I am expecting you to be one of the 99%+ people who I know I won’t hire in the first 5 minutes.
If you can't narrow down resumes and phone interviews to candidates with better than a 1% chance of being accepted, then your interviewing pre-screening process is flawed. What other processes in our everyday work will also be flawed?
You send me a stupidly long resume
90% of all written correspondence (from customers, users, collaborators, vendors, etc.) is too long. Do you think they're all stupid, too?
You have annoyed me.
You're a manager. Your job is to properly deal with issues that would annoy others. Why would anyone want to work for someone so easily annoyed?
...do I really want to look forward to your rambling emails every day?
Do I really want to look forward to your sour attitude every day?
You can’t tell me why you like your current job
If I liked my current job, I wouldn't be here.
I don’t hire awesome people who don’t have the right skill mix.
Here's a clue: technologies change. By definition, anyone with the "right skill mix" won't have the "right skill mix" for long. Amesome people adapt. But how would you even know that if you don't hire them?
No career plans or vision
I've been programming for 33 years and still have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. This is an interview for an open job, not Dr. Phil.
If you don’t think well on your feet, spend some time reading through and practicing situational interview questions.
Are you serious? I'm a programmer, not an Americas Got Talent contestant. What you see is what you get.
If you are missing even one, I’m probably going to pass you up for someone who doesn’t.
Wait a minute. You want to hire perfect people, but you also want them to have "career plans or vision"?
I have a super BS detector
Obviously not, since so many of your questions can only be answered with BS.
The End
That's just about the only thing you've said that I agree with.
You sound like you have a serious attitude problem. I can't imagine working for someone like you. But thanks for writing this. You've solved many problems in advance. I won't be applying. And I don't imagine many people like me will be either.
Interviews are a two way street. If I am applying for a job, my role during the interview is to convince you why I am a worthwhile hire, your role during the interview is to convince me that you are a worthwhile employer. If he was one of my clients I would disassociate myself from him very quickly.
As for his 5 points, I wonder if he realises that all 5 inversely apply to him just as much as they do to the candidate being interviewed.
1.Show me you can get things done. This means you can set realistic deadlines for projects and meet them consistently. You must be a good motivator.
2.Show me you are intelligent. I will ask you questions to discern how in touch you are with todays market. I don't care if you've interviewed a dozen people for this job, I want to know if you've actually read my resume.
3.Show me how I fit into your vision. Truthfully, we’ll work best together if you sincerely think I am the best person for this job in the long run. I want to know how you can help me succeed in my career, Tell me.
4.Be highly skilled. If your job advert says that you need a highly skilled Developer then don't have me sitting in a corner refactoring shitty code for the first 6 months.
5.Be Passionate. If I feel like the interview process is boring you, I will end the interview prematurely but politely.
You summed it up well, this guy needs to stay as far away from interviewing as possible. This attitude is why people can't find the 10Xers, they interviewing process is set up to filter them out. Your observation here:
Here's a clue: technologies change. By definition, anyone with the "right skill mix" won't have the "right skill mix" for long. Amesome people adapt. But how would you even know that if you don't hire them?
gets to the heart why they cant. 10Xers are not a technology they are personality and a attitude. Hell some of them are not ever that great at some of the technologies they use, but they know how to use the parts they need to get them to the finish line. They know the principles of elegance in clean code, and simple systems that are only as complex as they need to be.
These people are not showing up to the door of people that interview like the author, and if they do they are not taking the position and probably recommending to other 10Xers to go ahead and avoid the interview.
I get the feeling from reading the article, that the author has not learned how to spot technical talent and is growing frustrated with it.
Also this: "Let me know your passionate or don’t waste my time." (you're!)
This is why I love being a contractor / consultant. Clients don't ask for a little lap dance and a smile before we can do business, like this guy seems to expect.
They have a job to do that they think I can do, I give a quote, they say yes or no (usually yes, if we went this far). I do it, they pay me.
No resume-this, resume-that, what's your vision, are you passionate, what do you love or hate. I hate being in an office with a stranger in the middle of the afternoon, talking about my passions.
> Do I really want to look forward to your sour attitude every day?
This sums it up for me. The author sounds like a grumpy person who would be terrible to work for. I also suspect many of these rejections are self-fulfilling prophecies. When you're actively looking for a reason to reject candidates, you're probably going to find one.
It's great how the same sort of folks who put out these diatribes on how easy it is to run afoul of their hiring processes will also complain about how very difficult it has been to find qualified candidates.
Pretty much exactly right. 1 difference for me, though. I already know what I want to be when I grow up:
A programmer!
