Nepotism can be your friend. Meet people through meetups, open source projects, conferences, non-profit volunteer work, etc. When people know and respect you already and you have an internal champion, the interview process often is much smoother. You'll be more confortable too when you know them. You might even bypass some of the process as well.
I think the word "networking" (not usually a negative) would fit better than "nepotism" (almost always seen as a negative) here. Hiring your friends - ahead of other candidates who might be better qualified - might well be considered nepotism, but going out of your way to make friends with people in the hope that they might hire you probably isn't nepotism as most people would understand it.
The problem is that "networking" as a term has been diluted to mean "introduce yourself to powerful strangers" as opposed to "build a network of people in your industry that respect you".
With a good network, you can find a job. With good networking, you have a nice Rolodex without much influence.
Yeah, I agree on this use of the word. "Nepotism" implies getting the job through a connection regardless of anything else, but networking implies getting a job through a connection that is a source of trust of their qualifications.
Generally, nepotism refers to giving jobs or special treatment to people in your family. This is a good tactic but it requires having somebody else in your family working at a company that you are interested. This might not be possible.
You are referring to networking. This is very important and can definitely help you land a job.
Referrals can be a good source of talent, but nepotism has a very destructive effect at a large since it denies opportunities to talent that deserves them.
Wrong question - the right question is "which companies don't have the typical whiteboard interview". Mine didn't, and it's a regular software engineer job.
Here's a list of some - never used it but was on here a while back:
Wrong question - the right question is "which companies don't have the typical whiteboard interview".
Wrong assumption - the majority of my on-site interviews don't even use whiteboards. They involve discussing real world problems and work experiences with me. I still do not get offers from them.
To be honest, I agree with the parent that the question is wrong. No company wants employees that are bad at interviewing. No company wants employees that are bad at anything, in fact.
Maybe it helps to contact the company that rejected you and ask them why they rejected you. This would allow you to narrow down your weaknesses and improve these skills. I've never tried this myself, so I'm not sure how common such a request is, but it seems like a sensible thing to do.
Doesn't cost anything to try though. We actually do attempt to give straightforward answers to candidates that are not a good fit, although we are a smaller company that doesn't have the concerns that a large corporation has
Or any answers. At least for the US, I've read before here on HN that it may be due to the company's fear of being litigated against for some sort of discrimination.
Not the parent, but I'm someone with quite a lot of social anxiety. I fall apart when I have to give presentations (working on this skill) or I'm in a high-pressure social setting. Everyone does to some degree, but for myself and others like me, it's an order of magnitude greater.
I can certainly work with a team and I can program at least as well as most of my peers, but interviews are difficult for me.
You could go find your nearest open-mic night and sing/play for the audience. You can read poetry or sing karaoke.
It's probably going to suck the first time you do this. However, keep doing it. Eventually, you will get more comfortable and confident. It takes lots of practice.
I did a lot of stage performances as a musician. I used to vomit before going on stage. Eventually, I got used to it. Eventually, I was able to interact with the crowd. Eventually, I got comfortable. This confidence helped with many other areas of my life. It did take work and pushing through the discomfort and fear. It was not easy.
I found going to acting school a help. I doubt I could have mustered up the courage to do stuff in front of an audience back then, but being given a script to perform in front of a small group of other acting students was much easier.
How would you even go by looking people to do this? Especially someone familiar with the tech field for example? "hiring manager technology" doesn't return the best results in trying to find someone.
Gonna have to talk to friends and coworkers. I've done this (mock interviews for people who are bad at interviewing) for friends and even friend-of-a-friends, but I wouldn't want to be on a searchable directory of such people.
Yeah that seems to be the common theme, "Ask friends and coworkers" I guess I need to do a bit more networking at meetups at such. Its been word of mouth from previous clients for all these years so I never bother to reach out to build a network.
I kind of hate that as well, given that I maintain multiple popular libraries, have a ton of code on Github (of actual web apps that you can use right now), etc. What can a take-home coding challenge tell you that you won't learn from actually looking at my production code?
