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Why don't you message that guy on LinkedIn and ask him about the company?
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Jul 25, 2012 16:55
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Sab669 posted:Also, an older guy that used to be in some of my glasses (he graduated ahead of me) used to work for the company. I put on my internet creeper hat and found him on LinkedIn. It said he only worked there for ~1.75 years, should I mention his name at all in the interview? Also ask him if you can mention him during the interview or have him as a reference. It would annoy me if someone name dropped me without asking. It is possible the call is from your professor forwarding your resume. If there is little red tape and they are looking to hire it doesn't take long (~10 seconds) to look at a resume and determine if your worth a phone interview or not.
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Jul 25, 2012 18:23
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Sab669 posted:Huh, I just got a voice mail with a request for an interview... But I have no relocation of ever applying to this company I was contacted within a day of having someone forward my resume to HR for one interview. It's not too crazy, especially if it's a place with recruiters or with a real need for an employee.
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Jul 25, 2012 20:35
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I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so let me know. When is it okay to leave a company? I've been at my first job in a medium sized Microsoft house for a year and a half now. It's not a horrible place, but I'm not learning anything - just triaging old poorly written code. The place doesn't have much longevity either - a huge vb6 legacy with no plans to upgrade. The culture isn't too bad but I somehow find it depressing. The company has a rep for not being able to hold on to young people, as well. It's becoming clear why. It feels clear that it's not good for my skills or career, and recruiters call me all the time. If I find an offer I like, is it okay/not stupid to take it?
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Jul 27, 2012 19:40
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Careful Drums posted:I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so let me know. Yes.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:02
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qntm posted:Yes. Care to elaborate? My concerns are things like 'maybe its just me and not the company', 'you will look like a flopper', etc. Sorry to sound insufferable, I'm just hoping for some insight.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:09
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Careful Drums posted:I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so let me know. If you're not learning anything, you're becoming progressively less employable every day. Your goal should always be to be the second-dumbest person on the team -- you want to be surrounded by people who teach you new skills and techniques, and using modern methodologies and tools. If I'm interviewing C# developers and they're not coding in C# 4.0 with at least an interest and awareness of what's coming in C# 4.5, they're a lot less likely to get a thumbs up from me. Also, a year and a half isn't a bad length of time. As long as it's over a year it's not a red flag. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jul 27, 2012 |
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Jul 27, 2012 20:16
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Sounds kind of like my roommate who does nothing but bitch bitch bitch about his job, "but I don't want to leave so soon! Maybe things will brighten up" bitch bitch bitch the next day and forever more. Admittedly he did just get a promotion / transfer he's super excited about, but it's still not what his degree is in  Anyways, you don't owe the company poo poo. I can understand not wanting to leave (gently caress, I'm in the same spot- this job I have made a really lovely offer but I like it here and don't want to leave because it's small and close knit, they're friends not just coworkers) but at the end of the day you need to do what's best for you and your career. It's funny how much easier it is for me to tell someone that than feel that way myself. I can definitely see a lot of problems I'd have here in the long run. Ever hear of Visual Fox Pro? No? Neither has any one else I've ever asked. They still have a few devs here using it and don't seem to keen on new stuff. And as we use a third-party framework ontop of the C# I do, I can feel myself losing touch with how to do things the .NET way. As Ithaqua said, talk about making myself unemployable. But yea, don't worry about "looking like a flopper" on your resume- if you can explain why you left, who gives a rats rear end. I've never interviewed someone, but I'd be hard-pressed to believe, "I wasn't learning or growing as a developer" would dock you points in an interview! Sab669 fucked around with this message at 20:27 on Jul 27, 2012 |
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Jul 27, 2012 20:23
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Careful Drums posted:I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, so let me know. Pretty much any time. Jobs are not till death do us part. Employers frequently have more loyalty to shareholders than to employees. quote:It feels clear that it's not good for my skills or career, and recruiters call me all the time. If I find an offer I like, is it okay/not stupid to take it? If you want things to happen in your life, it would be quite stupid to ignore opportunities.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:25
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Careful Drums posted:When is it okay to leave a company? If your current job is actively roadblocking your professional growth, the answer is "the instant you get a better offer."
