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I keep applying to places and not even getting a response. When I was fresh out of college everyone was falling over themselves to bring me in for interviews but I guess my resume got shittier as I got more experience somehow.
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Aug 16, 2016 14:20
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One thing I noticed was that after you graduate there's a bit of prejudice about what your first job was. If it was with some big tech company, that's fine and dandy and you'll get slammed by recruiters probably. However, if you go to some no-name company with no reputation or government, you're probably not going to be the belle of the ball exactly. Ok, if you're around the DC area you'll get recruiters falling over you to take a gig with an almost certainly crappy contractor.
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Aug 16, 2016 14:47
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I went to a (basically) no-name school and first company and in a week of looking I've got 6+ phone screens set up. I've turned 3 places down after phone screens. It's loving ridiculous how many are trying to talk to me about "Senior" positions. Since when is 3 years of experience "Senior" and why are you contacting me about jobs that say "7+ years of experience"? I'm fully confident in my ability to pass medium-difficulty algo interviews at this point, but I just don't have the combination of depth and breadth that it seems like these places want and I have a feeling when I talk to an actual dev and not a recruiter they'll see that.
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Aug 16, 2016 14:56
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If they're external recruiters it's basically meat hunting though, so... you're this guy and you should be wary of what they're trying to place you for carefully, especially the company. I've seen my old job listed with a past employer for over a year now, but you wouldn't really know it if you're applying because they take it down and repost it to make it look new. If you're getting a positive response without much experience and not much name brand recognition you probably have something on your resume that is interesting sounding enough that they figure they can find something though and you're close enough physically for relocation to not be a big deal. I mean hell, nowadays you could put down React and Node.js on a resume with Javascript and you'd have 10 recruiters from nowhere calling.
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Aug 16, 2016 15:37
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It's 100% internal recruiters which is why I'm so confused. I don't deal with external recruiters anymore, time is a constrained resource and gently caress that.
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Aug 16, 2016 15:39
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Had an interview go perfectly about three weeks ago. Didn't get the job. Just venting. Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall after. I always feel like the interviews I perform the best in are the jobs I don't get. First time I'm truly disappointed I didn't get that particular job. Oh well poo poo happens!
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Aug 16, 2016 15:49
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A MIRACLE posted:I mean don't you need a PH.D. in math for a quant job? You can get a job writing code for quants out of undergrad. You're basically one of their research assistants or w/e. Not everyone at hedge funds is a phd. Also lol autocorrect tried to turn phd into old.
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Aug 16, 2016 16:10
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I'm not ever supposed to feel like I'm prepared for the more daunting interviews right? Cause even after prep I feel the most intense imposter syndrome ever.
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Aug 17, 2016 16:15
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I'm not ever supposed to feel like I'm prepared for the more daunting interviews right? Cause even after prep I feel the most intense imposter syndrome ever. You're not just going to kill it, you're going to drop a bomb on your interviewers and end the war.
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Aug 17, 2016 16:57
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Yeah you gotta go in there like you own the place, show 'em how real programmers do it but also be honest if you don't know the answer to something
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Aug 17, 2016 17:07
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But seriously though, the import thing is to demonstrate sophisticated analytical thinking. Pull a problem apart and analyze it with your interviewer, come up with possible solutions, discuss trade-offs, listen to feedback and suggestions and then respond to it. The goal is to show that you're someone who can intelligently discuss and collaborate on engineering problems and come up with solutions, not memorize a million possible code brainteasers and then instantly hack out a solution.
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Aug 17, 2016 17:21
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This is in part a "fake it till you make it" kind of thing -- act confident, and as you gain experience (both in terms of your job and in terms of interviewing) you'll become more comfortable acting confident, which is basically all that being confident is. That absolutely doesn't mean to lie or overinflate your abilities -- as rt4 says, you should be willing to admit when you don't know something. Interviewers would much rather have someone who says "well, I don't know how to do that, but if I wanted to find out this is what I would do" rather than someone who tries to bullshit them.
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Aug 17, 2016 17:23
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mrmcd posted:The goal is to show that you're someone who can intelligently discuss and collaborate on engineering problems This is right on the mark. Having solid communication skills, a half decent personality, and the ability to get things done will put you ahead of 90% of the people in this field who are mainly useless dweebs who happen to like computers. The fact that you care enough about your work to participate in an online programming forum and aren't an rear end about it means you're likely to be in that top 10% already.
