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Shirec posted:This may apply only to entry level folks, but there has been a huge difference in the response rates I got locally vs being out of state/far away. I've experienced this personally and from folks I talk to regularly. I did do the blurb about moving soon when I was in NC trying to move to IL, but the only really big difference in response rate happened when I was actually in the area. Wellll I guess I’ll find out... not looking forward to going back to job hunting. 
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Jun 26, 2018 02:16
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Shirec posted:
Not only, like Che Delilas said, they're pretty arbitrary at all levels, even your interview performance is not going to be necessarily stellar all the time the older/more experience you get. Yes yes yes, you will breeze through fizz buzz, but there will always be problems out there that can catch you off-guard. You will have good days, days in which you would be able to prove/disprove P=NP in a blink of an eye, and then there'll be days when things a bit more complicated than fizz buzz will look like chinese, or to seemingly simple problems you will write the wrong solution because you're not paying attention. And then there'll be days in which the interviewer is such an idiot that you can't help just making fun of him, completely ruining any chances of getting hired there (not that you would want to work with such idiots anyway).
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Jun 26, 2018 02:24
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Do the reasons you get rejected get more arbitrary and nonsense the more experience you get?
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I did though! In terms of performance and space constraints I did! Just not the best variable names and "structure" I guess! you didn't have enough FunctionalProblemSolverFactoryFactories edit: FunctionalProblemSolverFactoryFactory extends AbstractFunctionalProblemSolverFactoryFactory implements ProblemSolverFactoryFactoryInterface
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Jun 26, 2018 02:34
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Roadie posted:
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Jun 26, 2018 04:27
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JawnV6 posted:I have received high-quality personal feedback exactly once. It was devastating, ruined my weekend. But it was a senior programmer a startup had asked to interview me as a favor, I asked for feedback in the shock of the moment and she gave it. I didn't even want the stupid job working for those zealot co-founders, I was more upset they'd figured out we weren't a good fit first. None of it was "oh brush up on makefile syntax" or some other technical topic I could pick up in a few days. But yeah, interviews are arbitrary. I was slammed on my Google phone-screen for my inexperience with op-amps, I genuinely don't see my career going that way and the feedback is irrelevant. I've gotten good, actionable feedback exactly once. I didn't act on the feedback because it boiled down to "you need to learn this specific technology in great detail".
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Jun 26, 2018 04:59
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There's nothing they can tell me that I don't know, really. Any sort of feedback on my algo interviews strikes me as nitpicky because I know I'm well-prepared at this point and have gotten rejected exactly once (well, twice after today) from those types of questions, and anything about design/OOP is something I already know I'm weak on so I just shrug feedback off. It's never specific either, it's along the lines of "weak at SQL and relational models" -- yeah no poo poo, it's not on my resume. "Weak at overall system architecture" ... am I actually? I seem to be discussing trade-offs and design decisions for extremely loosely specced things, is it just that I'm not giving the answers you want to you question..? I didn't hear from last week's on-site yet but them giving me an offer or wanting to continue would be extremely sad to turn down because the interview process was nothing like this, it was so straightforward and laid back and struck me as a very healthy process.
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Jun 26, 2018 05:04
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"weak at SQL and relational models" is a problem for most backend development jobs, and also pretty easy to fix. Maybe you can't do much about it in the very short term, but that seems like low-hanging fruit if you're trying to figure out what to work on.
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Jun 26, 2018 05:07
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Good Will Hrunting posted:There's nothing they can tell me that I don't know, really. Any sort of feedback on my algo interviews strikes me as nitpicky because I know I'm well-prepared at this point and have gotten rejected exactly once (well, twice after today) from those types of questions, and anything about design/OOP is something I already know I'm weak on so I just shrug feedback off. It's never specific either, it's along the lines of "weak at SQL and relational models" -- yeah no poo poo, it's not on my resume. "Weak at overall system architecture" ... am I actually? I seem to be discussing trade-offs and design decisions for extremely loosely specced things, is it just that I'm not giving the answers you want to you question..? Honestly I'm finding that the rejections are almost certainly not an indication of one's technical ability but rather one's ability to communicate one's technical ability within the confines of the target company's interview process, which is (frankly) often complete poo poo. So ultimately, the hiring process is a hit-or-miss arbitrary system where you try to match up your ability to demonstrate your abilities (haha) vs the company's interviewing system. Which means that the actual ability to write code is not the ultimate hiring guideline, but rather the connection you make with the people interviewing you and whether their impression matches your real abilities. It's kind of bullshit, but no one's figured out anything better. You basically have to trust that the stars will eventually align. The main point to note is that it's not a reflection of your ability to do the job, but rather the ability to sell the fact that you can do the job (and whether the other side is compatible with however you choose to approach that).
