of professional development (Europe + US/Canada remote start ups) never I needed more than a week to start working on a system (usually is 1-2 days that are mixed with onboarding sessions as well). I may not be able to refactor the system to use micro services or whatnot, but to dig into the code and start fixing some bugs or even add a small feature has always been a week 1 goal for me (and one I set to the people I manage now).
- unflxw 3y ago
  A resumé is a tool for you to guide the interviewer, and you should use it for your advantage. If you stuff your CV with a contextless list of random tech keywords, half of which are things you did a "hello world" with years ago, the interview is now a game of Russian roulette, and the gun is aimed at your face. Sure, you'll pass the resumé screening, but at what cost? You're leaving a lot to the interviewer's imagination, and what they imagine you should know is not necessarily what you know. "So, your CV mentions you have MongoDB and DevOps experience. We're actually having some weird issues with it recently, it seems that under very intense loads, some of our nodes get locked and time out, and then the cluster loses quorum. Do you have any thoughts on what we could do?" It sucks to get a question like this, when all your previous experience in the matter is that you pressed the "create instance" button in the Atlas UI three years ago, and decided that was enough MongoDB-ing and DevOps-ing for a CV bullet point. You can prevent this by showing those tech keywords in the context in which they're relevant. "Created and deployed an online application for candy bar enthusiasts, using React, NestJS and MongoDB on the cloud". Now you might get questions like "I see on your CV that you worked on an app for... candy bar enthusiasts? Could you tell me more about it?", or, "Your CV mentions that you built an app using MongoDB and NestJS, how was the experience of using MongoDB in a Node application?", which you are more qualified to answer. By adding relevant human context to what you did, you guide the interviewer towards the questions you'd want them to ask.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - doublespanner 3y ago
    At least in roles where I have sent out a resume, including keywords was less about the interview, and more about passing the not necessarily tech savvy hr or external recruitment process. In an interview I would hope to talk more about the more detailed parts, but it feels like I need the tickbox stuff to get to that point.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Why are you even in a position where you are dealing with HR as a filter? By the time my resume gets to the ATS, someone who is in the hiring chain already knows to look for it or at least I’ve gotten an internal referral.
- blippitybleep 3y ago
  I agree. I’m a contractor and I feel the tech list allows the client to know upfront what I know out the gate and what I don’t. They can make an informed decision around who they want to get in for their project.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  > Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. If you’re an experienced developer and still randomly submitting your resume to an ATS instead of depending on your network you’re doing it wrong. I have never in 25+ years across eight jobs randomly submitted my resume to an ATS hoping and praying someone would find it based on keywords. I’m much more strategic. Yes, I’ve applied for (and currently work) for very large organizations. Sure for a lot of jobs you have to submit your resume to an ATS to start the process. But I only do that as a perfunctory step after talking to someone who is already looking for my resume in the system when I submit it to start the process. > This is a trope. Tech hardly move at all and it is way faster to refresh, dunno, 8 year old Java Spring experience, than learn it from scratch. I last wrote a line of C# in 2020 after doing C# in for over a decade. But the last time I was in the weeds as a heavy C# developer was probably around 2018. Even in that brief amount of time, I know that the ecosystem has gone under changes and what are considered best practices have changed. More importantly, new features and frameworks have been added.
  - roland35 3y ago
    I've actually never gotten a job via my network (besides an "internship" driving a forklift in a warehouse), and have worked at startups and big tech companies just from applying on the website. I wouldn't discount it!
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      My work history 1. I got the job based on a previous internship that itself was based on talking to people in the career office in college. (1996) 2. I talked to someone at a local recruiting agency and went to the office and met them in person (1999) 3. I found an interesting looking job on CareerBuilder for a startup and reached out to the internal recruiter via email and we started having a discussion (2008) 4. When that company was folding, a couple of recruiters reached out to all of us and I was hired four days after I was laid off (2012) 5. I reached out to an in house recruiter on LinkedIn where the manager was looking to start a “tiger team” of experienced developers (2014) 6. I had plenty of recruiter i knew by now. I responded to every local legitimate recruiter who reached out to me. I told them what type of job I was looking for (a tech lead position at a smaller company) and just waited for the right opportunity. I found it in 2016. 7. The same for my next job, I was looking to work for a company that was doing new “cloud initiatives. I asked all of my recruiting contacts to be on the lookout. The recruiter I met in 2012 that I had stayed in contact with knew a guy who was the newly minted CTO of a startup that was trying to bring development in house and be “cloud native”. Before they were using a contracting agency. (2018) 8. A recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me about a software development position. I really wasn’t interested in relocating, working as a software developer for any large company or ever being on call. I kept talking to her and she recommended I apply for a position at AWS ProServe. But even then, she shepherded me through the process and made sure my application got looked at by the right people. I didn’t just blindly hope for a keyword match (2020) And btw, in my entire career, I’ve done exactly two coding tests and both of those were FizzBuzz level sanity checks.
