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).

Shameless, Shameless Plug…

…for votes :)  For whatever reason, Good to Know  is up for best recruiting blog of the year.  I’m pretty sure it’s not because my employer is paying for the grand prize (seriously - what I suspect is that Jason Davis, the guy who runs RecruitingBlogs.com, the organizer of the whole contest, is just ridiculously nice and felt bad at how poorly I did at poker last time we hung out).

While I’m under zero illusion I’ll win, I wouldn’t mind not coming in dead last.  Seriously.  Soooo…. if you’re so inclined, I’d appreciate it if you clicked here and exercised your right to vote.  Primarily in categories #1& #6 - well, feel free to vote in the rest, too - in fact, I’d recommend checking out all of the nominated blogs - there’s a lot of really great guidance out there, from a gang of remarkable minds.

ZoomInfo and Online Advertising

So, this is a bit of a blatent plea, but on the off-chance you are (or know someone who is) involved in online advertising and/ or search, well, chances are I’d like to talk to them about an opportunity.  We are launching a new business unit - Search and Online Advertising - that stands a pretty fair chance of shaking up the world of, well, search and online advertising.  We just leased some nifty office space in downtown San Francisco, and this guy is out there building a team on search and advertising pro’s to help grow the new business.  That said: if you (or the aforementioned someone you know) wants to work in our home office in Waltham, we can go with that.

What’s cool is that we’ve got this really interesting technology that we can put behind the products our little dream team is going to be developing.  The company itself is: extremely well run (you know, profitable, growing strongly, etc), in a very interesting space, and very protective of it’s culture (our definition of an “A player” includes terms like “nice” “funny” “a litle quirky” and “not a jerk”).   So, you’ll get to make cool stuff, in a cool space, and with really, really cool people you’d love to have a beer with.  (Oh, and we like to have beer, too). 

Right now, I’m looking for a VP of Ad Products, but there are several more roles to come: VP of Search Products, couple product managers, few sales reps, some marketers…. If you’re interested in general, here’s the Rock Stars link.

Semantic advertising, here we come….  Care to join the party?

Looking For a Few Good: .Net developers, algorithm engineers, product managers, sales reps, marketing managers, (oh, my)…

…for real.  There’s a ton happening on our end, and it’s all very, very good.  That said, my head’s going to explode somewhere along the way (and I promise to post the slow-mo of thatlittle beaut on YouTube).  Before that happens, though, I’m extremely interested in talking to people who have the chops to make it here (which means you have to be: smart, creative, pretty darned nice - funny helps, but we can always work with you on that one - oh, and you need to get the Web.  But you’re reading a blog post, so I’m guessing you kind of have that figured).  There are a bunch of open positions listed on the top left corner of the page, and they’re all very real.  Don’t see something that’s quite your size, smarty?  No problem - hook yourself up with an RSS feed from the ZoomInfo Career Site, and let the openings come direct to you as we publish them.

On that note - you should apply even if you don’t see a specific job.  There’s a listing for General Rock Stars you can go through.  I say that because we’re rolling out new openings according to a “plan” (it’s in quotes because we’re not thatmechanical - this is a Web company, baby, things are always a bit in flux).  If you apply, and there’s a job in the pipeline you match, we might just bring you in ahead of time - and boo-hoo to those who waited…

Little Visual Tutorial on Where We’re Heading, and Where We’ve Been

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

So, some of my friends/ colleagues might roll their eyes and say “duh” when they see this, but that’s because they’re Web 2.0/ 3.0/ “to infinity and beyond!” types. But, for the rest of us humans, great little history lesson. Care to be part of one of the companies that’s builidng the new us? Reach on out, we’re busy & could use your talents..