4 ms·

Always be interviewing. This has a few advantages: * You get practice and insight into interview questions * you always have an idea of your worth * intervi

Always be interviewing. This has a few advantages: * You get practice and insight into interview questions * you always have an idea of your worth * interviewing stops being something you only do when you NEED a new job. Now it's just a day to day thing and it's less nerve wracking. You don't really want a new job so the pressure is off. * you may find a much better job and decide to take it. I'm sure there's more positives as well. The downside is it takes time away from other things including work. As you do it regularly though you'll find it takes less and les time since your resume is always up to date and you get better at weeding out companies you wouldn't want to work for.

swombat 11y ago
I wonder how you would feel if the reciprocal attitude was adopted by your employer - i.e. if they continually interviewed potential replacements for your position, to: * get practice at interviewing people for your role * have an idea of what your market worth is, so they can use this in salary negotiations * stop interviews being a difficult process they only do when you leave * keep the option of finding a better candidate and replacing you on such occasions. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume you would not tolerate that from your employer. It would show a lack of respect, trust, engagement, etc, basically it would convey to you that your employer doesn't even care about maintaining an appearance of giving a damn about you as a person. You've only just started there last week, and they're already thinking about firing you and replacing you with someone better. Personally, whilst I think the attitude of getting upset because someone leaves the company is immature, I also think your attitude is disrespectful and shows such a contempt for the place where you're working, such an extreme lack of even the remotest sense of loyalty, that I wouldn't want to employ someone with your attitude ever. This is without even delving into the fact that you're imposing a tax on the system, taking time away from your current employer (presumably with this attitude you're quite happy to pull sickies to cover your frequent job interviews), as well as other potential employers (interviewing people costs time and money; interviewing people who have no interest in changing jobs is a total waste of money for the company). If everyone suddenly behaved like you, regularly applying to even just a dozen jobs a year even though they have no intention of changing jobs, the recruitment process would incur such gargantuan costs that the economy would suffer, if not crash. Basically, your suggestion above seems to convey that you only really care about yourself. At least that's what it makes me feel from the really self-centred way you've described it. I'm sorry that this reads like a personal accusation, but you made statements about your personal system of behaviour and I find that system deeply objectionable. If I got the wrong end of the stick (perfectly possible), please do correct me...
- smileysteve 11y ago
  > you're imposing a tax on the system, taking time away from your current employer An interview shouldn't feel like such a transactional process. An interview should be a great way to share between two workers at different companies different team and technical challenges. A good interview is one that I'm learning from, no matter which side I'm on. Unfortunately, this concept is mostly limited to small innovative and agile companies asking their employees to wear many hats.
  - pyre 11y ago
    > Unfortunately, this concept is mostly limited to small innovative and agile companies asking their employees to wear many hats. How does "asking their employees to wear many hats" affect the interviewee?
    - smileysteve 11y ago
      When wearing many hats, your knowledge is more likely to collide / integrate with other people who are wearing many hats. If the interviewers are silo'ed and aren't familiar with such a variety of things devops, team management, feature releasing, then there is less of an opportunity to learn about a wide variety of things.
- whybroke 11y ago
  I have rarely worked at a place that hasn't kept an ad on their site for an engineer even when not hiring. At one, the hr vp quite honestly admitted they interview continuously at a reduced level in case someone leaves. And really the idea of loyalty to a place that has you sign an at will employment agreement and a non-compete clause doesn't make the much sense. And that so many companies seem more than willing to move overseas or outsource work solely (and inevitably foolishly) to reduce wage costs surely shows no loyalty to their employees. And surely the endlessly quoted "market forces" requires all rational actors to pursue the avenue with the greatest fiscal returns doesn't it? It would be nice if it were otherwise. And the first mandatory step to bring that about would be eliminating the at will employment agreement. Now if your company does none of these things and retains employees through their whole careers then I applaud you enormously. For the rest, it is deeply foolish to remain loyal to an organization that is so demonstrably unloyal that, for example, it has never kept a single employee up to anything remotely like retirement age.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
vonmoltke 11y ago
This works if you live in an area conducive to it. If you don't, like me, and almost always have to travel out of town for interviews it becomes much more difficult.
- darkxanthos 11y ago
  Just added an update but there's nothing that says interviewing need be only in person. Even just phone calls and email screens can be immensely valuable.
jtheory 11y ago
I can see how this would be useful. On the other hand, from the perspective of a company who you might theoretically interview with... remember that running the hiring process isn't free for us. It's a much bigger deal with small companies (I'm not sure a large one would care much), but if I pick up that you actually have no interest in what we're working on, no intention of leaving your current position, and just applied to brush up your interview skills "for free", I'm going to be seriously annoyed. Maybe it doesn't matter -- if you've no intention of joining us anyway -- but it doesn't make sense to burn bridges this way. If you're genuinely interested in us, and in making the connection, though (e.g., "I'm happy where I am now, but you look like you'll be really hitting your pace just as my current company is past the exciting phase", or "I like my job, but commuting across the city is awful... how do you actually work?"), that's reasonable.
- discardorama 11y ago
  > from the perspective of a company who you might theoretically interview with... remember that running the hiring process isn't free for us. Neither is interviewing free for the interviewer. S/he has to take PTO to do the interview.
  - jtheory 11y ago
    The interviewer makes that calculation -- is it worth taking the time, in exchange for more practice interviewing? And it may actually not be PTO; I've done plenty of remote interviews at odd hours to accommodate candidates. The company would be paying for a shot at a good new hire. Here's where my point applies -- in this case, if there's actually no chance you'd work for them, that's a trick they're not going to be happy about.
- curun1r 11y ago
  As someone who does a lot of hiring, I wish more engineers would do what he suggested. When interviewing candidates, it can be too easy to adjust your expectations downward after interviewing many unqualified candidates. My hunch is that so many candidates are unqualified because the ones that are actively looking for a job are predominantly the ones that aren't in demand an interview everywhere. If I can mix in qualified candidates that aren't really looking, I can better calibrate my assessment of the market for talent. Plus, with hiring being as difficult as it is, I'll spend the time interviewing to get an opportunity to sell my position and my company to a candidate, whether interested or not. It only takes changing the mind of one excellent developer to make it worthwhile for me. Additionally, networking is everything. Leaving candidates with a positive impression of my company, my team and myself is worth something, even if they don't join. Whenever I extend an offer, I also offer to connect on LinkedIn with the basic message, "I'd like to work together now, but I understand that's not always possible. Even if you take another position or stay at your current job, please feel free to check back in the future or refer any friends who are looking." Most don't accept, but some do. Even if it doesn't help me hire for my open position, there's value in having a network of people who all think they've got it better than I could offer. Whenever I'm searching for a job, my first stop is looking at the current employers of the developers I respect most from my network. Those employers are likely to be doing something exciting and I've got an in to pass my résumé along if I want to apply, even if my relationship with that "in" was only a single interview process.