Yes, I've reached the end of my career. I'm where I want to be, and I don't want to change. I don't want to be a manager, team leader, or otherwise do anything other than programming. If there were any change I wanted, it would be 'do fewer non-programming things'.
Obviously not, since so many of your questions can only be answered with BS.
Then we get to his example of a "good" answer for career plans: yet another instance of "In this many years, I see myself that many steps up the corporate ladder. … communication … leadership … responsibility …"
90% of all written correspondence (from customers, users, collaborators, vendors, etc.) is too long. Do you think they're all stupid, too?
"
I agree with most of your post, but after doing a lot of interviews as the hiring manager, I have to agree that resumes should be short. I won't exclude a candidate just for sending a resume that is long, but as a general rule, don't expect me to go past page 2, especially for an entry-to-mid level position.
Now who are you? What are you going to give me in return? Why should I tell you that I love my job and my career. Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that.
The hiring should be a lot simpler:
- You have a problem. You need someone with the right skills, and hire him.
- I have a problem (need money). I pick a job that I have the skills for.
Thinking the way you do, accepting your daily bull-shit and philosophy (worse, making myself sound like I enjoy and I belong to it) is only a sign for me that you are the wrong person to work for.
Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that.
These 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' questions sound like straight from a 'HR for dummies' book. I would really appreciate if an interviewer reading this post explained me what such cliches are trying to test, other than BS skills. Cliche question => cliche response.
It's funny that I had the reverse response. Your post makes you sound like a dick and he sounds like someone who is being totally reasonable. He's looking for excellent people that will fit in well with his team (i.e. won't waste time, has sufficient energy and passion, thinks clearly, communicates well and doesn't sit around loathing their career). Technical skills are important, but putting together a successful team takes more than that. And even if it didn't, it only makes sense, given a pile of resumes with roughly equivalent skills, to filter out the people you don't like to be around. Sucks if you need the job and you're not that type of person, but that's life.
>If I have to spend more than 30 seconds finding out what you have accomplished, forget it.
Well then, Don't expect me to even bother writing a cover letter or tailor my resume. In fact, if your only going to be scanning over my resume in 30 seconds why, on earth, should I even spend any time filling out your form to send you my resume? When I send people my resume, I at the very least expect them to read through it. If my skill set matches what you are looking for and you are thinking of an interview, I expect you to at the very least Google my name, or check out my website/github which I conveniently include as a QR code.
>The worst answers? “Well I like the challenge” or some other BS.
Well, Enjoy working with the worst developers possible. Most of the best guys I know will take a job with worse pay, less benefits, and further commute if the work sounds interesting (read: challenging). "I enjoy the challenge" is probably one of the best answers to why you want to work somewhere. Unless, of course the work you do involves mundane repetitive tasks every single day then you probably don't want developers that enjoy challenge, because they will leave very quickly.
You take this stance of "I have the elixir of life and you will bend over backwards to get it because you are desperate". So the only people that do end up bending over are the ones who are really desperate.
This is a very confrontational and adverserial style of interviewing and hiring.
I get the impression that author is looking for reasons to make the candidate a 'no hire' rather than using those silly questions such as 'tell me a time when....' as a starting to point to open a two way conversation.
My tip is to approach interviews with a positive mind WANTING the candidate to succeed and display their strengths rather than wanting them to fail. You should hire based on positives, not on lack of negatives!
This post really demonstrates how broken interviewing is. These are TERRIBLE and yet still WIDELY USED filters with a high chance of introducing false negatives in the hiring process.
Two examples:
1. The multi year career plans he hints at in a number of places. I personally would be more interested in a candidate with a passion and genuine interest in the job on offer, rather than someone using it as a stepping stone on their ten year plan to get to something tangentially related. I personally don't know what I'll be doing in ten weeks let alone ten years, but a developer it'll probably an interesting and challenging variation of what I'm doing now rather than being somewhere in management.
2. The long CV example is one example of a commonly used signal that tells you precisely nothing about the quality of the candidate. It is a completely arbitrary rule that is no way correlated with their skills or personality. After an initial filter, would it really be so bad spending 5 or so minutes considering and comparing the candidates on offer if that improved your outcomes by even a small percent?
Long CV definitely tells me something about the quality of the candidate.
If I am interviewing someone fresh out of school, I can forgive a rambling resume. However, for an experienced person, I am looking for some ability to present information concisely. It's like a design skill: can you present a focused view of the most relevant information? If you think that more than two pages of information is required to advertise yourself for a job, then you are quite likely lacking that skill.