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Aug 17, 2016 17:29
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rt4 posted:This is right on the mark. Having solid communication skills, a half decent personality, and the ability to get things done will put you ahead of 90% of the people in this field who are mainly useless dweebs who happen to like computers. The fact that you care enough about your work to participate in an online programming forum and aren't an rear end about it means you're likely to be in that top 10% already. Google NYC had a practice interview / coaching talk for onsite candidates (which GWH you should def do if you get past phone screen and schedule works out) and the thing I thought was most insightful was the presenter said (paraphrasing) "We see and reject a lot of people who have spent 10+ years doing variations on 'write for loop, take data out of SQL cursor, put data on web page', and don't have the ability or inclination to really think about problems much deeper and more analytically than that." The other thing was "We don't really have many people with job titles like 'architect', every engineer is expected to be able to code and implement their ideas" so, uh, make sure you can actually code. 
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Aug 17, 2016 17:43
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mrmcd posted:Google NYC had a practice interview / coaching talk for onsite candidates (which GWH you should def do if you get past phone screen and schedule works out) and the thing I thought was most insightful was the presenter said (paraphrasing) "We see and reject a lot of people who have spent 10+ years doing variations on 'write for loop, take data out of SQL cursor, put data on web page', and don't have the ability or inclination to really think about problems much deeper and more analytically than that." Gotta have high standards for your protobuf plumbers. If there is anything that gives me imposter syndrome its seeing my referrals that are way sharper than me never getting past recruiters / phone screens.
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Aug 17, 2016 18:19
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Paolomania posted:Gotta have high standards for your protobuf plumbers. If there is anything that gives me imposter syndrome its seeing my referrals that are way sharper than me never getting past recruiters / phone screens. Effective proto shipping leaves more free time to complain on *-misc and *-discuss about MK snacks and how the bikeshed is the wrong shade of mauve. Edit: But yeah, I suspect the reason for the 1 year rule is that a lot of people are just really rusty with interviewing, or get intimidated and freeze up. Personally, just having a bit of practice really helped the confidence to work through problems on the fly and interview well. mrmcd fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 18:54
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mrmcd posted:Google NYC had a practice interview / coaching talk for onsite candidates (which GWH you should def do if you get past phone screen and schedule works out) and the thing I thought was most insightful was the presenter said (paraphrasing) "We see and reject a lot of people who have spent 10+ years doing variations on 'write for loop, take data out of SQL cursor, put data on web page', and don't have the ability or inclination to really think about problems much deeper and more analytically than that." That seems like a depressingly low bar to not be able to clear :\
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Aug 17, 2016 19:05
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The thing that pisses me off about our industry is that interviewing is a skill in itself only loosely correlated with job performance. I never hear about this crap from doctors and lawyers. While those industries have their issues with barriers to entry, there's gotta be something in the middle between our current state and full-retard programmer-specific degrees and certifications.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:54
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mrmcd posted:But seriously though, the import thing is to demonstrate sophisticated analytical thinking. Pull a problem apart and analyze it with your interviewer, come up with possible solutions, discuss trade-offs, listen to feedback and suggestions and then respond to it. The goal is to show that you're someone who can intelligently discuss and collaborate on engineering problems and come up with solutions, not memorize a million possible code brainteasers and then instantly hack out a solution. I can definitely do this, and feel comfortable doing it, but then Google sends me their prep stuff about how your code should be the most clean and amazing and efficient and they're only looking for the best code in their interview sessions. It's pretty daunting but also hilariously over the top. Forget about the breadth of poo poo you're supposed to know, the attitude just seems like the interviews are going to be unforgiving. That said, in the past I've definitely interviewed places that asked questions where there was literally no loving way you were coming up with the ideal solution unless you had seen the problem before and it was like they were setting you up to fail. I've looked at practice problems in the same vein where I've struggled and gotten frustrated and then Googled it and it was a problem where the optimal solution was something some researcher had spent years coming up with. TooMuchAbstraction posted:This is in part a "fake it till you make it" kind of thing -- act confident, and as you gain experience (both in terms of your job and in terms of interviewing) you'll become more comfortable acting confident, which is basically all that being confident is. That absolutely doesn't mean to lie or overinflate your abilities -- as rt4 says, you should be willing to admit when you don't know something. Interviewers would much rather have someone who says "well, I don't know how to do that, but if I wanted to find out this is what I would do" rather than someone who tries to bullshit them. rt4 posted:Yeah you gotta go in there like you own the place, show 'em how real programmers do it but also be honest if you don't know the answer to something rt4 posted:This is right on the mark. Having solid communication skills, a half decent personality, and the ability to get things done will put you ahead of 90% of the people in this field who are mainly useless dweebs who happen to like computers. The fact that you care enough about your work to participate in an online programming forum and aren't an rear end about it means you're likely to be in that top 10% already. I'm definitely very confident and even more self-aware in terms of knowledge level and problem-solving ability. That said, I haven't interviewed a whole lot, but most programmers seem to be not like this and it's really hard to convince myself even a handful of interviewers are not dweebs who want their right solution to a problem.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:55
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I'm also trying not to stress myself out so much about Google that I gently caress up things with the other 4 places I'm speaking with, all of which would be a bare minimum 1.3x raise and interesting work environment with interesting problems and cool looking teams! Wish me luck here!!!!!!