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
This is naïve and looks like the guy doesn't have all that much experience "Good candidates now ask many diverse questions about the team setup, role expectations, challenges, the tech stack, career and mentoring opportunities, work times, etc." And if the interviewer doesn't like these questions, because they have too much ego in this? Because I can't actually ask good questions because I don't have enough knowledge of the inside of their company (other than off the website, which is their public face so they're going to be distinctly partisan about how good they are), whereas they have a potted summary of me in front of them in the form of my CV? Or if they out right lie about the tech stack, the "career and mentoring opportunities", how fucking bad the management is…? Because this is exactly what happened at a number of companies I've interviewed for, and most especially the one I'm working for now. My experience is you make yourself look cute and cuddly, don't challenge too much (eg. don't ask if they have an bug tracker because often they don't[1] and they'll get irritated). Great advice for an ideal world, not this one. [1] And if you find out they do have one, especially don't ask if they actually use it.
- xen0 3y ago
  The flip side is 'do you want to work for someone who's ego is so fragile that asking a couple of questions might tank your interview'? Maybe you're OK navigating around that person, but many are not, and I'd rather not have to bother. Yeah, there's only so much you can glean, but just like they're looking for red flags from you, you're looking for red flags from them.
  - qup 3y ago
    I'm not sure how common it is (in tech) to be interviewed by the person you work under. If it were common, I would agree with you.
    - bearmode 3y ago
      Every tech interview I have had has, at some point, included interviewing with the person I'd be working under
    - 3y ago
ttrn 3y ago
I would actually argue that the best jobs are rarely advertised or filled through traditional interview processes. In my experience, building strong relationships and networks within the industry has been far more effective in securing meaningful employment opportunities. Rather than focusing solely on perfecting your interview skills, I would encourage folks to prioritize developing their network and cultivating relationships with potential employers.
- sureglymop 3y ago
  That's completely true! But... that can make it very hard. I personally struggle a lot with socializing and networking for personal reasons. However, I would say I definitely have useful skills and would consider myself very employable. But I simply cannot compete with someone who has better social skills, regardless of skill level.
- Ancalagon 3y ago
  You're probably not going to walk into a 450k/yr job through networking and connections - just saying. Those will require a traditional interview process, I can almost guarantee it.
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reactordev 3y ago
What kills me is the fact that the interviews (especially the technical ones) go in depth into topics that aren’t ever pertinent to the job. It’s simply so the interviewer can rank you vs themselves. You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat. The best interviews I’ve ever taken and in turn, host, are the ones where we break down a problem with low code, no gotchas, little examples of specifics just to make sure they know how to write it in language of their choice. That they understand the problem, can satisfactorily break it down into actionable tasks, and come up with a solution to the problem. Everything else: tech stack, jira, agile, culture - is company specific and should be taught to your employees and not be made the bar. If you need someone who can hit the ground running you can focus on a tech stack but ultimately it’s up to you, the company, to ensure they fit. Not the new hire.
- rewmie 3y ago
  > What kills me is the fact that the interviews (especially the technical ones) go in depth into topics that aren’t ever pertinent to the job. It’s simply so the interviewer can rank you vs themselves. You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat. Story time. A few years back I was in hiring loops as an interviewer. Half a dozen engineers in my company interviewed a candidate during a morning. Everyone had their notes and we were discussing if we should hire the guy or not. Everyone gave thumbs up except one engineer. It turned out he tested the candidate on data structures and algorithms, and the candidate hadn't memorized the computational complexity of some bullshit algorithm that only shows up in lame trivia games no one cares about. Based in that, that particular interviewer gave thumbs down. We discussed everything, went through all notes, and ultimately based on all feedback the hiring leader gave a thumbs up. The data structures engineer threw a tantrum. In his opinion, we would be lowering the hiring bar if we hired a candidate that failed to meet his bar on what he felt were basic competences. The hiring leader asked how many times he used that algorithm in his everyday work. The data structures engineer answered that alas he never used it at all, but still he felt that everyone working in his org should know that. I feel some companies don't have good hiring managers and give free reign to bad engineers who have no idea what it takes to deliver production code.