I still think that a one-page limit is where it's at. Don't put down obvious bullet points. If you were a Windows system admin, don't waste a line on writing that you administered an active directory server. Of course you did that as a Windows sysadmin. No, tell me what you did that made you different than a run-of-the-mill person doing the same job.
I disagree with most of this post, and I'm glad I didn't apply to any position with him as an interviewer. Specifically:
You can’t tell me why you like your current job - Maybe I hate my current job, and took it to pay the bills. Maybe I actually did take it because I like the challenge. Sure, I could and should give more details about it, but that's a valid response, which shouldn't be thrown out so quickly. While the interviewee should do his/her best to give good answers, it's the interviewer's job to ask intelligent follow-up questions; there's a give and take in an interview.
No career plans or vision - My career plans for most of my life were "keep my options open". That served me very well. It sounds like this interviewer is only interested in people who have been completely focused on a single goal since kindergarten, ignoring everyone else. His loss, I guess.
How many people have you interviewed? I haven't done a lot, but when I was interviewing a lot of people for a couple positions it seemed like everyone said they were "creative" or "liked a challenge."
Claiming they were creative didn't really disqualify, but it didn't make anyone stand out unless they had a couple examples.
-He expects he won't hire me in the first five minutes? If in the first five minutes I get that vibe I no longer wish to have the job.
-Tailor-made resume for his job? As if people are supposed to create new resumes for every job that they apply for? Get serious. Plus different companies expect different style of resumes since there is no standard and what amounts to close to standard changes every couple of years. What he wants is people to magically read his mind to craft a resume just for him to meet his expectations.
- He won't hire if I can't say why I love my current job? If I love my current job then there's not much reason to leave it, now is there? Plus, he claims to have a BS detector but he seems to be asking for BS from the applicant.
- No career plans or vision? For most people laying out five year plans is BS, which means he won't hire you. What good does such a question do for anyone anyway? Looking back over my career I've only had one job that I actually planned for. The rest are from changes in things I can't control with changes in what interests me.
- I agree with the no skills part. As someone who's been on the hiring side of the table there's nothing more annoying when someone can't back up what's on their resume.
- "Don’t sit there and tell me what you would do in the future. I didn’t ask what you would do, I asked what you did." Um, yes you did, it was two bullet points ago.
- He apparently requires the perfect candidate. I wonder how many people he actually manages to hire and how many of them stay for their "career"?
- He talks of bad advice out there discussing the topic of his post and he seems to assume his will not get lumped into that list. I would say it's the same as any other post on the topic, some good and some bad.
He sounds a lot like the kind of guy that has a high turnover rate of first-year hires who leave for more money and he can't figure out why.
You know what I really hate? Being asked about my career plans or vision. Wanna know what my career plans are?
To create something cool and reach financial independence in X amount of years. But first I need to pay for food for the next couple of months until somebody better than Your Company starts begging for programmers and sending me emails. And to be honest, your project likely won't be able to hold my interest for more than a few months, it will become boring and routine, nothing like anything fun I'll be working on in my own time.
Most interviewers hate that answer. (which is why I freelance, it's perfect)
PS: I have yet to give the answer that directly, but I should try every time I go in to talk about a freelancing project and it turns into an interview.
What a completely horrible way to interview and speak to people.
No career plans or vision Why would this matter to the interviewer? I just can't get over how ridiculous of an answer he provides. Why would he care what my career plans and vision (whatever that is) are? Who can honestly plot out the next 10 years of their life? Very few, and I'd be wary of anyone who claims they could.
I'm not surprised this person is not finding the right candidates for his company, but I think he has no clue why.
I'm not surprised this person is not finding the right candidates for his company, but I think he has no clue why.
Where does he say that he is having trouble finding people?
While I agree that the example he provides is a rare case, it's not entirely a stupid question. (However, as I said elsewhere about other interview questions, it definitely could use a more original approach.) I think many interviewers are worried about hiring someone who is just going to use the company as a year-long hopping stone, and therefore won't be committed.
Hey, lovelyLaney - I noticed that your HN account is probably tightly linked to Golem Technologies in some way (given that you've only submitted twice, both articles from this domain). There are over 100 comments on this article, and not a single one is from you.
If you wrote this post, I think I speak for a large portion of HN when I say - we'd love to hear from you. Yes, seriously.
I know some people will probably downvote whatever you post without thinking, no matter what you say - because judging from the comments, you seem to have angered the mob. Indeed, I disagree with this article strongly myself - and would be happy to chat with you about why it doesn't resonate with my personal experience. However, if you have thoughtful answers to what people here have to say, the community only wants to help you, and see its own succeed.