So interview for that. I have yet to interview at a tech company that does so. And yet, 100% believe that whiteboard coding and/or "take-home projects" are necessary for experienced candidates.
Agreed to a certain extent. Like I said its based on how senior we think the developer is. If going through your Github shows us that we dont have to evaluate on certain skills, then we wont. Also our coding homework is not typical. See my answer to @amorphid below.
Yes, and that's why sites/books like Cracking the Coding Interview exist. While I don't deny that they have some merit, they don't cover the full picture of what is needed.
I've had a few people (beginners looking for a job) ask me for help on just those sorts of interview questions - and not being interested in spending time on learning the underlying fundamentals, though I had mentored them (on mentoring sites like Codementor) some on those areas earlier (at their request). Misguided, to say the least. Told them that that (just doing the interview prep) is not a good approach, because, even if they manage to clear/pass the interview, with or without my or others' help, they will likely get found out soon for their lack of fundamental knowledge, soon after getting a job.
And even the whiteboard questions themselves are often taken straight from a site like Leetcode or TopCoder. Unless you're interviewing at a big five company, you're essentially performing a standardized test.
Yes, exactly. Companies treat this stuff exactly the way universities treat the SAT/ACT. But I'd alter your statement: the big players are the worst with this stuff. They care about nothing more than your ability to regurgitate CTCI answers at a whiteboard. One mistake on a six-hour loop, and you're toast.
This is awesome and to answer your question probably not much. But also you're in the minority of applicants — most don't have as much available open source.
I can't speak for OPs company, but we did have a candidate recently with extensive GitHub material, so in his case we did not bother with our take home.
As a former tech recruiter, I can say there's a good chance interviewing team won't bother reviewing your coding exercise. It's easy to ask you to complete an exercise, but reviewing the exercise, let alone giving meaningful feedback, requires work. Teams aren't always willing/interested/able to put in the work review N take home projects.
Here's an example:
- apply to job
- recruiter does phone screen
- you're asked you to complete exercise before an interviewer has reviewed your profile/resume/application
- you put a bunch of work into doing exercise well and return it
- your exercise is not reviewed at all because: the job has been filled, the job has been closed, an interviewer didn't like your resume/CV/application, the recruiter misplaces your exercise, the team is too busy to review any exercises, etc.
I should explain what our coding exercise is. Its a decent size project on bitbucket that we ask developers to install. Yes, just install. No real coding required. Usually takes between 30 minutes to 8 hours. What we are looking for are specific things: a) Can you read and follow the installation instructions AND are you familiar with Git and NPM? b) If you face some installation issue, are you willing to spend the effort to solve it? c) Can you read code? Because sometimes a library wont work for you. So you might have to change the version or find a workaround. d) For more mid to senior engineers, we expect them to ask detailed questions on our choices of architecture, libraries and suggest alternatives and reasoning behind their choices.
So its not really a coding exercise where we ask someone to fix a bug or write code and then evaluate their coding style. Its a little different in that we are looking for problem solving skills in a startup environment. I don't think this approach will work for a large company where every developer has a specific role. But it works well for us.
>I should explain what our coding exercise is. Its a decent size project on bitbucket that we ask developers to install. Yes, just install. No real coding required. Usually takes between 30 minutes to 8 hours. What we are looking for are specific things: a) Can you read and follow the installation instructions AND are you familiar with Git and NPM? b) If you face some installation issue, are you willing to spend the effort to solve it? c) Can you read code? Because sometimes a library wont work for you.
Interesting. I think that is one good approach. Because I've come across many people (aspiring to be software workers) who 1) cannot even follow clearly specified instructions to the letter (a basic skill for a software person), and/or 2) cannot figure out ways to deviate from those instructions in meaningful ways, if they do not work.
Seems like it's a decent way to verify spurious claims that are not well confirmed in a spoken portion of the job interview. It feels like a FizzBuzz version of environment knowledge and tools skills.
