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I really like this comment for its honesty and ability to reflect on yourself with such brutal honesty too. I'm not that confident and get really nervous befor

I really like this comment for its honesty and ability to reflect on yourself with such brutal honesty too. I'm not that confident and get really nervous before interviews, even for jobs that I'm not sure I even want. However, once I pass my nervousness, I can come across as "Excited, engaged, confident, interested in your problems" as you said, and also most times funny and fun to work with! However, I believe that in truth, whilst I can be funny, I'm not that much fun to work with. I can be argumentative, picky, stubborn and not easy to compromise. I try to work on these attitude issues, but it's not something so easy for me to fix. However, in the interview context, like going on a date, I obviously won't expose those faults. So there's definitely a disparity between the first impression a person can give, even over 5 hour pair programming sessions, and working day after day with them...

lsc 14y ago
Yeah, well, evaluating people is /hard/ and, I would say, pretty nigh impossible to do well in a few days. >However, in the interview context, like going on a date, I obviously won't expose those faults. I dono about interviews... but I do know that in sales, sometimes revealing faults, especially real faults, can build a lot of trust. (I mean, the 'real faults' bit really only applies if you are selling something to a customer who understands the product... but that's really the only kind of selling I do, outside of the "selling myself" interview context.) It's more like dating than you think, though, in that I generally don't want to waste my time with someone who still believes that they will find someone "perfect" - you want a employer or customer or date who has been around the block and knows that everyone has flaws, and you've just gotta pick the flaw you can deal with. Then you want them to know about your flaws pretty soon after they know about your assets so that you can both cut your losses if a flaw is a dealbreaker. anything else is wasting time. I mean, you've gotta show the counter-party your assets first, but in sales, that's easier than in dating, at least for me, as most of my sales prospects read about and come to me; they already think I'm pretty okay, so I can hit them with the "and here are the problems with my setup" just about right out the gate. Come to think of it... the time I've been really successful dating went similarly. >So there's definitely a disparity between the first impression a person can give, even over 5 hour pair programming sessions, and working day after day with them... Yeah. My biggest asset is that I do really well in novel situations. My biggest flaw is that I do really poorly once I'm settled in and the situation is no longer novel. So yeah; good short term contractor, shitty long term employee (compared to someone else with a similar level of knowledge)

lsc 14y ago

Yeah, well, evaluating people is /hard/ and, I would say, pretty nigh impossible to do well in a few days. >However, in the interview context, like going on a date, I obviously won't expose those faults. I dono about interviews... but I do know that in sales, sometimes revealing faults, especially real faults, can build a lot of trust. (I mean, the 'real faults' bit really only applies if you are selling something to a customer who understands the product... but that's really the only kind of selling I do, outside of the "selling myself" interview context.) It's more like dating than you think, though, in that I generally don't want to waste my time with someone who still believes that they will find someone "perfect" - you want a employer or customer or date who has been around the block and knows that everyone has flaws, and you've just gotta pick the flaw you can deal with. Then you want them to know about your flaws pretty soon after they know about your assets so that you can both cut your losses if a flaw is a dealbreaker. anything else is wasting time. I mean, you've gotta show the counter-party your assets first, but in sales, that's easier than in dating, at least for me, as most of my sales prospects read about and come to me; they already think I'm pretty okay, so I can hit them with the "and here are the problems with my setup" just about right out the gate. Come to think of it... the time I've been really successful dating went similarly. >So there's definitely a disparity between the first impression a person can give, even over 5 hour pair programming sessions, and working day after day with them... Yeah. My biggest asset is that I do really well in novel situations. My biggest flaw is that I do really poorly once I'm settled in and the situation is no longer novel. So yeah; good short term contractor, shitty long term employee (compared to someone else with a similar level of knowledge)