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).

Our Web Director Gets It (Addendum)

This is an updte to a post I wrote 12 months ago - basically, a doxology to our QA Manager, who was doing a bang up job helping me recruit for him.  I’m updating this, as Jeff did such an all-around great job as QA Manager, that he’s now providing much broader leadership to our Web Dev team. 

Here’s the original post:

Magic can happen.  It’s unfortunate, but a lot of hiring managers assume that once they give a job spec to a recruiter, they can walk away from the process.  This isn’t the case.  They need to invest some time up front in working with the recruiter on what they need, actively participate in thinking through the process of how to find that person, and then provide thoughtful feedback on each candidate to that the recruiter can learn-in-motion.  If they don’t, they’re going to have an open position in their department for a lot longer than they want.

I’m not saying that’s the case here - fact is, we hire people who like to approach every project intelligently, and work well with others.  No organization is perfect, but we’re pretty darned good. That said, I did want to put out a strong “thank you, thank you very much” to a guy who I know reads this blog every day (which puts him in some extremely select company).  Our own Jeff Glennon.

If you’re into QA, and you’re looking to work for a manager who understands that great QA matters as much to a software organizations success as great engineering, he’s the man.  To him, there are testers, and there are QA people.  QA’ers think through the entire process - they want to understand the totality of  the product they’re working on, so they can anticipate bugs before they happen.  It’s probably because Jeff approaches his work like this that he’s been such a great partner as I search for a QA Engineer for him.  He’s thought about what he needs, he’s into the search, his feedback is spot on and fast.  We’re going to find a star for the role, and I think it’s going to happen fast thanks to his efforts.

If you’re interested in working for a mad genius like Jeff, apply here: 6966-CS-572@zoominfo.hrmdirect.com

One last thing, and then I’ll shut up and get back to sourcing:  To Jeff, his work is his craft, and I can’t pay a person a higher compliment than that.

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.

We’re Hiring - A Lot - Despite the Down Job Market

Hi there

This blog is first off an attempt on my part to help people out who are looking for work, or just unhappy where they are.  That said, I’m also hoping that people will take the opportunity to consider coming to work for us here at ZoomInfo - this is a really phenomenal place to work.  Our focus is, of course, to be a successful business, but we want to maintain the great culture that’s brought us to this point.

On that note: we have plans to do some serious hiring.  The time is right for us, as we’re anticipating lots of growth.  So despite the sharp drop in hiring that’s occurring nationwide, we’re a bit of a beacon in the dark.

I’d love to hear from you - the fact that you’re reading a blog in the first place means you must have at least some of the mindset we’re looking for.  Not all of the jobs we’re lining up are listed on our career site yet - you should apply anyways.  We can accelerate filling a role if we see a strong fit earlier than we were planning on hiring, and there are times we’ve created roles for people we just thought were too good to pass up.  Btw, I’m a sucker for a great cover letter.

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..