  - 3y ago
faitswulff 3y ago
Talking about your family is way easier when you're a heterosexual married couple with 2.5 kids and a dog.
- thejackgoode 3y ago
  on the flip side (if you're not), the talk is much more interesting and memorable
  - faitswulff 3y ago
    And if you're gay and the interviewer is a homophobe you won't get the job. It's a matter of risk management.
    - harlanji 3y ago
      Or homeless and the interviewer is a homelessphobe. Trying to be additive to the sentiment, not take anything away. I've stopped interviewing for corporate jobs until I can get my money up. Probably an easier hurdle to overcome in some ways, since I can pay my homeless away with temp jobs and have a clear path to acceptance: nice shoes and clothes, reliable phone service, a presentable and quiet place for video calls. There is a real cost to each interview, otherwise it'd be easier to just keep doing them and count each instance of discrimination as a data point and assistance in helping us avoid an environment that isn't a fit. A funny thing is that people used to think I was gay because I presented myself a little too well and was a little too gentle in my attitude or something. Now I'm out here doing construction demolition and I'm a little too rugged looking to make my old friends comfortable. Best wishes to everyone who has a hard time finding an environment where they fit.
    - kjkjadksj 3y ago
      If you are gay why work for a homophobe? Seems like you’ve dodged a bullet.
      - faitswulff 3y ago
sys_64738 3y ago
> First, you need to understand how a hiring manager approaches an interview. I stopped reading there. Does the author know before your resume even gets to an interviewer that it will go through keyword screening software then be reviewed by HR and binned, all long before a hiring manager sees it?
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I can honestly say that I have never once worried about keyword screening software. I don’t blindly submit my resume. But even if that’s the case, I’m still going to use keywords as part of the narrative. “Using <technology> accomplished <result>”
- lazyant 3y ago
  I've worked at dozens of companies, startups and big tech, none of them used keyword screening, none of them got reviewed first by HR. I'm sure it happens at some places but certainly it's not 100%.
  - sys_64738 3y ago
    Those must be some crazy out of the way employers.
- john-tells-all 3y ago
  On my resume, I use English descriptions of what I did to develop business-level features. At the end is "Keywords: Python, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform" for the keyword screening software. A human can see I learned different tech for each job, and other tech has been mastered and is re-used over the years.
realcertify 3y ago
The best interview that I ever experienced was when I applied for a Software Engineer position at VMware. The interviewers brought a laptop with an IDE and a project with a bunch of source code (based on one of their real in-house projects), and the task was to understand the exising code base and add a few new features to it. A real everyday task, no crazy algorithms or other menthal gymnastics.
- macsparrow 3y ago
  Can be a fraught approach; interviewees could (and do) assume their answers will be used for production.
  - philstephenson 3y ago
    Seems like a question you could simply ask the interviewers up front. Establishing expectations about the task is useful anyway.
  - golergka 3y ago
    Just pay him for the time then. Mane companies already do this for test assignments anyway.
- conor- 3y ago
  Assuming an interview is a typical 30-60 min time slot is this actually a realistic ask? It seems pretty crazy to 1) get up to speed on a codebase and context in such a short amount of time to 2) then be able to actually develop against the codebase in a meaningful way to add more than one feature to it. Can you share any additional details about what the process actually looked like or what type of task you were actually performing in the interview? Size of the project (~LoC), tech stack, complexity of the feature, etc.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - realcertify 3y ago
JohnCClarke 3y ago
> You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat. Even worse for CTOs. If you make the development look too easy your CEO will wonder what you even do.
71a54xd 3y ago
It seems like these days unless you have 8yrs of experience it's impossible to even be considered for these interviews. Once you get them, unless you've been perpetually practicing for a year or more the odds you pass are slim to none.
- washadjeffmad 3y ago
  From the language they use, it sounds like they're trying to attract kids, or at least people who would unironically identify as "Gamers".
washadjeffmad 3y ago
How much XP does it take to become a rockstar coder, Philipp? Is CEO a class we can spec into or a race? This misapplied market research that tries to make jobs "cool" (upskill!) gives me powerful Ballmer "I love this company" vibes.

