Surviving (hell, _killing_) the Technical Intereview

Mikhail Naganov has written a handy post for engineers who are stressing out about interviewing.  He’s spot-on when he says:

“what are the staffing needs in smart companies? They want people that can tackle complex problems in new problem areas. They want people that are responsible and passionate about their work. And, of course, they want people that can explain their solutions to colleagues.”

We’re going to grill you when you come through, but it’s not like we expect you to solve all of our problems correctly – if you do that, expect an offer before you leave (unless you’re a jerk – we have a policy against hiring those…)

One more resource I’d point you at (hat tip to Mikhail) – Steve Yegge’s poston interviewing at Google.  Worth a gander or two… That said, very funny counterpoint to Steve’s raving about Google culture can be found here (hat to William Wechtenhiser for that one).

Hilarious Interview Mistakes

Jennifer Tortorella’s one of the best agency recruiters I know (seriously – if you don’t believe me, just ask her   She’s good, and a great partner/ vendor to ZoomInfo.  Her latest post drew my attention to CareerBuilder’s annual interview mistakes survey – sad, but true stuff.  I’d add in the guy who, when I walked out to greet him, was on his laptop.  Not a big deal, but when I said “Hi [name removed to avoid lawyers], I’m Martin Burns, nice to meet you,” he glanced up, raised his finger to let me know he needed a minute, then went back to typing… When he was done playing Scrabulous (or whatever), I sat him in a conference room and went to grab the first interviewer – within those 2 minutes, he had plugged his network into a data line in the office, and gone on-line to do some surfing….

One more – that same day (honest), we had another candidate in for a QA role.  When the QA Manager asked her where she saw herself in a few years (standard softball question with a hidden edge), she answered “As a software engineer – I’m too cerebral for QA.”

Needless to say, not exactly people we chased after….

Interview Questions

I was just pointed at this excellent article on how to answer some common interview questions (hat tip to Kay Meckes) – good stuff, especially the bit about not rambling in an interview.  I’ve seen candidates ruled out multiple times because they couldn’t shut it off.