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Jul 27, 2012 20:36
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Wow, thanks everyone for your responses. I feel a lot better about wanting to leave now. On to reviewing interview questions!
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Jul 27, 2012 20:49
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Good luck, heh. Like I said, the hardest part is when you generally like the people you work, because you can feel like you're stabbing them in the back by leaving. Gotta look out for number one, though.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:51
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Sab669 posted:Good luck, heh. Like I said, the hardest part is when you generally like the people you work, because you can feel like you're stabbing them in the back by leaving. Gotta look out for number one, though. This is definitely the case. I don't hate anyone here, it's just an unwinnable situation.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:55
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Careful Drums posted:Wow, thanks everyone for your responses. I feel a lot better about wanting to leave now. On to reviewing interview questions! I make this offer all the time, but I'll make it again: If you're a C# developer and you want to do a mock interview / technical assessment, I've interviewed tons of folks in the past. I can't get you a job, but I can certainly give you advice on what areas to focus on. You mentioned that you're working in a Microsoft shop and it's VB6. If all you have experience with is VB6, you need to start learning something new in a hurry. VB6 is dead except for legacy codebases and maintenance.
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Jul 27, 2012 20:56
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Ithaqua posted:I make this offer all the time, but I'll make it again: No, the core product is vb6, I work on interfaces for it in c# 3.5. I'm interested in the assessment. What do you have in mind?
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Jul 27, 2012 21:04
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Careful Drums posted:No, the core product is vb6, I work on interfaces for it in c# 3.5. I'm interested in the assessment. What do you have in mind? What's your email address? We can do it via Skype whenever you have like 30 minutes or so.
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Jul 27, 2012 21:09
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I've got a question about what I should be focusing on for studying for interviews. I'm a mathematics major who originally got into coding and CS stuff through friends who did programming competitions so I have a really strong algorithms/data structures background and have no problem coding these types of things. But I'm sort of lacking in I guess the more real world day to day kind of programming knowledge (like design pattern stuff, concurrency, web stuff, etc..). What would be the best thing to focus on for interviews with places like Google and other silicon valley places?
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Jul 27, 2012 21:09
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Ithaqua posted:What's your email address? We can do it via Skype whenever you have like 30 minutes or so. dsschnau at gmail dot com. I'll be available this evening (eastern) or tomorrow morning.
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Jul 27, 2012 21:14
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Moos3d posted:I've got a question about what I should be focusing on for studying for interviews. I'm a mathematics major who originally got into coding and CS stuff through friends who did programming competitions so I have a really strong algorithms/data structures background and have no problem coding these types of things. But I'm sort of lacking in I guess the more real world day to day kind of programming knowledge (like design pattern stuff, concurrency, web stuff, etc..). What would be the best thing to focus on for interviews with places like Google and other silicon valley places? It's probably worth knowing at least something in the following areas: Networking - skim through the wiki articles on TCP/IP and DNS. If you really want to, HTTP as well. Congrats, you probably know more than most developers. Databases - you should know basic SQL, and also how typical RDBMS work under the hood. Databases are magical wonderful things that normally do the most optimal thing until they don't and then you need to reason very, very hard about them and know what the gently caress they're doing. Database schema design is a bit of a craft, but be prepared to answer how you would represent a certain set of data in a database. Multi-threading - deadlocks, race conditions, co-ordinating work or locks between threads. Performance optimisation and bug-hunting - how would you profile an application in the lanaguage/framework of your choice to determine how to speed it up? How would you track down random and intermittent bugs? Also be comfortable writing code on a whiteboard or with pen and paper. A lot of people can't and it's really annoying when they can't since it means they're frankly not good enough.
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Jul 27, 2012 22:45
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Gee Wizard posted:Just had an interview for an internship today, and it went pretty well. He said he'd get back to me later in the week with an answer. Is there anything I should do in the meantime, like a follow-up email thanking him for the interview? For an update, I got the job! Thanks thread, you helped a lot.
