Programmer interviews

A

Aquarians

Those of you who work as programmers, what do you think of this list: [Ten Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role - http://fuzzyblog.io/blog/jobhound/2...a-job-hunt-for-a-senior-engineering-role.html

1. The job search takes much, much longer than it used to.
2. No one believes that anyone can actually code.
3. Coding Tests Can Trip Up Even Good Engineers
4. Extensive homework is now normal.
5. Every company’s “process” is different
6. Outsourced hiring “services” are very much in vogue
7. Companies Really Want to Know Your Salary; Don’t tell Them
8. Interviews Matter Much, Much More to You Than to the Company
9. Age discrimination really exists.
A. You’ll never really know why you weren’t hired.

I've 17 years of developer work so far and am familiar with 100% of the things in that list.
 
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One thing not covered in the above list is what happens when you overflow (run out of 1-9 to use for numbers or even hexadecimals as in my case). Also known as "changing jobs".

My experience is along the stuff that happens when you learn a foreign language and speak it with the natives. There are two phases:

1) Baby/toddler phase (first two weeks).

It takes 20 years to speak a language at teenage level and another 20 at native one. But when you're just starting to learn some foreign language and you can babble some very limited vocabulary in an awful grammar, people are all "why, you're so cute" and helpful around you.

2) Fast forward two years.

You're expected to perform at above native level. The slightest grammar slip on an irregular article before an irregular verb (some 10,000,000 possible combinations) is taxed to the bone, you're verbally slapped in front of everybody so everyone (you first) knows what a failure you are.

I'm not a native English speaker and taking http://testyourvocab.com/ after =~ 20 years of contact with it, it says I know in the 12,000 - 17,000 words. We don't have such a test as that site provides in my native language, although thinking about it, we ought to! :)

Anyways, if you care to make that test I'm interested in:

1) How much do you score.
2) Are you a native or not?
 
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I have interviewed numerous candidates for positions at the company I work for and what separates the people who get offers and those that don't is the ability to talk in detail about the projects the candidates have worked on. That includes knowing pieces of the stack in detail that they might not have had a direct part in building.
 
@DaveV: Well, just copy-paste the link in a text editor, remove any weird characters and then copy-paste the result in a browser. You should know these things as a programmer :p
 
>> I have interviewed numerous candidates for positions at the company I work for and what separates the people who get offers and those that don't is the ability to talk in detail about the projects the candidates have worked on. That includes knowing pieces of the stack in detail that they might not have had a direct part in building.

Falls under #5: Every company’s “process” is different.

Apart from being asked stuff like "what you did while you were there" and feeling they don't listen a word I'm saying, literally - I heard them banging the keyboard and talking to colleagues afterwards, when this stuff happened on Skype, the closest I got to what you're asking was when I got to the "liberal" part of the interview, usually a formality at the end, when my fate was decided anyways. They always ask you:

Q: Do you have any questions for us?
A: I always had (have) a zillion questions for you, including "no questions" since I feel it's spending energy in vain. Otherwise, in 100% of the cases where I asked a pertinent question, I was removed from the "forward to hiring / promotion" faster than I could say "fired".
 
What color is your parachute is a good book for job hunters.

  • #1 way to find employment is to go directly to the company and know what position you want.
  • Worst way to find employment is to answer an ad in the paper ( I assume that could be updated to craigslist).
 
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