If you want to stand behind your article, please do. If you want to recant or clarify parts of things you've said, you can do that too. You're a one person company - are you hiring right now, and what sorts of positions are you having trouble hiring for? We'd love to hear specifics - and to hear you engage in the community about something it obviously feels passionately about in a deliberate, measured way.
Many may disagree with what you have to say, but no one here should fault you simply for your attempts to say it, for contributing to the discussion around your own ideas. Hope to hear from you.
For someone who said he doesn't want to a long resume that rambles on forever he sure had a long blog post that rambled on with very little content.
Attacking each point:
You send me a stupidly long resume
Some recruiters/HR desks look for resumes with specific keywords, and we need to tailor our resumes to get past those (admittedly retarded) filters. As an interviewee, I understand that and have made my resume longer to get past them to the people that actually look at it. As an interviewer, I've rarely looked at the resume until the interview, and only scanned over it to look for things that I can ask about, in addition to our normal quetions.
You can’t tell me why you like your current job
You don't have to like your current job. Especially in this economy, some people are glad to have jobs. Of course, it'd be nice if you like your job, but then again, that's why he's interviewing. Whether or not a person likes a previous job has nothing to say about whether or not he'll like his next job, unless, of course, you're looking for a spineless twit who will go with the flow regardless of how they treat him.
It's more important to recognize a cultural fit and find someone that will get along with the employees, but again, this can vary wildly. I worked at a startup and we interviewed a manager from a large corporate company to be our BA. We went into the interview thinking there's no way we'll like this guy, but it turned out he was awesome, and a great cultural fit too.
No career plans or vision
Not everyone has a long-term. Not everyone knows what they'll be doing in five years, especially when they're younger. My first two jobs, I told them I'd be gone within a year and a half. I don't remember saying it, but when I quit a year a half later, they aid I told them that during the interview and they just didn't believe me. The better question is what will it take to keep me here for five years, and what is your firm going to do for it as well? Of course, people most likely can't answer this question until they've had a few jobs under their belt, so they realize what they like and don't like.
No skills
There's really the primary thing that matters.
Answer my skills with conjecture
I didn't read this far, but it sounds like 'Don't BS me'. I'll agree there as well.
I agree with csomar. I probably wouldn't work for you.
I will go into every interview expecting that we are equals. You know what you or your company already is and what it wants. I know what I am and what I want. Then, we decide together. Interviewing/recruiting does not give you high-status.
The interview failures described in the article occur when neither party understands this.
It blows my mind that so many people don't understand that as an interviewee they are just as responsible for deciding if this relationship is a good fit as the interviewer. Otherwise you may end up jumping through the correct hoops only to get hired by a guy like this.
I find many interviewers have no idea that it's a two way street as well. I guess it shortens the interview for me though. I don't want to work for someone who only wants answers, not a conversation.
I find it amusing that he starts off with a rant about long resumes. Then half of what follows goes on to talk about all the extensive information you have to communicate on your CV just to get an interview.
I severely disagree with the attitude conveyed. People would do well to remember that a work arrangement is mutually beneficial, always. You take a job because it is in your interest to do so. You are offered a job because it is in their interest to do so. No one employs someone while taking a loss on them, yet companies treat interviewees as if they would be lucky to land such a wonderful job.
If this attitude came out in my interview, I'd immediately walk out. If you're treating me in this way before I even work for you, odds are it's not ever going to get better, only worse.
"If I have to spend more than 30 seconds finding out what you have accomplished, forget it."
Not to worry. I will only work for someone who can manage to conquer problems of scale such as skimming a resume and finding pertinent points. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, we'll eventually have a problem and I'll be better off elsewhere.
It seems somewhere along the line, every person who is aspiring to become someone great in the industry gets the wrong cue. They see some conceited individual writing blog posts about how great they are, and they assume mimicking this style of writing will make them equally as great. The truth is: most of us barely tolerate this attitude from those who are truly great because we don't have much choice. Until you are truly great (i.e. on the cover of time magazine, and solving the largest problems we all face with ease), you would do better to present yourself with humility.
That you thought it appropriate to write a blog post with simply the title of "Why I won't hire you," is the reason "Why I will never interview with you." (And, for many others as well, I'm sure.) It has little to do with the content (although in fact, the content only gets worse with conceit and self-inflating statements) and everything to do with your attitude.
Who wants to work for someone who already thinks they're better than the majority of humanity? I'd want to work for a manager who knows how to communicate effectively without being abrasive, and who has excellent skills in resolving conflict and helping their team grow to their maximum potential. Everything about your blog post suggest the opposite combined with such a level of hubris, that I could only imagine working for you would be the worst job I've ever had.