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Aug 17, 2016 20:02
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necrobobsledder posted:The thing that pisses me off about our industry is that interviewing is a skill in itself only loosely correlated with job performance. I never hear about this crap from doctors and lawyers. While those industries have their issues with barriers to entry, there's gotta be something in the middle between our current state and full-retard programmer-specific degrees and certifications. Doctors and lawyers have to pass significant entrance exams to practice in their fields, and gross incompetence will cause it to be revoked. There is nothing like that for us. [edit] You basically said exactly that, so here's more: Our industry is a skilled trade, but our education doesn't prepare us for that trade. It's like going to carpentry school where they teach you all about the different types of woods and tools you can use to work wood and joints and fasteners and techniques for building tables, but you never actually build a table. So we have to continually prove we can build tables. Doctors and lawyers also undergo what amounts to apprenticeships, as well. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 20:14
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There is too much emphasis on "approach to problem solving," every interviewer wants to tell themself that they are truly evaluating candidates on their problem solving, analytical, fundamental abilities... but if you don't code up the solution they want on the board in time you are not getting hired, no matter how many briliant things you said about different approaches and tradeoffs and your amazing insights.
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Aug 17, 2016 20:22
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Good Will Hrunting posted:That said, in the past I've definitely interviewed places that asked questions where there was literally no loving way you were coming up with the ideal solution unless you had seen the problem before and it was like they were setting you up to fail. I've looked at practice problems in the same vein where I've struggled and gotten frustrated and then Googled it and it was a problem where the optimal solution was something some researcher had spent years coming up with. A good interviewer doesn't care that you don't come up with The Right Solution, because what they want to see is how you approach problem-solving, whether you can identify potential approaches and the pros and cons of each, and how good you are at justifying your chosen solutions. Being able to identify the best possible solution is if anything a bad thing for them, because it probably means you've seen the problem before and thus they aren't really learning anything about you from it. A bad interviewer (of which there are plenty) thinks that interviews are a chance for them to make other people look stupid. I once spent twenty minutes on a single problem, getting no hints or guidance from the interviewer. I didn't get that job.
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Aug 17, 2016 20:41
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Ithaqua posted:
I think I might extend your analogy, while also disagreeing with it. In a decent CS program, you should definitely be "building tables" in some of your higher level classes. Now, are you going to be using the hottest frameworks and/or dealing with legacy code and huge systems, no, but many CS programs are going to have a class(es) where you plan/design/develop a software application for the entire semester. There's certainly "real world" skills that aren't always taught in college classes (e.g. VC systems, Agilefall methodologies, etc.), but those can easily be learned on the job. CS programs are more like a carpentry school where you are learning carpentry math/formulas, universal building codes, safety standards, carpentry history, and why certain tools or materials are the best choices. All things that enable you to be a better carpenter than some guy who just started swinging a hammer around one day. Of course, that doesn't mean that the non-carpenter-school guy won't decide to learn that stuff on his own, but he probably won't. I just view the coding challenges as a thinly veiled IQ test and a way of making sure that you think logically and analytically. After all, people constantly post advice that if you're working in a company where you're the smartest guy in the room, you need to leave that organization.
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Aug 17, 2016 21:51
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What are tables? I only know of Collections.