176 points by 0x54MUR41 3y ago

I find the author giving just plain bad advice. "The tech stack in your CV should NOT look like this: [fig of bullet points of techs]" Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. "If you have worked with a technology years ago, your experiences is not up to date anymore. Tech evolves so fast, and you get rusty and forget things." This is a trope. Tech hardly move at all and it is way faster to refresh, dunno, 8 year old Java Spring experience, than learn it from scratch. The hiring manager might believe that you need recent experience though ...

iamcreasy 3y ago
> Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. I think - what he meant was - only to include ones strongly applicable to the job.
onion2k 3y ago
Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. It depends if you want to work for a company that hires based on keywords on resumes, or one where the hiring manager reads and understands resumes. In my experience the second type of company is a lot better to work for.
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  In no desirable company has the hiring manager enough time to read every resume that comes in as they get spammed with them. They all go through an automatic filter, then an HR/recruiter filter before reaching the hiring manager. So if you don't pass those filters you're not getting to the hiring manager.
  - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
    This is not true. Basically only large, non-tech enterprises use the keyword stuffing automated scanning process. Source: I don't do this, and basically never get a call back from anyone using Taleo, but almost always get call backs from Big Tech/startups with humans that look at resumes (tbh I suspect my pdf format also causes issues here).
    - ChuckNorris89 3y ago
      Not the case where I live in Europe (German speaking countries). From what I've been told by people in HR, lot of people desperate to emigrate from Africa and East-Asia will spam every tech company with applications even if they don't fit the job requirements or the company doesn't offer visa sponsorship so even small-ish companies use automated filters as they get too many applications that don't fit the job description and overwhelm the short staffed HR department. Also, what is a "tech company" to you? Does making SW & HW scanning and moving devices for the semiconductor, automotive and shipping industry not count as "tech"? I feel like SV has stolen the word "tech" from "technology" to now mean "disruptive VC funded mobile web start-up founded to make money on advertising, skirting regulations and tracking users", the same way cryptocurrencies have stolen the "crypto" from "cryptography".
      - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
        Yeah I'm in Ireland, mostly applying to consumer tech companies run out of the US, so quite different. That being said, a lot of my roles have come through external recruiters so maybe that's what saves me. It's odd that Ireland wouldn't see the same spamming though, given that we're an English speaking country with lots of tech roles.
        ChuckNorris89 3y ago
        How do you know your companies haven't gotten spammed? If you come through human recruiters then you bypass any automated filtering system.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  Keyword matching is exactly what recruitment companies do, even the good ones, and I worked directly for one of the best ones in London.
  - onion2k 3y ago
    What criteria are you using to define 'best'? I'd have thought "can't be replaced with a simple regex" would be a reasonable heuristic, but if you're right then that can't be it...
    - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
      You're right, scrub 'best'. In their particular area of recruitment, the largest and arguably best known in london. (No names if you don't mind).
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I only worked with local recruitment companies back i the day. I’ve met plenty of recruiters in their office an for lunch. This was pre-remote work. Even now, I wouldn’t just random work with recruitment companies. I work with people. I would reach out to a recruiter on LinkedIn and start a conversation. Honestly though, at this point in my career, I doubt that I would ever go through a third party recruiter again just because I do have a network.
- KnobbleMcKnees 3y ago
  > It depends if you want to work for a company that hires based on [X] Must we always presume malice? I'm so tired of this piece of conjecture. Big companies have layers of candidate filtering because of _scale_, not because they unanimously and comprehensively don't know how to do hiring in the right way. I can see how this might look malicious from the POV of someone who hasn't been involved in every part of the hiring process (as the OP clearly hasn't) but it's no coincidence that the most respected companies with the most talented engineers all read from the same hymn book. Anyone involved in hiring on either side of the table also needs to understand that companies aren't looking for their soul mate in every role they hire for, and that noone is sitting around pondering the 10x dev who might have been. Good enough processes for getting engineers/hires of the desired quality or higher: this has always been the goal. Anything more is corporate masturbation; something to scoff about in LinkedIn posts and appeal to those who, as I said, must always assume malice.
- Geezus_42 3y ago