The best developers I've ever worked with tend to lack career plans. If you're sufficiently happy with your life that you don't need a change strategy, that's pretty cool.
Are you sure they didn't? Perhaps, like me, they have already finished their career plan and they are working their dream job.
That's the thing these interviews fail to take into account. They assume that everyone wants more, when that's not always the case. Happiness means knowing when you have what you want, and enjoying it.
tl;dr - He won't hire you because he has a hyper-focus on the process of the interview rather than the process of finding a suitable individual for the opening. His attitude can be summed up in this one line, "Most people looking for jobs don't deserve them."
Yes. But it could be true that most people looking for jobs don't deserve them, and yet it would still be important to remember that the interview is nothing but a process for finding a good match.
If there were more engineers than jobs and we were all fiercely competing for scraps, I would say ok - it's a "buyers market" and we are forced to put up with attitudes like this.
The situation is very different however. In my experience, top talent either a) have their own company or b) are well-looked after by their current employer (at least one would hope so) so they need to actively lured away; how about you tell me why I SHOULD work for you rather than give all the reasons why I can't?
> I have a super BS detector, and most other interviewers do too.
I have a good BS detector too. Lots of people do.
Here's the problem: Lots of people are full of BS. That includes interviewers.
Since people are very sensitive to BS either way, a BS impedance mismatch can completely ruin an interview. That means that the BS-appraisal process must complete efficiently and accurately within the first 30 seconds of the interview, which is quite a difficult demand.
Let's discretize the BS axis into two categories: full of BS / hates BS.
So we have 4 situations:
* Interviewer is full of BS, wants to hear BS. Interviewee is full of BS, provides BS. WIN
* Interviewer hates BS. Interviewee is full of BS, provides BS. FAIL.
* Interviewer is full of BS. Interviewee hates BS. FAIL.
* Interviewer and interviewee both hate BS. SUPER WIN.
The problem is that neither the interviewer nor the interviewee are aware of the BS-status of the other individual.
The interviewer, however, is generally in a power position, since we can assume the interviewee wants the job. Therefore it is really up to the interviewee to estimate the BS-status of the interviewer.
So, only two situations are really going to be fundamentally compatible, one of which has much of a chance of landing a good candidate. There is easily a 50% chance of something going wrong at this point just out of luck, or as a result of a misestimated BS status.
If there is a detected mismatch, the interviewee can make a choice: Fake personal BS status (BSer tries to be "real", anti-BSer gives up on personal integrity and provides some BS because that's what is expected by the BS interviewer); or, be true to himself, and either walk out of the interview (politely!), or get down to business and present himself as a serious individual (for the non-BS interviewer).
So, the BS estimate is critical. Moreover, since it's easy to get the impression that most people are full of BS, there may be bias present in the estimator that helps to get things off on the wrong foot.
Notice that _none_ of this has anything to do with whether the interviewee is actually the right candidate for the job. Right off the bat, the BS-status and accuracy and speed of the interviewee's BS estimator is a huge factor in job-getting ability, regardless of other skillsets.
And that is why interviewing sucks, for both parties.
I should mention that in reality things are, of course, more subtle, and this two-category quantization is not realistic. In the real situation you'll not only want to identify the BS-status of the interviewer, but give them just the right amount of BS. Don't be too honest, you have to sell yourself after all. Frankly, it's tricky, especially for people who aren't used to talking about themselves.
He's been doing this for almost a year and hasn't hired anyone. Sounds about right.
Also, the website is taking 20s to serve any page. Maybe he should spend less time blogging about how awesome he is and how everyone sucks, and instead build a website that can handle a surge of traffic.
[+] [-] edw519|14 years ago|reply
If you can't narrow down resumes and phone interviews to candidates with better than a 1% chance of being accepted, then your interviewing pre-screening process is flawed. What other processes in our everyday work will also be flawed?
You send me a stupidly long resume
90% of all written correspondence (from customers, users, collaborators, vendors, etc.) is too long. Do you think they're all stupid, too?
You have annoyed me.
You're a manager. Your job is to properly deal with issues that would annoy others. Why would anyone want to work for someone so easily annoyed?
...do I really want to look forward to your rambling emails every day?
Do I really want to look forward to your sour attitude every day?
You can’t tell me why you like your current job
If I liked my current job, I wouldn't be here.
I don’t hire awesome people who don’t have the right skill mix.