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Aug 17, 2016 21:54
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B-Nasty posted:I just view the coding challenges as a thinly veiled IQ test * IIRC to be allowed you have to prove that the test has a meaningful relationship with job performance for that job or something
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Aug 17, 2016 21:57
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Good Will Hrunting posted:What are tables? I only know of Collections. Tables are things made by carpenters, hence part of the analogy. Unless you're working in Lua, in which case literally everything is either a fundamental type or a table.
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Aug 17, 2016 21:59
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Tables are things made by carpenters, hence part of the analogy. Let me set the record straight: I was making a poor MongoDB joke.
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Aug 17, 2016 22:04
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I can definitely do this, and feel comfortable doing it, but then Google sends me their prep stuff about how your code should be the most clean and amazing and efficient and they're only looking for the best code in their interview sessions. It's pretty daunting but also hilariously over the top. Forget about the breadth of poo poo you're supposed to know, the attitude just seems like the interviews are going to be unforgiving. Let me share an anecdote from my interview process at Google. I was given the problem I PM'd you, and I said, "well, I'm going to write code to get myself comfortable with the variables I'll be using and see what I need." From there, I built an exponential time and exponential space solution. Not good. So my interviewer gave me a nudge in the DP direction and from that I was able to produce a linear time and linear space solution. Then he asked me how I could use less space, and that prompted me to get my solution down to constant space. Your interviewers want you to do well. Infinotize posted:There is too much emphasis on "approach to problem solving," every interviewer wants to tell themself that they are truly evaluating candidates on their problem solving, analytical, fundamental abilities... but if you don't code up the solution they want on the board in time you are not getting hired, no matter how many briliant things you said about different approaches and tradeoffs and your amazing insights. If you can't get the best solution (or one close to it) with their hints, then you're not going to be great at collaborating with them on hard problems. I got an internship after using a minheap instead of a BST instead of a hashmap to store numbers and remove them when I hit a match, in order to find the one that isn't duplicated in an array, when the best answer is to fold XOR over it. The interviewer saw the important part, that I expressed the need for an operation which causes numbers to "annihilate" themselves.
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Aug 17, 2016 23:11
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Hey thread, Mostly anecdotal evidence, but what is your general success rate of interviews / offers? I am having a lot of frustration with getting a new job. My background is 3 years experience in software, still at my first job in central PA. I don't have a formal CS degree, but I do have a BS in Physics, and I do take open courseware to try to plug the gaps in fundamentals I sometimes have. I have been applying to positions in Philadelphia and NYC, with a preference for NYC. Since starting the job hunt 1.5 years ago, I have gotten 10 in-person interviews and received 0 job offers. This has been pretty annoying. A few days ago I had what was on my end a really good interview that included a coding exercise, data modeling/design exercise, and a more loose cultural fit session. I was able to solve all of the exercises pretty quickly, and the third part seemed to go well. However, I still received a rejection notice afterwards. Based on what I read on Glassdoor, there would have been one more short interview with management as the final part of the process had it continued. Of the rest of the interviews, 1 went poorly on my end, 2 were technically beyond my level at the time, and in 1 case the position was dissolved without hiring anyone. However, the other ones didn't have anything stand out that was really wrong. I almost always can complete all of the whiteboarding and design challenges, and I make sure to detail my thought process as I go through them so I am not totally silent while writing things out. I mostly use Python and JavaScript in a full-stack type of role, so I have been applying to various web or Python positions, none of which have been senior or above. I have only once received actual feedback afterwards, which was them choosing a candidate with more practical experience. Most of the time, I either only receive a rejection or no word at all. This seems like an unusually poor turnout based on what experiences I have read from others. However, I don't know if this is unusual for someone at a no-name company, in a no-name location, without a CS degree, trying to go after positions in a more competitive market like NYC.
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Aug 17, 2016 23:36
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Flaming June posted:Hey thread, Is your personality off-putting?
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Aug 18, 2016 00:06
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I recently moved to a different city for family reasons. It was extremely hard to even get an interview, so when I finally got an offer I took it. It turned out to be an awful place to work so I started looking around again, and had multiple offers quite quickly after that - one from a company that I had applied to before, when I was out of town, and which hadn't even called me back. YMMV and so on but that was my experience.