  I don't care about what kind of company it is. I just want someone to give me money in return for service so I can feed my family.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I can’t speak about the current job market. But once you get experience and build a network and a reputation, you can start being real picky. On top of that, once you “get in a position of f*%# you” (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI) your shit tolerance level starts going way down.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > if you want to work for a company that hires based on I've found that engineering culture rarely matches how HR/recruiting works, especially as companies grow but even in startups often times.
austin-cheney 3y ago
The advice on this is all over the place. It comes down to a matter of to whom you should appeal. Are you trying to pass an HR filter so that a human actually reads the resume or do you appeal to common sense and write a resume actually intended to be read by humans but immediately rejected by HR staff?
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Ye well circumstances matter and if the author himself is hiring his advice is obviously good to follow to be hired by him. I think any reasonable hiring manager understands why resumes are blend buzzword essays.
Daub 3y ago
> In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. I agree with this. One way or another, as an interviewer I need to know what your skill/experience set is. Skills/experience can always be developed, but that should be a known factor at the point of hire. One positive point that TFA made was the need to 'Listen Carefully and Answer on Point'. As someone who interviews regularly, I cannot count the number of times that interviewees have not followed this simple advice. To the question "Give an example of when you last frustulated a gibbet..." they will describe in detail their general thoughts on the many finer points of gibbet frustulation, but not actually give an example. Also, be "Concise and Offer Details on Demand" Top tip: when you have finished answering a question, stop answering the question.
- Geezus_42 3y ago
  I hate the "give me an example when" questions because as soon as I hear them I forget everything I've ever done lol. Also, they can be so ridiculously stupid, "Tell me about a time you worked well under stress?" Like, why can't I just tell you that I'm not going to lose my shit when it hits the fan instead of playing stupid word games.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Recent pass behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. You don’t truly know what you would do in a situation until you’ve been tested.
    - brightlancer 3y ago
      > Recent pass behavior is a good predictor of future behavior. > You don’t truly know what you would do in a situation until you’ve been tested. I had an interviewer ask a broad "What can you do with X" question, and my mind went blank. Five minutes later, he asked about solving a problem and I said "Well I would use X to..." Open-ended "give me an example" questions are not a situation folks encounter in their job. It's entirely an interview question. It's entirely a shitty interview question.
Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
Listing all the tech you've worked with is pretty pointless in my opinion. If you've learnt all that, you can learn to use more. At most I would detail what you feel your expertise is and what other skills you have that the company is asking for. Have you programmed in C# for 5+ years and continue to do so? You might think you're really good at it, so make that point. Did you use React for a little while and the job asks for that experience? Mention it. Did you use OCaml 5 years ago and not touch it since? Probably don't mention it. CVs should always be tailored for the job. It's not a life story, it's an advertisement. Car advertisements don't list page after page of tech specs. They focus on the key things they think are selling points. You should do the same for your CV and that will change depending on the requirements of the job you apply for.
- badpun 3y ago
  > If you've learnt all that, you can learn to use more. From my experience, at least in Europe, companies are paying the most for people who can "hit the ground running", i.e. being able to contribute from day one - both in terms of code as well design/architecture decisions. That neccesitates knowing their exact tech stack.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    How does that even work though. "Hit the ground running"? It takes me months to get into a codebase and such a small thing as get it to build might be a multiple week hurdle if the guy you replace is gone.
    - odshoifsdhfs 3y ago
      Is this a US/SV thing? I hear it here over and over but in 20+ years of professional development (Europe + US/Canada remote start ups) never I needed more than a week to start working on a system (usually is 1-2 days that are mixed with onboarding sessions as well). I may not be able to refactor the system to use micro services or whatnot, but to dig into the code and start fixing some bugs or even add a small feature has always been a week 1 goal for me (and one I set to the people I manage now).
unflxw 3y ago
