interviewing: The Land of the Rising Fig

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > YOSPOS > interviewing: The Land of the Rising Fig

dividertabs: Oct 1, 2004

I like most of the questions from that list but this one:

quote:

- what are the company's primary values? what characteristics are you looking for in a candidate in relation to those primary values?

translation: if they say 'uhhhhhhhhhh' here it's a red flag. if they throw gibberish at you it's not a red flag but it's not a good look either. this should get a human bean answer

is really strange to me. I don't see how it has any correlation with how much I'll enjoy a job. Amazon talks a lot about Leadership Principles but (in the org I worked in when I was there) any decision could be spun as following one of the principles, even if it was harmful to customers or to other teams. 'Customer obsession' sounds great but putting it on a list doesn't make it true.

I enjoy my current not-at-Amazon job but don't remember what's on the list of company values (I know there's an official list); if I was asked by a candidate today I'd say 'uhhhhhhhhhh.' I don't think that should be a red flag to candidates. I still get to build useful stuff, work with people smarter tham myself, and make deece figgies without stress.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2018 20:18

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 10:30

dividertabs: Oct 1, 2004

FamDav posted:

yeah for any company greater than 50-100 people the implementation of whatever values your company has are going to vary quite a bit team to team. I'd probably ask a list of questions like

"What are your team's primary values?"

"How much would you say those values are shared with other teams? leadership?"

"How often do you ignore those values?"

I wouldn't even ask about the team values; what they supposedly value doesn't (in my experience) correlate well with how decisions are made. I would drop the two questions:

what are the company's primary values? what characteristics are you looking for in a candidate in relation to those primary values?
what's the most impressive thing you've seen out of someone else you've interviewed recently

I'd replace them with:

When you think about your strongest teammates [or reports when interviewing with a manager], what qualities make them successful in your org?

A bad answer is, "resolves issues quickly and without bugs" as the only important quality. A good answer also considers how they impact other developers (e.g. spreading knowledge or improving tooling), especially cross-team impact, and how they contribute to planning + design tasks. They should also be able to speak to how those qualities are measured and rewarded; this helps you figure out what managers encourage, which is more important than what they value.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 02:04

dividertabs: Oct 1, 2004

kdrudy posted:

Amazon sent me a multi page study guide for their test. I told them I was no longer interested.

It did amuse me that the last page was all links to articles about how great Amazon was.

There�s plenty wrong with Amazon but I think giving every candidate a study guide is a good way to equalize candidates with different backgrounds who have a different level of knowledge about what a faang interview entails. If you�ve already read Cracking you don�t need the guide.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2021 07:00

dividertabs: Oct 1, 2004

galenanorth posted:

At first I thought it was a spam mail sent en masse, then I was sent a follow-up

This doesn't disprove that it's automated recruiter spam; most of the spam I ignore gets 1 or sometimes 2 follow-up like this.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2022 18:44

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