4 ms·
Isn't Canonical famous for having one of the worst candidate selection processes? Also, there's a lot of superstition and nonsense about how to succeed at inte
by daniel-s 3y ago
Isn't Canonical famous for having one of the worst candidate selection processes?
Also, there's a lot of superstition and nonsense about how to succeed at interviews and job applications.
- mugivarra69 3y agoyes, fuck cannonical
- tsak 3y agoI once applied for a job at Canonical. This was their process (roughly two years ago)... Thank you for applying for Software Engineer. The application process has several stages: - Initial screening (done) - Personal essay (this stage) - Culture interview - Standardised aptitude and personality tests - General interviews - Recruitment screen - Technical assessment - Role-specific interviews - Hiring manager interview - Executive interview The current stage is your personal essay. Please take some time to answer the questions below. We’re looking to get a sense of who you are, what’s important to you, and how you communicate. If you’ve already completed this when applying for another role, please feel free to copy/paste from your previous application. - Beginning in your high school years, through university and into your career, what have you done that you consider exceptional? - Why do you want to work for XYZ? - How are you involved in open source software? - What are your strengths as a software engineer? - Describe your experience as a Go software engineer. - Describe your experience with distributed systems.
- GoToRO 3y agoFrom what you wrote, sounds like one of the best. At least it sounds better than most other interviews I had that were basically random.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- VonGallifrey 3y ago10 Steps are about 7 too many. Writing a Personal Essay after, what sounds like, an automated email is not something I would consider as a good interview process.
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoLots of companies have standardized and well documented interview processes. canonical’s is indeed a disaster, it’s onerous for applicants (hey that simplified outline doesn’t say it but you can expect between five and fourteen interviews - seriously I know applicants who had fourteen interviews). Another thing it doesn’t mention is the fact that there’s really no dedicated hiring and interviewing team at Canonical - all engineering teams “pitch in” (read: are forced to) with resume and written interview reviews, as well as in-person interviews. This wastes a tremendous amount of expensive engineering time, and a lot of this is due to poorly screened resumes. It was very frequent for me to interview a candidate and wonder how they made it to that stage when it was clear from looking at the resume during interview prep that they were totally unsuited for the role. Source: former Canonical who like everyone else, was forced to “participate” in the hiring process.
- baz00 3y agoHonestly if I had all those hoops to jump through I'd go and work somewhere else.
- tsak 3y agoI actually didn't bother after they revealed their process to me.
- r4indeer 3y agoI'm sorry, a 10-stage application with at least 5 different interviews? How many weeks is this going to take? This feels like FAANG-level recruitment. Am I so out of touch to expect an application, one interview and maybe a technical assessment for most IT/CompSci jobs? Wouldn't the probationary period be way more effective to see if you fit into the team/company/culture/etc.?
- RHSeeger 3y agoIf you're going to be leaving another job to work at a company, you want to find out if it's a cultural fit _before_ that happens, not during a probationary fit.
- toyg 3y agoBut that doesn't happen here - it's the hiring company evaluating that, you don't get a choice. Unless you mean that subjecting you to this horrendous process signals which kind of company they are, so that you can bail in time.
- fmajid 3y agoI interviewed with both Canonical and Meta 6 months ago. The Canonical process is far more intense, and yes, it's a big time investment "on spec" for a candidate (I'd estimate it at 7 man-days, 4 for the written essay alone), along with 10 interviews. They do read the essay carefully, which is what the OP's article is all about. I'd rather a company take time to do a thorough assessment of a candidate rather than cavalierly hire one with a high likelihood of dismissal during the trial period, as they may have left an existing job to join.
- SamuelAdams 3y agoAt the same time, they are probably losing a lot of talented engineers because other companies have much less effort in their hiring process. Is the compensation at Canical that much better than other companies that makes the extra effort worth it?
- 3y ago
- moron4hire 3y ago> Standardised aptitude and personality tests Really?! I'm pretty sure that's illegal.
- michaelt 3y agoYou're probably thinking of "Griggs v. Duke Power Co." which was about IQ testing. The restriction only applies to tests which are not a reasonable measure of job performance. So for example, a test of strength might be allowed for delivery drivers who have to safely handle heavy items, when it wouldn't be allowed for software developers.
- JohnFen 3y agoThat's insane. But at least they tell you the process. I particularly appreciate them mentioning "personality tests" because that's a level of BS that I'm personally not willing to engage with. Telling me about it up front warns me that I would be a poor fit at the company, and so I can avoid wasting the time of both of us.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yellow_lead 3y agoThe author says he likes it. (???)
- monsieurbanana 3y agoWell, he's the interviewer, not the interviewee.
- benhoyt 3y agoThey have been derided for their interview process (though not, as far as I know, for their candidate selection), but that's not the point of the article. I'd love if it we stuck to discussing the content of the article: how to write when applying at any company. If you could describe what superstition and nonsense you see in the article, that might be helpful.
- GoToRO 3y agoNitpick, not any company, only this company. If you have a company that writes fluffy job ads and you have a CV written like the article recomends, they are likely to pass you. That hiring manager doesn't want to know you, they want to be in awe with you. It's about matching with the company more than beeing direct, organized, smart and so on. Unfortunately.
- gemstones 3y agoThere is something salient about the fact that Canonical’s culture is not one to mimic, though. What if there is something about following this advice that unwittingly selects for candidates who will make a super long and off-putting interview loop?
- anacrolix 3y agoI've applied several times, it's incredibly long. Each time I get railroaded into projects that I don't want to do and lose confidence that the process will deliver what I want.
- steinuil 3y agoI actually just looked at their application form for a systems software developer position. They really want to know how good you were at maths and native language in high school for some reason, and not only do they ask what top percentage you were in (whatever that means, high schools in my country don't do that), but they also ask you to directly point to evidence for these scores. Right before the application form they say "We are proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination." Not everybody had the luck to be able to perform at their best in high school, so that looks like a pretty big discriminant right away! And for most people applying to that kind of job that was more than 10 years ago, so I fail to see how it is relevant to a job application.
- jgil 3y agoHigh school related questions can be a way for companies to infer your socioeconomic status, religion, ethnicity, etc. Some companies even ask for the specific high school.
- zerr 3y agoYes, I rejected them after they explained to me their interview process. I can only imagine how desperate one should be to proceed with them. Could be one of the reasons why Linux failed in the desktop market (the one that Ubuntu targets).