A resumé is a tool for you to guide the interviewer, and you should use it for your advantage. If you stuff your CV with a contextless list of random tech keywords, half of which are things you did a "hello world" with years ago, the interview is now a game of Russian roulette, and the gun is aimed at your face. Sure, you'll pass the resumé screening, but at what cost? You're leaving a lot to the interviewer's imagination, and what they imagine you should know is not necessarily what you know. "So, your CV mentions you have MongoDB and DevOps experience. We're actually having some weird issues with it recently, it seems that under very intense loads, some of our nodes get locked and time out, and then the cluster loses quorum. Do you have any thoughts on what we could do?" It sucks to get a question like this, when all your previous experience in the matter is that you pressed the "create instance" button in the Atlas UI three years ago, and decided that was enough MongoDB-ing and DevOps-ing for a CV bullet point. You can prevent this by showing those tech keywords in the context in which they're relevant. "Created and deployed an online application for candy bar enthusiasts, using React, NestJS and MongoDB on the cloud". Now you might get questions like "I see on your CV that you worked on an app for... candy bar enthusiasts? Could you tell me more about it?", or, "Your CV mentions that you built an app using MongoDB and NestJS, how was the experience of using MongoDB in a Node application?", which you are more qualified to answer. By adding relevant human context to what you did, you guide the interviewer towards the questions you'd want them to ask.
- deleted 3y ago
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- doublespanner 3y ago
  At least in roles where I have sent out a resume, including keywords was less about the interview, and more about passing the not necessarily tech savvy hr or external recruitment process. In an interview I would hope to talk more about the more detailed parts, but it feels like I need the tickbox stuff to get to that point.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Why are you even in a position where you are dealing with HR as a filter? By the time my resume gets to the ATS, someone who is in the hiring chain already knows to look for it or at least I’ve gotten an internal referral.
blippitybleep 3y ago
I agree. I’m a contractor and I feel the tech list allows the client to know upfront what I know out the gate and what I don’t. They can make an informed decision around who they want to get in for their project.
scarface_74 3y ago
> Why not? In resume screening they look for keywords. You need to list the thing they want. If you’re an experienced developer and still randomly submitting your resume to an ATS instead of depending on your network you’re doing it wrong. I have never in 25+ years across eight jobs randomly submitted my resume to an ATS hoping and praying someone would find it based on keywords. I’m much more strategic. Yes, I’ve applied for (and currently work) for very large organizations. Sure for a lot of jobs you have to submit your resume to an ATS to start the process. But I only do that as a perfunctory step after talking to someone who is already looking for my resume in the system when I submit it to start the process. > This is a trope. Tech hardly move at all and it is way faster to refresh, dunno, 8 year old Java Spring experience, than learn it from scratch. I last wrote a line of C# in 2020 after doing C# in for over a decade. But the last time I was in the weeds as a heavy C# developer was probably around 2018. Even in that brief amount of time, I know that the ecosystem has gone under changes and what are considered best practices have changed. More importantly, new features and frameworks have been added.
- roland35 3y ago
  I've actually never gotten a job via my network (besides an "internship" driving a forklift in a warehouse), and have worked at startups and big tech companies just from applying on the website. I wouldn't discount it!
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    My work history 1. I got the job based on a previous internship that itself was based on talking to people in the career office in college. (1996) 2. I talked to someone at a local recruiting agency and went to the office and met them in person (1999) 3. I found an interesting looking job on CareerBuilder for a startup and reached out to the internal recruiter via email and we started having a discussion (2008) 4. When that company was folding, a couple of recruiters reached out to all of us and I was hired four days after I was laid off (2012) 5. I reached out to an in house recruiter on LinkedIn where the manager was looking to start a “tiger team” of experienced developers (2014) 6. I had plenty of recruiter i knew by now. I responded to every local legitimate recruiter who reached out to me. I told them what type of job I was looking for (a tech lead position at a smaller company) and just waited for the right opportunity. I found it in 2016. 7. The same for my next job, I was looking to work for a company that was doing new “cloud initiatives. I asked all of my recruiting contacts to be on the lookout. The recruiter I met in 2012 that I had stayed in contact with knew a guy who was the newly minted CTO of a startup that was trying to bring development in house and be “cloud native”. Before they were using a contracting agency. (2018) 8. A recruiter from Amazon Retail reached out to me about a software development position. I really wasn’t interested in relocating, working as a software developer for any large company or ever being on call. I kept talking to her and she recommended I apply for a position at AWS ProServe. But even then, she shepherded me through the process and made sure my application got looked at by the right people. I didn’t just blindly hope for a keyword match (2020) And btw, in my entire career, I’ve done exactly two coding tests and both of those were FizzBuzz level sanity checks.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