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Jul 28, 2012 01:58
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Sab669 posted:Ever hear of Visual Fox Pro? No? Neither has any one else I've ever asked. They still have a few devs here using it and don't seem to keen on new stuff. And as we use a third-party framework ontop of the C# I do, I can feel myself losing touch with how to do things the .NET way. As Ithaqua said, talk about making myself unemployable. edit: Added a small section about when to apply for jobs because some goons seem to be failing at planning ahead. Cicero fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jul 28, 2012 |
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Jul 28, 2012 17:28
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Yea I've got an interview next week actually. Applied to a few tech giants but no response. And just applying to a bunch of other random stuff too
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Jul 28, 2012 18:25
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So how should my resume look if I've had intermittent employment with the same company for 4-ish years? Do I make each separate stint its own entry or do I just combine them all into one main heading under "work experience"? Just for clarification it's been a summer job in between semesters at university. Similarly, how proficient should I be with a language / technology to list it as a skill? I can do C# and Java like a motherfucker but I only have a passing knowledge of XAML and tons of other stuff.
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Jul 28, 2012 22:18
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I would just use 1 entry for the job, if only to reduce confusion of you had multiple entries. As far as skill competency, its tough to say. Some people would say if you're not comfortable working with it, don't list it. Others have told me when you have no major experience in general (fresh graduate) list everything.
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Jul 28, 2012 22:57
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I'd just write Summers 2008-2011. If you're lucky someone only spending five seconds looking at your resume will interpret it as four years of experience. Don't list anything on your resume that you would have trouble answering reasonable questions about.
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Jul 29, 2012 00:38
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OK, I've been following this thread for a while now, let me bounce some ideas off you all. I have a BS in software engineering (with a math minor) from a state university, 3.1 GPA. I have an MS in computer science from a significantly more prestigious private school, 3.4 GPA. All coursework, no thesis. I've been at my current position for 4.5 years, plus about a year during undergrad. The MS hasn't really boosted my career here and I'm generally burned out. Projects keep getting canceled or reassigned out from under me for a variety of reasons, none of which is "Hey you suck at coding." I'm pretty well convinced it doesn't matter if I'm here or not. Here I'll mention that I have about a year's worth of living expenses saved in the bank, not to mention my retirement savings. I've considered taking a sabbatical, where my "job" would be "find a new job as soon as possible", but my mom would go mental so that's off the table. My primary languages are Python and C, with previous Java experience. I'd like to be able to put all them down on my resume as such, so I've been working through the K&R C exercises for starters. This has been good training in interview-sized problems. Besides the obvious drills in Python and Java I basically plan to follow that Steve Yegge post from pages ago: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html , including data structures, algorithms, socket programming, UNIX system calls, and OS concepts like deadlock, scheduling, virtual memory, etc. I should mention that I'm not very confident, and combined with only having one professional gig in my life means I have no clue what I'm worth. I intend to apply first at Google, so a first-order approximation at Glassdoor is that I could pull in maybe $100k-$120k? As long as an offer comes with a higher salary and/or lower cost of living than I have now, I'm not picky, although I obviously don't want them to know that. Late last year I was considering doing a Ph.D so I took the CS GRE and scored in the 70th percentile with no real preparation, so I should probably be more confident than I am, but this is just what we have to work with here. So, general advice is appreciated, but my two specific questions are: 1) What do I tell work when I take a day off to drive out and interview somewhere? 2) What should I say in my cover letter? "I want more money, lower cost-of-living, access to giant datasets, free food, 20% time, and I'm willing to relocate."? Does that sound about right?
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Jul 29, 2012 22:16
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dingy dimples posted:1) What do I tell work when I take a day off to drive out and interview somewhere? Two options: 1) Call out sick 2) Ask for a day off for "personal issues" Either works.
