Lone Coder Blog - A Lone Coder in a Big Pond

[Evan Leibovitch]

Alex Beamish wrote:

> On 6/17/06, *Ken Burtch* <kburtch-Zd07PnzKK1IAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org 
> <mailto:kburtch-Zd07PnzKK1IAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org>> wrote:
>
>     This month I talk about dealing with depression if you are a
>     programmer.
>
Hi Ken,

I don't think what you've gone through is in any way restricted to the 
IT field. I also have a few comments about what you said, and about 
Alex's response.

>     "In 2005, I went for a job interview at a company in Niagara area
>     which manufacturers equipment for dentists. The receptionist said
>     I was the most polite and pleasant candidate they had interviewed.
>     I walked into the meeting room to talk with the HR person. With
>     too much make-up, over-styled hair and flirty-but-fashionable
>     clothes, she looked like someone who wanted to be a regular on
>     "Sex in the City". "Our company," she said, "has offices in major
>     American cities." You could almost hear her add, "And I won't be
>     stuck in this backwater dump for long." She looked me
>     over--overweight, glasses and balding--and immediately turned
>     cold. I wasn't one of those handsome TV guys. I was a computer
>     geek applying for a computer geek job. Interviewing me didn't fit
>     with her plans for becoming Somebody..."
>
I have to say that the irony in the above paragraph floored me. You're 
complaining about the superficiality and lack of depth of the HR people, 
yet you above have been more than generous with your own negative 
stereotypes and assumptions.

She sized you up and you sized her up, and the interview went downhill 
from there. If your attitude in the interview reflected your first 
impressions as stated above, you may have subtly come across as 
disinterested as you said she was.

You're not applying for a job as a salesman. If the job is in 
programming or sysadmin you'll spend more time around computers than 
people, and your contact with most of your co-workers except for your 
direct team will be by phone or email. Looks count in the interview to 
indicate one's level of interest in the job, but hiring someone for IT 
(or, for that matter, any job in operations or production) uses a 
different set of criteria than for someone who is the company's face to 
clients or the public.

This is, of course, not to say that your Niagara HR person _wasn't_ 
incompetent -- but it was hard to say from your description if that was 
the case. Since you seemed so disgusted with the way she looked and 
acted, why complain when the favour is returned?

> [] Haircut, facial hair trimmed (men only);
> [] The nicest clothes that you still feel comfortable in;
> [] A briefcase if necessary;
> [] Decent shoes; and
> [] A positive 'Sales' attitude.

I'd agree with all except the briefcase, unless you have it chock-filled 
with code samples or reference letters that you think you'll need. Most 
can be carried in a small portfolio.

> After over twenty years of working on the software industry, I'm still 
> not sure what the right answers are to some of those HR stumpers:
>
> [] Where do you want to be in five years? (I don't know .. In Madrid? 
> Driving a truck? Five years older?)

They're trying to see if you have any vision for yourself deeper than 
next week. It's also a deliberately obscure question designed to get at 
more of you as an individual. There are lots of programmers out there 
who have good code samples and they may be looking to separate the 
candidates based on non-technical qualities. In some companies an 
ability to work to deadline, for example, is more important than the 
sheer brilliance of your code. And you know that they're trying to avoid 
anti-social BOFH types.

They also want to get a sense that you won't continue to be playing the 
job market the moment you walk in the door. Most companies make 
investments in their employees in various ways, and some sense that 
you're not _obviously_ using them as a three month stepping stone is 
probably helpful.

> [] Why do you want to work here? (Because you'll pay me?)

They want to see if you've done any research into who they are.

> [] Who's your hero? (Grace Hopper? Steve Wozniak?)

Also a gauge of character, partly in the content of your answer and 
partly how you react to being put on the spot.
"My father" is a perfectly acceptable answer if it's applicable.

> [] What's the accomplishment you're most proud of? (A dual mode 
> communications module implemented using a state machine with function 
> pointers, written using Object Oriented C .. are you OK? Do you need a 
> glass of water?)

They're literally giving you an opportunity to sell yourself. It's also 
another character test, in that such a description may force you to 
describe a technical task in non-technical terms -- are you up to it?

> [] Tell me about the last book you read. (Hint: Nothing from O'Reilly 
> -- they mean something that had a plot.)

Not necessarily a plot, just something that's not a computer manual. 
Non-fiction and humour books are fine.

> I'm left-brained -- that means that when someone asks me an HR-type 
> question, I usually have to stop and think about an answer. One way to 
> prepare for that is to have someone bombard you with HR type questions 
> -- you have to be ready to tell a story in 30 seconds that answers 
> that question. A yes or a no won't do it -- and a five minute 
> discourse on Captain Kirk vs. Captian Picard won't do it either.

I agree, to an extent. Attitude counts for a lot, especially for those 
interviews in which they're counting for you to be caught off-guard and 
being able to react quickly to the unexpected. Answering everything with 
a too-rehearsed canned answer is only marginally better than being 
totally dumbstruck.

> Anyway, I'm just hoping my next employer is small enough that they 
> don't have an HR department, so I can skip that part of the hiring 
> process altogether.

That works, but it also means that your avenues of movement within the 
company will be limited.

> (I'm not looking for a job -- I'm just saying.) I'd rather drink beer 
> with a bunch of techies and see if we can work together, rather than 
> sit a chair with a glass of water in a really artificial social 
> situation, trying to make my way through the maze of HR-type questions.

Ah, but that beer in the pub won't tell the employer how you react to 
stress, or how well you can work in a team or take instruction. It also 
won't tell you how your drinking buddies will act when they're jerks on 
the job. There's a good side to interviews have their share of worst 
case scenarios, so you know ahead of time how bad it can be.

- Evan

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