This is naïve and looks like the guy doesn't have all that much experience "Good candidates now ask many diverse questions about the team setup, role expectations, challenges, the tech stack, career and mentoring opportunities, work times, etc." And if the interviewer doesn't like these questions, because they have too much ego in this? Because I can't actually ask good questions because I don't have enough knowledge of the inside of their company (other than off the website, which is their public face so they're going to be distinctly partisan about how good they are), whereas they have a potted summary of me in front of them in the form of my CV? Or if they out right lie about the tech stack, the "career and mentoring opportunities", how fucking bad the management is…? Because this is exactly what happened at a number of companies I've interviewed for, and most especially the one I'm working for now. My experience is you make yourself look cute and cuddly, don't challenge too much (eg. don't ask if they have an bug tracker because often they don't[1] and they'll get irritated). Great advice for an ideal world, not this one. [1] And if you find out they do have one, especially don't ask if they actually use it.

xen0 3y ago
The flip side is 'do you want to work for someone who's ego is so fragile that asking a couple of questions might tank your interview'? Maybe you're OK navigating around that person, but many are not, and I'd rather not have to bother. Yeah, there's only so much you can glean, but just like they're looking for red flags from you, you're looking for red flags from them.
- qup 3y ago
  I'm not sure how common it is (in tech) to be interviewed by the person you work under. If it were common, I would agree with you.
  - bearmode 3y ago
    Every tech interview I have had has, at some point, included interviewing with the person I'd be working under
  - 3y ago

ttrn 3y ago

I would actually argue that the best jobs are rarely advertised or filled through traditional interview processes. In my experience, building strong relationships and networks within the industry has been far more effective in securing meaningful employment opportunities. Rather than focusing solely on perfecting your interview skills, I would encourage folks to prioritize developing their network and cultivating relationships with potential employers.

sureglymop 3y ago
That's completely true! But... that can make it very hard. I personally struggle a lot with socializing and networking for personal reasons. However, I would say I definitely have useful skills and would consider myself very employable. But I simply cannot compete with someone who has better social skills, regardless of skill level.
Ancalagon 3y ago
You're probably not going to walk into a 450k/yr job through networking and connections - just saying. Those will require a traditional interview process, I can almost guarantee it.

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reactordev 3y ago

What kills me is the fact that the interviews (especially the technical ones) go in depth into topics that aren’t ever pertinent to the job. It’s simply so the interviewer can rank you vs themselves. You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat. The best interviews I’ve ever taken and in turn, host, are the ones where we break down a problem with low code, no gotchas, little examples of specifics just to make sure they know how to write it in language of their choice. That they understand the problem, can satisfactorily break it down into actionable tasks, and come up with a solution to the problem. Everything else: tech stack, jira, agile, culture - is company specific and should be taught to your employees and not be made the bar. If you need someone who can hit the ground running you can focus on a tech stack but ultimately it’s up to you, the company, to ensure they fit. Not the new hire.

rewmie 3y ago
> What kills me is the fact that the interviews (especially the technical ones) go in depth into topics that aren’t ever pertinent to the job. It’s simply so the interviewer can rank you vs themselves. You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat. Story time. A few years back I was in hiring loops as an interviewer. Half a dozen engineers in my company interviewed a candidate during a morning. Everyone had their notes and we were discussing if we should hire the guy or not. Everyone gave thumbs up except one engineer. It turned out he tested the candidate on data structures and algorithms, and the candidate hadn't memorized the computational complexity of some bullshit algorithm that only shows up in lame trivia games no one cares about. Based in that, that particular interviewer gave thumbs down. We discussed everything, went through all notes, and ultimately based on all feedback the hiring leader gave a thumbs up. The data structures engineer threw a tantrum. In his opinion, we would be lowering the hiring bar if we hired a candidate that failed to meet his bar on what he felt were basic competences. The hiring leader asked how many times he used that algorithm in his everyday work. The data structures engineer answered that alas he never used it at all, but still he felt that everyone working in his org should know that. I feel some companies don't have good hiring managers and give free reign to bad engineers who have no idea what it takes to deliver production code.
- 3y ago

faitswulff 3y ago

Talking about your family is way easier when you're a heterosexual married couple with 2.5 kids and a dog.