The kind of coding tests I don't like are the ones that seem too onerous and involved for the given role. I have recently phone interviewed with a company, which they don't make their own software as a revenue source but build software for other clients. I talked over the phone with one of the lead programmers, discussed my skills, situations related to my work experience, etc.
Afterwards, he issued me a coding exercise with a VERY DETAILED .pdf document that felt uncomfortably close to a request for proposal and summaries of requirements. I hesitated and replied back about this. They assured me that this is not unpaid work and that everyone has to take this same test, in the language of their choosing. The test was intended to produce code for a MVC web app that they can evaluate. So I guess they really wanted sample code, despite having already produced other samples from Github, and discussed my real-world MVC work projects from my perspective as a mid-level developer (including one where I had architectural control).
I think the most disappointing thing, though, is that this long test is mandatory for everyone that they interview. So, the responses and decisions you make in the phone interview portion don't seem to have any real impact on the next step in the process. Someone could have a highly popular library on Github and they could still say, okay you gotta take this test. Non-trivial tests should be tailor made to a person's own experience.
If you're going to ask me to do a project that takes n hours, either I'm going to reciprocate and require the same of you, or you're going to pay my consulting rate to do it.
I suspect every good candidate had the same approach. If you're getting people to do this for free, you're not getting very good applicants.
In this market, the people you're interviewing are far more desirable than you are.
One of the best interviews I ever went on was a pair coding exercise. The interviewer asked me to come in for a couple hours, and we worked through a problem together. The "my time is your time" vibe was really nice. An interviewer wouldn't he able to scale that kind of interviewing technique unless they were upfront with candidates about what they'd he asked to do, and had a reasonable level of confidence that a candidate would have a reasonable shot at getting the job. I really liked it, and it demonstrated that the interviewer had thought about the interview in advance.
I'm willing to do take home projects when I know how they'll be evaluated. If you are willing to ask me to commit my time to something, and let me know what I'm getting for my investment of time, that goes a long way.
As an interviewer, I tend to avoid paying applicants. It just feels odd. Instead, I try to make the opportunity (interview plus potential job) as enticing as I can. Once it gets out that an that an interviewee pays interviewees, I'd be concerned that I'd attract "professional" interviewees who just want the money. As a blood bank, I wouldn't pay people to donate blood either for reasons that feel similar.
Everyone is proud of themselves for not literally using a whiteboard these days, but they still want you to write code while someone watches. I think for a lot of people, in spirit that is not so different from whiteboards.
> Wrong question - the right question is "which companies don't have the typical whiteboard interview"
Wrong question. The right question is "which companies actually respond to you within a week of application submission". Those "reapply in six months if you don't hear anything" emails tell me a LOT about a company's real priorities.
This might sound a little strange, but I would say programming. I have worked in the industry 25+ years now, and I've never had what I would call an interview. I've had informal lunches with the CIO, met the team at BBQ's, like that, but never anything more rigorous. On top of that, I'm fairly introverted, and don't have many friends, but I do have a large number of acquaintances, I'm known to be a good and loyal employee (I don't switch jobs near as often as the norm) and have kept up my skills (I hope) fairly well. I've gotten jobs because people knew about me, essentially, so it can be done.
I kind of fear when I actually have to do an interview. I'm hoping I make it to the end of my career before that happens.
It seems like you had enough luck to find yourself in relatively long, stable positions for work. I have job-hopped through various startups and other small companies, never staying in one place longer than 2 years. I'm introverted as well, and therefore never put much work into building a network. The colleagues I do know, never have anything for me regarding jobs. Basically I'm only good enough for those riskier jobs but not good enough (apparently) for more stable, "corporate" places.
People don't know how hard it is to get a job offer until they are unemployed and don't have a good network. I would love it if I never have to worry about finding another job again.
This is similar to me, but for engineering. Getting jobs via networking is much, much easier than cold-calling an interview.