Here's a clue: technologies change. By definition, anyone with the "right skill mix" won't have the "right skill mix" for long. Amesome people adapt. But how would you even know that if you don't hire them?
No career plans or vision
I've been programming for 33 years and still have no idea what I want to do when I grow up. This is an interview for an open job, not Dr. Phil.
If you don’t think well on your feet, spend some time reading through and practicing situational interview questions.
Are you serious? I'm a programmer, not an Americas Got Talent contestant. What you see is what you get.
If you are missing even one, I’m probably going to pass you up for someone who doesn’t.
Wait a minute. You want to hire perfect people, but you also want them to have "career plans or vision"?
I have a super BS detector
Obviously not, since so many of your questions can only be answered with BS.
The End
That's just about the only thing you've said that I agree with.
You sound like you have a serious attitude problem. I can't imagine working for someone like you. But thanks for writing this. You've solved many problems in advance. I won't be applying. And I don't imagine many people like me will be either.
[+] [-] Peroni|14 years ago|reply
Interviews are a two way street. If I am applying for a job, my role during the interview is to convince you why I am a worthwhile hire, your role during the interview is to convince me that you are a worthwhile employer. If he was one of my clients I would disassociate myself from him very quickly.
As for his 5 points, I wonder if he realises that all 5 inversely apply to him just as much as they do to the candidate being interviewed.
1.Show me you can get things done. This means you can set realistic deadlines for projects and meet them consistently. You must be a good motivator.
2.Show me you are intelligent. I will ask you questions to discern how in touch you are with todays market. I don't care if you've interviewed a dozen people for this job, I want to know if you've actually read my resume.
3.Show me how I fit into your vision. Truthfully, we’ll work best together if you sincerely think I am the best person for this job in the long run. I want to know how you can help me succeed in my career, Tell me.
4.Be highly skilled. If your job advert says that you need a highly skilled Developer then don't have me sitting in a corner refactoring shitty code for the first 6 months.
5.Be Passionate. If I feel like the interview process is boring you, I will end the interview prematurely but politely.
/rant
[+] [-] kls|14 years ago|reply
Here's a clue: technologies change. By definition, anyone with the "right skill mix" won't have the "right skill mix" for long. Amesome people adapt. But how would you even know that if you don't hire them?
gets to the heart why they cant. 10Xers are not a technology they are personality and a attitude. Hell some of them are not ever that great at some of the technologies they use, but they know how to use the parts they need to get them to the finish line. They know the principles of elegance in clean code, and simple systems that are only as complex as they need to be.
These people are not showing up to the door of people that interview like the author, and if they do they are not taking the position and probably recommending to other 10Xers to go ahead and avoid the interview.
I get the feeling from reading the article, that the author has not learned how to spot technical talent and is growing frustrated with it.
[+] [-] bambax|14 years ago|reply
Also this: "Let me know your passionate or don’t waste my time." (you're!)
This is why I love being a contractor / consultant. Clients don't ask for a little lap dance and a smile before we can do business, like this guy seems to expect.
They have a job to do that they think I can do, I give a quote, they say yes or no (usually yes, if we went this far). I do it, they pay me.
No resume-this, resume-that, what's your vision, are you passionate, what do you love or hate. I hate being in an office with a stranger in the middle of the afternoon, talking about my passions.
[+] [-] prophetjohn|14 years ago|reply
This sums it up for me. The author sounds like a grumpy person who would be terrible to work for. I also suspect many of these rejections are self-fulfilling prophecies. When you're actively looking for a reason to reject candidates, you're probably going to find one.
[+] [-] InclinedPlane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
A programmer!
Yes, I've reached the end of my career. I'm where I want to be, and I don't want to change. I don't want to be a manager, team leader, or otherwise do anything other than programming. If there were any change I wanted, it would be 'do fewer non-programming things'.
[+] [-] argv_empty|14 years ago|reply
Then we get to his example of a "good" answer for career plans: yet another instance of "In this many years, I see myself that many steps up the corporate ladder. … communication … leadership … responsibility …"
[+] [-] timwiseman|14 years ago|reply
90% of all written correspondence (from customers, users, collaborators, vendors, etc.) is too long. Do you think they're all stupid, too? "
I agree with most of your post, but after doing a lot of interviews as the hiring manager, I have to agree that resumes should be short. I won't exclude a candidate just for sending a resume that is long, but as a general rule, don't expect me to go past page 2, especially for an entry-to-mid level position.
[+] [-] amorphid|14 years ago|reply
I think the article would have been more constructive it was titled "Why I Will Hire You."
[+] [-] shareme|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csomar|14 years ago|reply
Because you are a dick.