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Jul 29, 2012 22:34
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quote:So, general advice is appreciated, but my two specific questions are: 1) "I have an appointment" usually works. If it's morning or evening, just play it off as a doctor's visit if anyone asks. If it's far enough away that you can't work during that day before/after the interview, take a PTO day. 2) Not sure about asking for "more money" straight up in the cover letter? I mean, I guess it's honest. But everything other than that sounds good. The company I work for is looking for some C people actually...
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Jul 29, 2012 22:41
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ashgromnies posted:2) Not sure about asking for "more money" straight up in the cover letter? I mean, I guess it's honest. But everything other than that sounds good. Haha yeah, that was from one of the more flippant revisions of my post. More serious topics would be along the lines of "...working at a company that goes to great lengths to foster developers' productivity and creativity" or some other such fluff that both flatters them and shows I have some amount of ambition.
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Jul 29, 2012 22:53
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Never. talk. about. money. Never. Ever. At least not until 1. You pretty much have the verbal offer, and 2. After they've talked to you about their number. First off, putting that you want, "more money, free food, 20% time" is a horrible idea because it sounds like you are the world's greatest moocher. "Yeah man I want to work on stuff only 80% of the time, eating free food while you pay me a whole lot of money." HR/tech recruiters will read this and think, "Yeah this guy might have some skills but he sounds like a huge jackass." *trashes your resume* Also 20% time isn't time for you to do whatever you want. The 20% has to be related to something that you're doing to benefit the company. It doesn't mean that you get 20% to work on your own side projects. Free food is pretty much a given in about 99.9% of SF tech companies, but the first rule about free food is that you don't talk about the free food. Hell most job descriptions in SF will mention "FREE FOOD" When you ask about it it makes you sound like a jerkoff who's only interviewing at the company for the free food. Obviously you want a job for selfish reasons but asking about free food signals to them that you probably don't care about the company. You should be spending your time during interviews showing how valuable to are to the company. Free food should not be that big of a factor in your decision. Food is such a negligible cost. Let's say you spend $15 per day at work on lunch and drinks and you work 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. The cost to you is ~$3900. Honestly that is not a lot of money to make it worth it to inquire about free food. But who cares about that since almost every company will offer free food. Going into "getting paid" (which is related to my rant about the free food): If you are actually a competent developer startups in the Bay Area are going to try and pay you as well as possible because there's a risk that you'll get snatched up by someone else in SF. You can't walk in SF without tripping over a startup, so it's not really worth it to them to only pay you $95k if your "true worth" is closer to $125k. Because sooner or later you'll realize you're being underpaid compared to the market and then you'll be unhappy and want to leave. If you're actually good, they're not going to want you to leave. But of course, if you say, "Oh $100-$120K" when they ask you about salary, you can no longer make $125k, and in fact its more likely they'll price you in the middle and assuming you're somewhat decent negotiating the best you'll end up doing is $115k, which is $10k less than what you could have gotten. $10k can buy you a lot of food. So even though I talked about food for way too long. What you should take away for this is never, ever, talk about money first. Don't mention anything in your cover letter other than 1: The companies name, (DO NOT FORGET TO CHANGE THE COMPANY NAME.) 2: What you've done and why they should be interested in talking to you, 3: Thank you. 4: Your name (5: somewhere in there, need to put, you want to relocate and can work legally in the US or something similar) That's it. And really no one is going to look hard into your cover letter. The most difficult part should be #2 if you're applying to a variety of tech jobs. Otherwise your cover letter should be as brief as possible while addressing those 4 points.
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Jul 30, 2012 01:13
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Strong Sauce posted:stuff about food and money Yeah, as I said, the stuff about food and money was a dumb joke that fell flat. Your advice is much appreciated. I'm honest enough with myself to admit I have no clue what I'm doing when it comes to hard-assed salary negotiations. And yeah, I don't have any illusions about 20% time. I realize its true purpose is to enhance the value of the company, but it would still be an improvement over my current position where I have very little latitude about how I spend my time. I'll try to keep the cover letter short and to-the-point rather than overthink it too much. Thanks again.