Talk to your friends and workmates, ex-managers etc. If you've done good work in the past, people will be happy to get you in on the fast track. Companies hate doing interviews, so anything they can do to streamline that process they will generally do.
I'd broaden that to networking in general. Tech presentations also raise your profile, especially with manager types who attend.
Every friend, colleague and former manager that I talk to has either lead to an interview (so I still don't skip interviewing) which I don't pass, but most of the time they just give me the same basic reply of: "I don't know of any job openings but I'll keep an eye out". No matter what time of the year, no matter how they're doing.
Starting a startup. Honestly, the lack of control I felt at interviewing at the top tech firms back in college and my only average GPA was a big motivator for me to start my own business. I hated the idea that my career was out of my control and would depend on whether I could answer challenging interview questions under stress or my GPA/school. This was also at the peak of the ridiculous mythical word problems Microsoft, Google, et al were known for, and those were not my forte whatsoever.
For another perspective, my GPA was at the top of my graduating class in CS but I still had a similar train of thought as you. I fundamentally philosophically disagreed with how broken interviewing in the tech industry is especially at the bigger companies.
Agreed. Had setup a nonprofit before and was thinking about doing something different by joining a big commericial organsiation. Had the honour of being rejected by many of the biggest companies in the world - Google, Apple, Facebook, Stripe, Microsoft, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Statoil, Shell, KPMG etc. Its really quite impressive a list of organisations. :)
Decided "Ah well, may aswell go and startup another business." Haven't looked back since.
Depends on what part of the interviewing process is slowing you down.
Your other comment indicates that your question is not "what jobs interview with day-to-day challenges rather than google-scale hypotheticals"
>They involve discussing real world problems and work experiences with me. I still do not get offers from them.
The question should not be "how do I run from this problem"
It is first "how do i get a credible assessment of why I didn't receive offers"
and then "how do I build or repair that area of my skills"
This applies equally if not especially to "soft skills" aka "how am I perceived by other humans".
edit: I poked back into your history and it seems that you figured this out with your question from ~20 days ago. That's the right thread to pull IMO and it looks like that post got some responses. I'd say keep pushing in that area - sub one month is a very short timeline for both personal growth and varied interview rounds.
My soft skills are good enough on the job. I hardly get complaints about communication issues with co-workers and also have taken part in client meetings at some companies, discussing their goals and requirements. I keep on track with everyone that is needed for a project.
But almost everything about soft skills on a job interview feels too orthogonal and dissimilar to my applied work soft skills. Interviews like that are more suited for sales jobs, I think. Sales skills seem like they have been put on a pedestal. Therefore I cannot see these interviews as an accurate representation of most soft skills at work.
Edit: Also about my older thread, are you referring to the one about returning to an office job after 2 years of being away from it? I really do feel like this is what I need and almost all the jobs I apply to require daily 9-5 office work. I'm a homebody and hang out only with 3 people regularly. It remains to be seen on the "when" of I'll get that kind of job.
> My soft skills are good enough on the job. I hardly get complaints about communication issues
This isn't about you, I don't know you, and you may well be the exception to this. But, given that; in my experience everyone I've ever met in person who claims that their social skills are not why their (not just coding) interview skills are lacking is wrong. Often they're wrong because they don't even realize it, because their peers know that communications skills are lacking and then don't even raise the issue to avoid the possibility of a (quite common) poor reception of the feedback. Don't assume the lack of criticism as an endorsement. If someone thinks you lack something technically but have strong communication, they'll tell you that. If someone thinks you lack communication skills, they'll do their best to avoid treading on the viper, because they don't know how you'll respond.
> But almost everything about soft skills on a job interview feels too orthogonal and dissimilar to my applied work soft skills. Interviews like that are more suited for sales jobs, I think.
I'm not even 100% sure what you mean by that, but I read it as "I don't really need the skills you think I do." Again, I'm not sure that's what you meant, but as a disinterested third party, if I read it that way, I'd be surprised if some interviewers don't.
