In four business days (really three and a half because today is a holiday) I will have four direct-hire interviews. I don't really count recruiter interviews as real interviews because they don't really mean anything. They're just formalities for the people sending resumes out. My interview today is over the phone with TransUnion. They're one of the major credit reporting bureaus. Part of the interview process is drug testing so I get the joy of peeing in a cup and hoping there's no weird interaction between my toothpaste and hairspray. Tomorrow's interview is in person at a consulting house (I believe).
The interview on Thursday was with a small consulting shop. They do a variety of projects as needed for their clients. The interview went really well. The technical guy I interviewed with told me flat-out that he thought I would be a great fit for the company. He gave me a small programming task to gauge my thought processes and told me afterwords that he had never seen my solution to that problem before and that my solution was more efficient than the others he'd seen. That made me feel good. I was really happy when I came home from that interview. The only problem is that the company needs to wait to hire until they have projects come in from clients. They are expecting that to happen at any time, though. I have a really good feeling about this job and I hope it's the one I get.
The interview on Friday was for a large publishing company and it would be a management position. I didn't have a good feeling about this place at all. I had bad feelings about it before I even went to the interview. When I got there it only got worse. The whole situation reminded me of my time at Siebel, which isn't a good thing. I interviewed with two people, a tech guy and the manager. The tech guy asked me a couple of detailed technical questions which I wasn't able to adequately answer.
We will have a brief pause in the story for Jerry to whine...
I really hate when interviewers quiz you on programming theory. It's like they expect you to have all aspects of a programming language available off the top of your head. Are they expecting the job to be closed book? Am I not allowed to use Google when I run into some problem? I have been programming for years. Who cares if I don't know the exact execution order of methods between a web page and the user controls it contains! That hasn't stopped me from being quite successful in my projects for a long time. And, of course, not knowing makes me feel like a complete loser. It's the worst part of interviewing in my opinion.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog already in progress.
So, I felt like I came up with a big goose egg with the technical interviewer. Then came the manager. His one or two questions were soft-skill related. I don't feel like I answered them adequately, either. When he described the job to me, however, he described a nightmare. The team I would be managing is responsible for this out-dated web app that houses 90% of their web sites. It apparently goes down on a regular basis and is incredibly flaky. To top it off the internal customers are the worst type of whiners and complainers with no patience at all. And the manager is a self-proclaimed work-aholic who seems to expect the same from his employees. All of this translated to me really not wanting this job. While it's true that a job is better than no job; this job would only be slightly better.
So, right now I'm batting one and one in the interview quartet. Here's to hoping that the next two interviews go more like the first.
The interview on Thursday was with a small consulting shop. They do a variety of projects as needed for their clients. The interview went really well. The technical guy I interviewed with told me flat-out that he thought I would be a great fit for the company. He gave me a small programming task to gauge my thought processes and told me afterwords that he had never seen my solution to that problem before and that my solution was more efficient than the others he'd seen. That made me feel good. I was really happy when I came home from that interview. The only problem is that the company needs to wait to hire until they have projects come in from clients. They are expecting that to happen at any time, though. I have a really good feeling about this job and I hope it's the one I get.
The interview on Friday was for a large publishing company and it would be a management position. I didn't have a good feeling about this place at all. I had bad feelings about it before I even went to the interview. When I got there it only got worse. The whole situation reminded me of my time at Siebel, which isn't a good thing. I interviewed with two people, a tech guy and the manager. The tech guy asked me a couple of detailed technical questions which I wasn't able to adequately answer.
We will have a brief pause in the story for Jerry to whine...
I really hate when interviewers quiz you on programming theory. It's like they expect you to have all aspects of a programming language available off the top of your head. Are they expecting the job to be closed book? Am I not allowed to use Google when I run into some problem? I have been programming for years. Who cares if I don't know the exact execution order of methods between a web page and the user controls it contains! That hasn't stopped me from being quite successful in my projects for a long time. And, of course, not knowing makes me feel like a complete loser. It's the worst part of interviewing in my opinion.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog already in progress.
So, I felt like I came up with a big goose egg with the technical interviewer. Then came the manager. His one or two questions were soft-skill related. I don't feel like I answered them adequately, either. When he described the job to me, however, he described a nightmare. The team I would be managing is responsible for this out-dated web app that houses 90% of their web sites. It apparently goes down on a regular basis and is incredibly flaky. To top it off the internal customers are the worst type of whiners and complainers with no patience at all. And the manager is a self-proclaimed work-aholic who seems to expect the same from his employees. All of this translated to me really not wanting this job. While it's true that a job is better than no job; this job would only be slightly better.
So, right now I'm batting one and one in the interview quartet. Here's to hoping that the next two interviews go more like the first.
1 comment:
Trust your gut on this, Jerry. If you didn't like the company during the interview, there's NO WAY you want to take that job. I would actually say that a job you hate is worse than no job at all. I tell my preservice teachers to hold out for jobs they feel they fit into. Go with the one you fit-- and of course the one that gives you an offer . . .
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