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Jul 30, 2012 02:10
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Welp, as I'm finishing up my MSc in maths I apply to the one place I really wanna work (Google) and they just told me I got through and they're gonna make me an offer for a SWE job in London. Sick. I'll confirm that Milotic's advice up the page is real good. I guess I'll try to answer if anyone has specific questions or anything. seiken fucked around with this message at 19:36 on Jul 30, 2012 |
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Jul 30, 2012 18:05
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seiken posted:Welp, as I'm finishing up my MSc in maths I apply to the one place I really wanna work (Google) and they just told me I got through and they're gonna make me an offer for a SWE job in London. Sick. I'll confirm that Milotic's advice up the page is real good. Woah, congrats man!
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Jul 30, 2012 19:20
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seiken posted:Welp, as I'm finishing up my MSc in maths I apply to the one place I really wanna work (Google) and they just told me I got through and they're gonna make me an offer for a SWE job in London. Sick. I'll confirm that Milotic's advice up the page is real good. What were the general categories of questions asked? Did you have any of the critical thinking "how many windows in London" type questions? Was this a 5 interview all-day affair?
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Jul 30, 2012 19:29
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baquerd posted:What were the general categories of questions asked? Did you have any of the critical thinking "how many windows in London" type questions? Was this a 5 interview all-day affair? I only had to go through 2 on-site interviews with them due to having done an internship with them last summer. (If that's something you could do I highly recommend it, makes the whole process way less stressful and you get to spend a few months just about anywhere you like in the world, I was in Munich.) To land the internship I had to do another 2 interviews but they were over the phone using that realtime-collaboration google docs thing to show him the code I was writing. No critical thinking bullshit questions, I'm pretty sure they don't do those any more if they ever did. Each set of two interviews had one consisting of some wee coding problems where you basically had to come up with an algorithm, possibly write some tests for it, and possibly optimise your result/explain other approaches or whatever. I found these quite easy to be honest it's just knowing your poo poo, being able to write on a whiteboard and yell your train of thought out loud. General problem areas were stuff everyone should know like bitwise manipulation, graph/tree algorithms, recursion, etc. Usually there's at least one interesting left-field algorithm question where you're extremely unlikely to have heard anything like it before and you just gotta come up with something reasonable off your own logic. The other interview is a more open-ended design question like here's a big vague task, show me what data structures, interfaces, operations you'd use to make a working solution, explain why it's a good idea & what tradeoffs you're making, without necessarily going into huge detail about the implementation code. It's generally pretty relaxed since you're totally supposed to ask clarifying questions, even just discuss the problem or your solution so far with the interviewer and they'll tell you what they're thinking as well or give you hints to keep you on the right track and not waste half the interview up the wrong tree. seiken fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Jul 30, 2012 |
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Jul 30, 2012 19:53
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Craigslist is a wonderful place to look for jobs sometimes
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Aug 2, 2012 17:37
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Ironsights posted:Craigslist is a wonderful place to look for jobs sometimes I would apply to that just to find out what they actually need.
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Aug 2, 2012 17:57
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No Safe Word posted:I would apply to that just to find out what they actually need. Sounds more like a disgruntled job-seeker to me.
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Aug 2, 2012 17:59
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Tres Burritos posted:Sounds more like a disgruntled job-seeker to me. Now that you say it, I can definitely see that. But yea- I would absolutely shot the poster a message, that's pretty funny. Also I tried to move my mouse cursor off the image because I thought it was in the way of what I was reading 
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Aug 2, 2012 18:21
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Tres Burritos posted:Similarly, how proficient should I be with a language / technology to list it as a skill? I can do C# and Java like a motherfucker but I only have a passing knowledge of XAML and tons of other stuff. I'd just say how proficient you are with it. If you're awesome at C# but you've only done basic selects with SQL then say something along the lines of "Advanced knowledge of C#, basic skills at SQL". As long as you're honest there shouldn't be any problems.
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Aug 6, 2012 00:51
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