swombat 11y ago

I wonder how you would feel if the reciprocal attitude was adopted by your employer - i.e. if they continually interviewed potential replacements for your position, to: * get practice at interviewing people for your role * have an idea of what your market worth is, so they can use this in salary negotiations * stop interviews being a difficult process they only do when you leave * keep the option of finding a better candidate and replacing you on such occasions. I'm going to take a wild guess and assume you would not tolerate that from your employer. It would show a lack of respect, trust, engagement, etc, basically it would convey to you that your employer doesn't even care about maintaining an appearance of giving a damn about you as a person. You've only just started there last week, and they're already thinking about firing you and replacing you with someone better. Personally, whilst I think the attitude of getting upset because someone leaves the company is immature, I also think your attitude is disrespectful and shows such a contempt for the place where you're working, such an extreme lack of even the remotest sense of loyalty, that I wouldn't want to employ someone with your attitude ever. This is without even delving into the fact that you're imposing a tax on the system, taking time away from your current employer (presumably with this attitude you're quite happy to pull sickies to cover your frequent job interviews), as well as other potential employers (interviewing people costs time and money; interviewing people who have no interest in changing jobs is a total waste of money for the company). If everyone suddenly behaved like you, regularly applying to even just a dozen jobs a year even though they have no intention of changing jobs, the recruitment process would incur such gargantuan costs that the economy would suffer, if not crash. Basically, your suggestion above seems to convey that you only really care about yourself. At least that's what it makes me feel from the really self-centred way you've described it. I'm sorry that this reads like a personal accusation, but you made statements about your personal system of behaviour and I find that system deeply objectionable. If I got the wrong end of the stick (perfectly possible), please do correct me...