> their peers know that communications skills are lacking and then don't even raise the issue to avoid the possibility of a (quite common) poor reception of the feedback.
That's an interesting thought. It never occurred to me that feedback on technical skills is more commonly given than feedback on communication skills. How did you discover that?
Also, withholding certain kinds of feedback because of fear of reprisal does not seem like an effective way to manage or improve your employees. So they'd rather fire you without telling you how you needed to improve? That doesn't sound like good management to me and it sounds like these are the types of managers I should avoid.
You are being interviewed to see if you have the technical skills to do the job, and to see how you well you interact with other people. You must learn to be confident and friendly. These are foundational skills.
Why do some people (which includes me, I guess) have poorer foundational skills while being better at certain specialized field-specific skills, such as programming?
I think it's common for us engineers- we care about the problem, the details. So that's what we focus on. And that can actually help in interviews- we can rely on our knowledge to give us the confidence we need. That sort of quiet confidence shows the interviewer that you can do the job. The rest of it is just treating the interviewer how you would want to be treated- with respect and kindness. That shows that you can get along with him and the rest of the team. That's it! That's all they're looking for.
You most likely work on your field specific skills orders of magnitude more often/intensely. What have you done to develop your foundational skills in general? Where are you weak? Where are you strong? What have you studied recently to make them better?
I am weak in closing the deal with job interviews, mainly. However I don't know what is the average ratio of offers to interviews for developers applying to mid-level jobs.
So I guess you're saying I should be studying people skills, I guess? I often hear that I need to get mock interviews but there are few official sources for it. Also it's not very instructive to tell someone to just find any friend. Most people do not have experience interviewing programmers, so they wouldn't be good for mock interviews. And mock interviewing with friends would introduce too much of a positive bias you won't have from strangers.
The last place I worked with consultant hiring.. an employee hire was like a full day of interviews.. consultant hire was 30 minute phone screen "Do you know what an ArrayList is"?
Logic being it was very easy to fire bad consultants. Employees it was more work.
The armed forces are screaming for tech people and really dont care about your interview skills. The US marines are even talking about dropping thier basic training requirements IOT get more tech people.
Yes. That said, most military recruitment requirements are requirements in the same way that "10 years of React experience" is a requirement... They ask for the world and make exceptions to get the people they want. But the bigger the exception, the more bureaucracy you should expect to wade through to make it happen.
I'd phrase it this way. If you're nervous and fumble interviews, don't stop going. Go to more interviews instead. After a while you'll be so used to it that your body stops reacting that way.
Startups and companies where technology is not their main product seem to have easier interview processes. If you can find a company that is contracting out their tech and wants to start developing in-house then they do not necessarily have a rigid tech hiring process.
I was just going to post something along this line.. I've been to the 3-4th stage many times it it all falls when I have to do a video call.. every time ( about 25 interviews so far over the course of 4months). At this point I'm starting to think its more of a "culture" fit then anything else which I really dont like to think about. All of these are remote jobs which is odd cause they dont even have to see me or know my race. Even tried to apply to local jobs, no luck.
But after having pass tech tests, multiple calls and had people very impress about my 10year career its hard to see anything else then the word "culture" in these instances.
I guess so, but in one instance I had 2 video interviews in one day with a total of 4 devs( all of the devs of the team). So it seems like it was both a tech interview (which I answered all their questions and was impressed) and then a "culture" test.
Thru take home test passing, inital 2 calls with people then video calls afterwards just to fail just seems odd but maybe I'm overthinking it. Local interviews havn't been well either. They tend to fall apart in the second call (not video). Seems like most people dont do in-shop interview but all over the net now.
All my jobs were from people I met. Even when they have some interview, I get offered the job before the interview, and the interviews are rigged to let me pass.
I normally get filtered out of phone interviews for some reason, with no technical questions. I do perfectly fine when it's a technical interview. I guess I just don't have an attractive personality.