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Jun 26, 2018 05:22
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Good Will Hrunting posted:"Weak at overall system architecture" ... am I actually? I seem to be discussing trade-offs and design decisions for extremely loosely specced things, is it just that I'm not giving the answers you want to you question..?
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Jun 26, 2018 05:56
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:The number of times an interviewee has failed to present the best possible implementation is 100%. Nobody should fail an interview for not arriving at the best solution.
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Jun 26, 2018 08:16
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For what it's worth, I'm still not sure how I got my internship. Getting hired full time mostly consisted of dressing nice every day and clicking with my team, so...
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Jun 26, 2018 13:40
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weak at overall architecture usually means they fed you some hosed up domain problem they ran into and you solved it differently than they did.
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Jun 26, 2018 13:46
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Sounds like they suck.
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Jun 26, 2018 13:48
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How does anyone actually get hired, I guess, is my question??? Sheer high volume of interviews conducted?
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Jun 26, 2018 15:10
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How does anyone actually get hired, I guess, is my question??? Sheer high volume of interviews conducted? Personal reference / network or poached from current position by someone already inside the company is how I see a lot of positions filled and how we've gotten almost all of our good candidates. Hiring someone from off the street is super stressful because everyone _knows_ their interviewing method is garbage and the high cost of loving it up means internal references carry a ton of weight. I've been involved in a bunch of hiring, but have only held 4 positions and each position I got from knowing someone inside the company that I had previously worked with or networked with.
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Jun 26, 2018 15:20
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How does anyone actually get hired, I guess, is my question??? Sheer high volume of interviews conducted? I got one via a Job Fair introduction in 1998. Networked that one into positions through today. Everyone I know is corporate now and I'm tired of it so I'm spray-and-pray with applications this time around. I tackled the online dating world 4-5 years ago so grinding with little feedback feels familiar and unintimidating ha ha.
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Jun 26, 2018 15:46
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I have to give good props to Good Will Hrunting for staying in the game because this is the point where graybeards decide it's because they're not young and Indian and then go completely nativist. Funny enough, I was on a phone interview the other day with an engineer and we ended the call with interviewing horror stories. He apparently had to implement a fully-functional red-black tree on a whiteboard for an Amazon interview some years ago. They just expected he'd be able to do it. I can only imagine this being useful for an internal team making a container library. FWIW if I were manager the last thing I'd want is an internal team making containers. gently caress that. I have an Amazon interview in my queue and the recruiter outright said to study up and do some reviewing of algorithms and data structures. I'm just doodling on a few things I personally find interesting and enriching, but now I'm tempted to even stop that and just spike the interview. It looks like Amazon interviews are just trash now. A decade ago, I could expect to do something with pseudo-code that involved a dash of recursion.
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Jun 26, 2018 16:04
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I have to give good props to Good Will Hrunting for staying in the game because this is the point where graybeards decide it's because they're not young and Indian and then go completely nativist. For Amazon I *think* it is dependent on the team you are interviewing for, hiring managers interview for their team directly. That hiring manager was obviously garbage. I doubt that single anecdote is indicative of the average Amazon interview or Amazon wouldn't have any employees. There really isn't any reason to get discouraged and eliminate yourself from consideration ahead of time if Amazon is a company you want to work for.
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Jun 26, 2018 16:10
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How does anyone actually get hired, I guess, is my question??? Sheer high volume of interviews conducted? JehovahsWetness posted:Personal reference / network or poached from current position by someone already inside the company is how I see a lot of positions filled and how we've gotten almost all of our good candidates. Thots and Prayers posted:I got one via a Job Fair introduction in 1998. Networked that one into positions through today. Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 16:16
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It's really not *that* hard to get a job out of an application. Almost all of the jobs I've had have come along that way. The mythical 'get a job via networking' just doesn't make sense to me, every job I've ever hired for, or helped interview for, that kind of recommendation just gets someone a phone screen (regardless of who it's coming from) -- it's not gonna carry much weight any farther along in the process. It's a numbers game if you just shotgun apply to anything that you see -- but you can also be more picky and find and apply to roles and companies that would be a really good fit. Write a relevant cover letter that doesnt start with 'dear sirs/madams' for the job, stalk people on linkedin, find out more about the actual team. It also helps if you're not applying at stuffy ginormous hurr durr enterprise companies. If I sent an application to Oracle, I wouldn't expect to even see an email in response. I'd be shocked if I didn't get bare minimum a phone screen applying at a 10-1000 person 'startup' or tech co. Of course, it's still a numbers game, just with a lot better odds if you target your search aggressively. In any case, getting passed on just means one of three things: "we're absolute morons" (you can reduce this one by targeting your search) or "you're an absolute moron" (which tbh is the least likely case) or "we didn't like you quite enough" or "we didn't like you quite as much as that other person" neither of which you can do much about. It's not a deep reflection on your skills or person.