smileysteve 11y ago
> you're imposing a tax on the system, taking time away from your current employer An interview shouldn't feel like such a transactional process. An interview should be a great way to share between two workers at different companies different team and technical challenges. A good interview is one that I'm learning from, no matter which side I'm on. Unfortunately, this concept is mostly limited to small innovative and agile companies asking their employees to wear many hats.
- pyre 11y ago
  > Unfortunately, this concept is mostly limited to small innovative and agile companies asking their employees to wear many hats. How does "asking their employees to wear many hats" affect the interviewee?
  - smileysteve 11y ago
    When wearing many hats, your knowledge is more likely to collide / integrate with other people who are wearing many hats. If the interviewers are silo'ed and aren't familiar with such a variety of things devops, team management, feature releasing, then there is less of an opportunity to learn about a wide variety of things.
whybroke 11y ago
I have rarely worked at a place that hasn't kept an ad on their site for an engineer even when not hiring. At one, the hr vp quite honestly admitted they interview continuously at a reduced level in case someone leaves. And really the idea of loyalty to a place that has you sign an at will employment agreement and a non-compete clause doesn't make the much sense. And that so many companies seem more than willing to move overseas or outsource work solely (and inevitably foolishly) to reduce wage costs surely shows no loyalty to their employees. And surely the endlessly quoted "market forces" requires all rational actors to pursue the avenue with the greatest fiscal returns doesn't it? It would be nice if it were otherwise. And the first mandatory step to bring that about would be eliminating the at will employment agreement. Now if your company does none of these things and retains employees through their whole careers then I applaud you enormously. For the rest, it is deeply foolish to remain loyal to an organization that is so demonstrably unloyal that, for example, it has never kept a single employee up to anything remotely like retirement age.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

vonmoltke 11y ago

This works if you live in an area conducive to it. If you don't, like me, and almost always have to travel out of town for interviews it becomes much more difficult.

darkxanthos 11y ago
Just added an update but there's nothing that says interviewing need be only in person. Even just phone calls and email screens can be immensely valuable.

jtheory 11y ago

I can see how this would be useful. On the other hand, from the perspective of a company who you might theoretically interview with... remember that running the hiring process isn't free for us. It's a much bigger deal with small companies (I'm not sure a large one would care much), but if I pick up that you actually have no interest in what we're working on, no intention of leaving your current position, and just applied to brush up your interview skills "for free", I'm going to be seriously annoyed. Maybe it doesn't matter -- if you've no intention of joining us anyway -- but it doesn't make sense to burn bridges this way. If you're genuinely interested in us, and in making the connection, though (e.g., "I'm happy where I am now, but you look like you'll be really hitting your pace just as my current company is past the exciting phase", or "I like my job, but commuting across the city is awful... how do you actually work?"), that's reasonable.

discardorama 11y ago
> from the perspective of a company who you might theoretically interview with... remember that running the hiring process isn't free for us. Neither is interviewing free for the interviewer. S/he has to take PTO to do the interview.
- jtheory 11y ago
  The interviewer makes that calculation -- is it worth taking the time, in exchange for more practice interviewing? And it may actually not be PTO; I've done plenty of remote interviews at odd hours to accommodate candidates. The company would be paying for a shot at a good new hire. Here's where my point applies -- in this case, if there's actually no chance you'd work for them, that's a trick they're not going to be happy about.
curun1r 11y ago
As someone who does a lot of hiring, I wish more engineers would do what he suggested. When interviewing candidates, it can be too easy to adjust your expectations downward after interviewing many unqualified candidates. My hunch is that so many candidates are unqualified because the ones that are actively looking for a job are predominantly the ones that aren't in demand an interview everywhere. If I can mix in qualified candidates that aren't really looking, I can better calibrate my assessment of the market for talent. Plus, with hiring being as difficult as it is, I'll spend the time interviewing to get an opportunity to sell my position and my company to a candidate, whether interested or not. It only takes changing the mind of one excellent developer to make it worthwhile for me. Additionally, networking is everything. Leaving candidates with a positive impression of my company, my team and myself is worth something, even if they don't join. Whenever I extend an offer, I also offer to connect on LinkedIn with the basic message, "I'd like to work together now, but I understand that's not always possible. Even if you take another position or stay at your current job, please feel free to check back in the future or refer any friends who are looking." Most don't accept, but some do. Even if it doesn't help me hire for my open position, there's value in having a network of people who all think they've got it better than I could offer. Whenever I'm searching for a job, my first stop is looking at the current employers of the developers I respect most from my network. Those employers are likely to be doing something exciting and I've got an in to pass my résumé along if I want to apply, even if my relationship with that "in" was only a single interview process.