thejackgoode 3y ago
on the flip side (if you're not), the talk is much more interesting and memorable
- faitswulff 3y ago
  And if you're gay and the interviewer is a homophobe you won't get the job. It's a matter of risk management.
  - harlanji 3y ago
    Or homeless and the interviewer is a homelessphobe. Trying to be additive to the sentiment, not take anything away. I've stopped interviewing for corporate jobs until I can get my money up. Probably an easier hurdle to overcome in some ways, since I can pay my homeless away with temp jobs and have a clear path to acceptance: nice shoes and clothes, reliable phone service, a presentable and quiet place for video calls. There is a real cost to each interview, otherwise it'd be easier to just keep doing them and count each instance of discrimination as a data point and assistance in helping us avoid an environment that isn't a fit. A funny thing is that people used to think I was gay because I presented myself a little too well and was a little too gentle in my attitude or something. Now I'm out here doing construction demolition and I'm a little too rugged looking to make my old friends comfortable. Best wishes to everyone who has a hard time finding an environment where they fit.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    If you are gay why work for a homophobe? Seems like you’ve dodged a bullet.
    - faitswulff 3y ago

sys_64738 3y ago

> First, you need to understand how a hiring manager approaches an interview. I stopped reading there. Does the author know before your resume even gets to an interviewer that it will go through keyword screening software then be reviewed by HR and binned, all long before a hiring manager sees it?

scarface_74 3y ago
I can honestly say that I have never once worried about keyword screening software. I don’t blindly submit my resume. But even if that’s the case, I’m still going to use keywords as part of the narrative. “Using <technology> accomplished <result>”
lazyant 3y ago
I've worked at dozens of companies, startups and big tech, none of them used keyword screening, none of them got reviewed first by HR. I'm sure it happens at some places but certainly it's not 100%.
- sys_64738 3y ago
  Those must be some crazy out of the way employers.
john-tells-all 3y ago
On my resume, I use English descriptions of what I did to develop business-level features. At the end is "Keywords: Python, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform" for the keyword screening software. A human can see I learned different tech for each job, and other tech has been mastered and is re-used over the years.

realcertify 3y ago

The best interview that I ever experienced was when I applied for a Software Engineer position at VMware. The interviewers brought a laptop with an IDE and a project with a bunch of source code (based on one of their real in-house projects), and the task was to understand the exising code base and add a few new features to it. A real everyday task, no crazy algorithms or other menthal gymnastics.

macsparrow 3y ago
Can be a fraught approach; interviewees could (and do) assume their answers will be used for production.
- philstephenson 3y ago
  Seems like a question you could simply ask the interviewers up front. Establishing expectations about the task is useful anyway.
- golergka 3y ago
  Just pay him for the time then. Mane companies already do this for test assignments anyway.
conor- 3y ago
Assuming an interview is a typical 30-60 min time slot is this actually a realistic ask? It seems pretty crazy to 1) get up to speed on a codebase and context in such a short amount of time to 2) then be able to actually develop against the codebase in a meaningful way to add more than one feature to it. Can you share any additional details about what the process actually looked like or what type of task you were actually performing in the interview? Size of the project (~LoC), tech stack, complexity of the feature, etc.
- deleted 3y ago
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- realcertify 3y ago

JohnCClarke 3y ago

> You need to be good but not too good you’re a threat. Even worse for CTOs. If you make the development look too easy your CEO will wonder what you even do.

71a54xd 3y ago

It seems like these days unless you have 8yrs of experience it's impossible to even be considered for these interviews. Once you get them, unless you've been perpetually practicing for a year or more the odds you pass are slim to none.

washadjeffmad 3y ago
From the language they use, it sounds like they're trying to attract kids, or at least people who would unironically identify as "Gamers".

washadjeffmad 3y ago

How much XP does it take to become a rockstar coder, Philipp? Is CEO a class we can spec into or a race? This misapplied market research that tries to make jobs "cool" (upskill!) gives me powerful Ballmer "I love this company" vibes.