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Aug 18, 2016 00:22
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Ithaqua posted:Is your personality off-putting? It hasn't really come up that way anywhere else in life. I speak casually and I am not usually all that quiet at interviews. I generally try to make the interviewer relax in a situation that can be awkward on both sides. I have interviewed candidates that have had a lot of difficulty speaking at all, but my personality isn't like that. I'm pretty humble when it comes to technical topics, too, so it isn't like I'm an rear end in a top hat, either.
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Aug 18, 2016 00:22
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Flaming June posted:I generally try to make the interviewer relax in a situation that can be awkward on both sides.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:06
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ExcessBLarg! posted:How do you do that? Act relaxed. There's a cycle to interpersonal relations: how you think affects how you act, which affects how the other person thinks, which affects how they act, which affects how you think.... There's a proper name for this, but I forget what it is. But the upshot is that if you make a conscious effort to act relaxed, then the person you're talking to will subconsciously pick up on that and be less stressed themselves -- which in turn will help make you less stressed. You can also try to pick up on how formal they're being, and mirror that level of formality. If they're being super-casual, then you can be casual in return. If they're being formal, then you'll be better-off acting more professional. But honestly I wouldn't worry about this as much, if only because it's hard enough to handle the surface level aspects of an interview without worrying about the body language stuff. Especially if you're the type to overthink things. The #1 thing IMO is to try to relax. De-escalating a stressful situation will directly make the interview easier.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:21
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Three interviews and no offers is nothing terrible of a record IMO. Companies can be really flakey and many interviewers are Bad At Interviewing and mostly subconsciously select for people similar to themselves. I went through four interviews with no offers for various reasons having nothing to do with whether I was qualified or my personality. Budgets get messed up, you might be way too expensive they realize, and sometimes interviewers quit and drop the ball on your process before leaving. I know it's hard to accept rejection but if you think of it like asking out girls you should feel better... probably because most goons have better interviewing skills than pick-up skills.
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Aug 18, 2016 01:54
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Act relaxed. There's a cycle to interpersonal relations: how you think affects how you act, which affects how the other person thinks, which affects how they act, which affects how you think.... There's a proper name for this, but I forget what it is. But the upshot is that if you make a conscious effort to act relaxed, then the person you're talking to will subconsciously pick up on that and be less stressed themselves -- which in turn will help make you less stressed. This, pretty much. If I am relaxed, they generally are, too. A lot of it is in message delivery and body language. And the exact atmosphere matters here, too. I will generally be little bit more casual if my interviewers are in their early-mid twenties and wearing hoodies and cargo pants. If they are business casual, I will be more formal. And if the business is even more conservative (like in a lot of finance), then I am even more formal. This is especially true when speaking with a VP or C-level. necrobobsledder posted:Three interviews and no offers is nothing terrible of a record IMO. Companies can be really flakey and many interviewers are Bad At Interviewing and mostly subconsciously select for people similar to themselves. I went through four interviews with no offers for various reasons having nothing to do with whether I was qualified or my personality. Budgets get messed up, you might be way too expensive they realize, and sometimes interviewers quit and drop the ball on your process before leaving. I wouldn't be so concerned if it was three interviews, but unfortunately it is ten with no offers. I'm not surprised that some of them didn't lead to anything, but the majority of them, to me, didn't have hiccups, either. I don't think it is an anomaly, but I wasn't sure if others have had similar experiences.
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Aug 18, 2016 02:50
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Ithaqua posted:Doctors and lawyers have to pass significant entrance exams to practice in their fields, and gross incompetence will cause it to be revoked. There is nothing like that for us. residents and associates are paid little enough that they are almost always worth having around if you have busy work for them to do. once they get past that stage they are all essentially contractors who only get paid if they produce doctors and lawyers arent really comparable to programmers, except for maybe contractors
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Aug 18, 2016 05:29
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the talent deficit posted:residents and associates are paid little enough that they are almost always worth having around if you have busy work for them to do. once they get past that stage they are all essentially contractors who only get paid if they produce So the top 25% are busy swimming in their scrooge mcduck pools and the bottom 25% are better off working at walmart? Sounds about right.
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Aug 18, 2016 05:33
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leper khan posted:So the top 25% are busy swimming in their scrooge mcduck pools and the bottom 25% are better off working at walmart? i mean when you put it like that...
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Aug 18, 2016 06:37
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