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Jun 26, 2018 16:48
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Holy gently caress I just had a question that was solving the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collatz_conjecture and using a cache wasn't enough - the most optomized solution was to also use a queue or stack to pop the numbers back off it. And the interviewer was mad when I didn't think of it!!! And clearly wasn't paying attention!
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Jun 26, 2018 16:51
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Mao Zedong Thot posted:The mythical 'get a job via networking' just doesn't make sense to me, every job I've ever hired for, or helped interview for, that kind of recommendation just gets someone a phone screen (regardless of who it's coming from) -- it's not gonna carry much weight any farther along in the process. This is absolutely false, especially for giant corps like Oracle. I know several people who have gotten all their interview stuff fast-tracked and a lot more leniency in interviewing because of a prior relationship with team members there. At huge companies it's especially helpful because they often need someone ASAP and they know their regular hiring process takes months. Having an advocate who can say "I worked with her before and she's great" is huge.
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Jun 26, 2018 16:55
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I feel for you Good Will Hrunting, you would practically never get asked a question like that on this side of the pond. What's the point? Who needs to be able to bust out an optimal Collatz solver!?
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Jun 26, 2018 16:58
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vonnegutt posted:This is absolutely false, especially for giant corps like Oracle. I know several people who have gotten all their interview stuff fast-tracked and a lot more leniency in interviewing because of a prior relationship with team members there. At huge companies it's especially helpful because they often need someone ASAP and they know their regular hiring process takes months. Having an advocate who can say "I worked with her before and she's great" is huge. It's a running joke at Google that referrals are fed to the circular file, despite the fact that the company constantly claims it is desperately seeking qualified applicants. I've gotten all of my jobs by submitting my resume to job postings, or from a job fair I went to 13 years ago.
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Jun 26, 2018 17:02
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I don't even know how to get better at those kinds of interviews. Am I loving stupid? Do most people solve these in 35 minutes in a glorified Word document? I can't will my brain to start working better during he last few minutes to get over the final hurdle. This feels incredibly dehumanizing. I feel as if I'm being treated like a malfunctioning machine. Good Will Hrunting fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Jun 26, 2018 |
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Jun 26, 2018 17:03
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I don't even know how to get better at those kinds of interviews. Am I loving stupid? Do most people solve these in 35 minutes in a glorified Word document? It sounds like you're applying to lovely jobs.
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Jun 26, 2018 17:12
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vonnegutt posted:This is absolutely false, especially for giant corps like Oracle. I know several people who have gotten all their interview stuff fast-tracked and a lot more leniency in interviewing because of a prior relationship with team members there. At huge companies it's especially helpful because they often need someone ASAP and they know their regular hiring process takes months. Having an advocate who can say "I worked with her before and she's great" is huge. I don't mean to imply networking is useless at all, just in my experience it does not have an outsize impact on getting hired, no more than interviewing well. It can help with getting a foot in the door, and then some weight when deciding among final group of people though, so absolutely take every advantage you can get, of course
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Jun 26, 2018 17:16
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Mao Zedong Thot posted:I don't mean to imply networking is useless at all, just in my experience it does not have an outsize impact on getting hired, no more than interviewing well. It can help with getting a foot in the door, and then some weight when deciding among final group of people though, so absolutely take every advantage you can get, of course The 80-20 rule applies to jobs as well: - 80% of the jobs are never advertised. - For those never advertised 80% of the jobs, 20% of the qualified people apply. - For those 20% of the advertised jobs, 80% of the people apply. Would you rather compete with 80% of the pool or 20%? Networking gives you access to the "never-advertised" jobs, where the "interview" is a simple discussion with the manager, maybe the only discussion he and him will have before the offer is made.
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Jun 26, 2018 17:23
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Mao Zedong Thot posted:It sounds like you're applying to lovely jobs. How do I pick better ones if my network is tiny?
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Jun 26, 2018 17:30
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I have a question about taking a contract position as a means of eventually getting a full-time position with a larger organization. Is it wise to pursue a contract position with the hopes that I might be able to convince someone on the inside to eventually advocate to bring me on full-time? Or should I instead pursue full-time employment by applying for jobs that are actually full-time? Getting a bit more specific, I want to work for Disney as I think it's a stable company with a huge range of growth opportunities. Right now I'm at various stages of a couple of contract opportunities through a recruiter. It seems like the quickest way to get to produce work for Disney, but keeping my ultimate goal of working for Disney, I don't want to get my hopes up that I could sweet-talk my way to a permanent position once I get my foot in the door, so to speak. I've traditionally shied away from contractor gigs preferring the stability of full-time positions, though, and so I'm not really sure how things work when you're working with a set deadline.