Now who are you? What are you going to give me in return? Why should I tell you that I love my job and my career. Why should I tell you about my vision and plans? What are you really looking for in that.
The hiring should be a lot simpler:
- You have a problem. You need someone with the right skills, and hire him.
- I have a problem (need money). I pick a job that I have the skills for.
Thinking the way you do, accepting your daily bull-shit and philosophy (worse, making myself sound like I enjoy and I belong to it) is only a sign for me that you are the wrong person to work for.
[+] [-] zalew|14 years ago|reply
These 'where do you see yourself in 5 years' questions sound like straight from a 'HR for dummies' book. I would really appreciate if an interviewer reading this post explained me what such cliches are trying to test, other than BS skills. Cliche question => cliche response.
[+] [-] thinkdevcode|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benjaminwootton|14 years ago|reply
If you were hiring someone to dig a hole for you, this may be true.
But software is a team sport and you do need an element of interviewing for personality, goals, and attitude as well as skills and aptitude.
[+] [-] mootothemax|14 years ago|reply
Because you are a dick.
You do realise that you're being just as confrontational as the post's author?
[+] [-] GiraffeNecktie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ntkachov|14 years ago|reply
Well then, Don't expect me to even bother writing a cover letter or tailor my resume. In fact, if your only going to be scanning over my resume in 30 seconds why, on earth, should I even spend any time filling out your form to send you my resume? When I send people my resume, I at the very least expect them to read through it. If my skill set matches what you are looking for and you are thinking of an interview, I expect you to at the very least Google my name, or check out my website/github which I conveniently include as a QR code.
>The worst answers? “Well I like the challenge” or some other BS.
Well, Enjoy working with the worst developers possible. Most of the best guys I know will take a job with worse pay, less benefits, and further commute if the work sounds interesting (read: challenging). "I enjoy the challenge" is probably one of the best answers to why you want to work somewhere. Unless, of course the work you do involves mundane repetitive tasks every single day then you probably don't want developers that enjoy challenge, because they will leave very quickly.
You take this stance of "I have the elixir of life and you will bend over backwards to get it because you are desperate". So the only people that do end up bending over are the ones who are really desperate.
[+] [-] techperson|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] queensnake|14 years ago|reply
Wait till you're on the employing side, like, even, your boss asks you to look over /100+ resumes/ that are 95% irrelevant.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] benjaminwootton|14 years ago|reply
I get the impression that author is looking for reasons to make the candidate a 'no hire' rather than using those silly questions such as 'tell me a time when....' as a starting to point to open a two way conversation.
My tip is to approach interviews with a positive mind WANTING the candidate to succeed and display their strengths rather than wanting them to fail. You should hire based on positives, not on lack of negatives!
This post really demonstrates how broken interviewing is. These are TERRIBLE and yet still WIDELY USED filters with a high chance of introducing false negatives in the hiring process.
Two examples:
1. The multi year career plans he hints at in a number of places. I personally would be more interested in a candidate with a passion and genuine interest in the job on offer, rather than someone using it as a stepping stone on their ten year plan to get to something tangentially related. I personally don't know what I'll be doing in ten weeks let alone ten years, but a developer it'll probably an interesting and challenging variation of what I'm doing now rather than being somewhere in management.
2. The long CV example is one example of a commonly used signal that tells you precisely nothing about the quality of the candidate. It is a completely arbitrary rule that is no way correlated with their skills or personality. After an initial filter, would it really be so bad spending 5 or so minutes considering and comparing the candidates on offer if that improved your outcomes by even a small percent?
Sigh....
[+] [-] astral303|14 years ago|reply
If I am interviewing someone fresh out of school, I can forgive a rambling resume. However, for an experienced person, I am looking for some ability to present information concisely. It's like a design skill: can you present a focused view of the most relevant information? If you think that more than two pages of information is required to advertise yourself for a job, then you are quite likely lacking that skill.
I still think that a one-page limit is where it's at. Don't put down obvious bullet points. If you were a Windows system admin, don't waste a line on writing that you administered an active directory server. Of course you did that as a Windows sysadmin. No, tell me what you did that made you different than a run-of-the-mill person doing the same job.
[+] [-] eykanal|14 years ago|reply
You can’t tell me why you like your current job - Maybe I hate my current job, and took it to pay the bills. Maybe I actually did take it because I like the challenge. Sure, I could and should give more details about it, but that's a valid response, which shouldn't be thrown out so quickly. While the interviewee should do his/her best to give good answers, it's the interviewer's job to ask intelligent follow-up questions; there's a give and take in an interview.