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Jun 26, 2018 17:32
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How do I pick better ones if my network is tiny? Meetups and clubs. If you have any skill or propensity for them, live talks at conferences. Clubs like Toastmasters can help there, if that's a thing you'd like to try. It's probably more time-efficient than trying to memorize the optimal solution to every algorithm, but might be less pleasant, depending on your personal level of gooniness.
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Jun 26, 2018 18:19
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I don't even know how to get better at those kinds of interviews. Am I loving stupid? Do most people solve these in 35 minutes in a glorified Word document? I actually ran into a situation where a referral got me 99% of the way through an interview process, but the hiring manager went against everybody's recommendation because I didn't seem to have a good attitude. I had done the interview after my sabbatical got delayed over and over again due to politics. It had been about six months and I hadn't had a vacation because I had this potential sabbatical dangling in front of my like a carrot on a string on the end of a stick. I was worn the hell out. I aced all the questions but the manager just didn't like my vibe. My buddy was pretty pissed about it. The networking thing IMO works better if you're regularly going to conferences and such and have people there with which you're regularly catching up. Given how few and far between I get into intelligent conversations about computer software stuff, the whole concept is starting to warm up on me, but it's a lot of hustle.
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Jun 26, 2018 18:27
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How do I pick better ones if my network is tiny? It can be slow going in the beginning! A network has to be cultivated, they don't just spring out of thin air (unless you're rich and are born into some crazy network I guess?). Do you go to meetups or tech related clubs? Hackathons? It's good just for social stuff, you can start getting a feel for companies to avoid, and start to plant those seeds. The other half of it is just keeping touch with former coworkers you liked. Get a cup of coffee so often! I'm so excited to one day start going to conferences. I love kvetching with my fellow geeks  I feel you though, as someone who moved 14 hours and is 2 hours away from the city they are trying to network in.
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Jun 26, 2018 18:40
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How do I pick better ones if my network is tiny? What type of companies have you interviewed thus far, any household names? Based on the interview questions you've posted, I'm guessing small start ups who are up their own asses. If you just want a relaxed job, apply at a giant non-tech corporation. The interviews are more reasonable and the pay/benefits are still good. No goofy algo puzzles.
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Jun 26, 2018 18:40
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Munkeymon posted:Meetups and clubs. If you have any skill or propensity for them, live talks at conferences. Clubs like Toastmasters can help there, if that's a thing you'd like to try. Speaking at meetups and conferences is like career rocket fuel. I am making 50% more than I was 3 years ago, and I directly attribute much of that to the fact that I wouldn't have my job if not for having being a "known quantity" from networking at conferences or speaking.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:02
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How does one get started speaking at conferences? Should you have a certain level of experience before, or just be able to speak intelligently and have a presentation on something interesting? I feel like I could do the latter no problem and am pretty good at public speaking, but I have less than a year of professional experience under my belt so not sure how my qualifications stack up on that front.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:20
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The Dark Wind posted:How does one get started speaking at conferences? Should you have a certain level of experience before, or just be able to speak intelligently and have a presentation on something interesting? I feel like I could do the latter no problem and am pretty good at public speaking, but I have less than a year of professional experience under my belt so not sure how my qualifications stack up on that front. I've done a bunch of conference/event speaking over the past 4 years. Just like with job interviews, don't pre-reject yourself. Find a local conference (or a not-so-local conference that will pay for speakers to fly out!), submit an abstract, and see if you get a call back. Also, you can start small by finding and joining or starting a local usergroup and doing some presentations there, to get some credibility and experience as a presenter.
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Jun 26, 2018 19:50
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Lmao the place where I pretty much nailed all 3 interviews last week is still "mixed". I don't even get it. What the gently caress do I need to do to "pass" these arbitrary interviews? I"m getting the objectively correct solutions and being told in the interview "great, yeah that's enough!".
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Jun 26, 2018 19:52
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Good Will Hrunting posted:Lmao the place where I pretty much nailed all 3 interviews last week is still "mixed". I don't even get it. What the gently caress do I need to do to "pass" these arbitrary interviews? I"m getting the objectively correct solutions and being told in the interview "great, yeah that's enough!". Just trying to get what you believe is an honest assessment of your personality fit from these interviews, because it sounds like you're crushing it from a technical standpoint.
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Jun 26, 2018 20:06
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Personality is honestly probably my strongest point after communication and expression. I'm "tech deficient" I guess compared to these people who interview me but I never come off as aloof or uninterested or anything. I've been told by pretty much everyone, especially the new recruiter I'm working with (who himself is actually pretty good - very down to earth and not pushy), that I am one of the most approachable and down to earth engineers they've ever spoken with. Candid, corny answer: People were borderline crying when I left my last company. I am friends with everyone. I'm extremely outgoing and extroverted and enthusiastic as gently caress about everything, if people didn't think I was so cool they'd probably think I was a weirdo with how much I gush about everything I'm into or working on or whatever. (That's hyperbole)
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Jun 26, 2018 20:16
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