No career plans or vision - My career plans for most of my life were "keep my options open". That served me very well. It sounds like this interviewer is only interested in people who have been completely focused on a single goal since kindergarten, ignoring everyone else. His loss, I guess.
[+] [-] nimblegorilla|14 years ago|reply
Claiming they were creative didn't really disqualify, but it didn't make anyone stand out unless they had a couple examples.
[+] [-] talmand|14 years ago|reply
-He expects he won't hire me in the first five minutes? If in the first five minutes I get that vibe I no longer wish to have the job.
-Tailor-made resume for his job? As if people are supposed to create new resumes for every job that they apply for? Get serious. Plus different companies expect different style of resumes since there is no standard and what amounts to close to standard changes every couple of years. What he wants is people to magically read his mind to craft a resume just for him to meet his expectations.
- He won't hire if I can't say why I love my current job? If I love my current job then there's not much reason to leave it, now is there? Plus, he claims to have a BS detector but he seems to be asking for BS from the applicant.
- No career plans or vision? For most people laying out five year plans is BS, which means he won't hire you. What good does such a question do for anyone anyway? Looking back over my career I've only had one job that I actually planned for. The rest are from changes in things I can't control with changes in what interests me.
- I agree with the no skills part. As someone who's been on the hiring side of the table there's nothing more annoying when someone can't back up what's on their resume.
- "Don’t sit there and tell me what you would do in the future. I didn’t ask what you would do, I asked what you did." Um, yes you did, it was two bullet points ago.
- He apparently requires the perfect candidate. I wonder how many people he actually manages to hire and how many of them stay for their "career"?
- He talks of bad advice out there discussing the topic of his post and he seems to assume his will not get lumped into that list. I would say it's the same as any other post on the topic, some good and some bad.
He sounds a lot like the kind of guy that has a high turnover rate of first-year hires who leave for more money and he can't figure out why.
[+] [-] Swizec|14 years ago|reply
To create something cool and reach financial independence in X amount of years. But first I need to pay for food for the next couple of months until somebody better than Your Company starts begging for programmers and sending me emails. And to be honest, your project likely won't be able to hold my interest for more than a few months, it will become boring and routine, nothing like anything fun I'll be working on in my own time.
Most interviewers hate that answer. (which is why I freelance, it's perfect)
PS: I have yet to give the answer that directly, but I should try every time I go in to talk about a freelancing project and it turns into an interview.
[+] [-] leftnode|14 years ago|reply
No career plans or vision Why would this matter to the interviewer? I just can't get over how ridiculous of an answer he provides. Why would he care what my career plans and vision (whatever that is) are? Who can honestly plot out the next 10 years of their life? Very few, and I'd be wary of anyone who claims they could.
I'm not surprised this person is not finding the right candidates for his company, but I think he has no clue why.
[+] [-] gk1|14 years ago|reply
Where does he say that he is having trouble finding people?
While I agree that the example he provides is a rare case, it's not entirely a stupid question. (However, as I said elsewhere about other interview questions, it definitely could use a more original approach.) I think many interviewers are worried about hiring someone who is just going to use the company as a year-long hopping stone, and therefore won't be committed.
[+] [-] sbisker|14 years ago|reply
I know some people will probably downvote whatever you post without thinking, no matter what you say - because judging from the comments, you seem to have angered the mob. Indeed, I disagree with this article strongly myself - and would be happy to chat with you about why it doesn't resonate with my personal experience. However, if you have thoughtful answers to what people here have to say, the community only wants to help you, and see its own succeed.
If you want to stand behind your article, please do. If you want to recant or clarify parts of things you've said, you can do that too. You're a one person company - are you hiring right now, and what sorts of positions are you having trouble hiring for? We'd love to hear specifics - and to hear you engage in the community about something it obviously feels passionately about in a deliberate, measured way. Many may disagree with what you have to say, but no one here should fault you simply for your attempts to say it, for contributing to the discussion around your own ideas. Hope to hear from you.
[+] [-] reverend_gonzo|14 years ago|reply
Attacking each point:
You send me a stupidly long resume
Some recruiters/HR desks look for resumes with specific keywords, and we need to tailor our resumes to get past those (admittedly retarded) filters. As an interviewee, I understand that and have made my resume longer to get past them to the people that actually look at it. As an interviewer, I've rarely looked at the resume until the interview, and only scanned over it to look for things that I can ask about, in addition to our normal quetions.
You can’t tell me why you like your current job
You don't have to like your current job. Especially in this economy, some people are glad to have jobs. Of course, it'd be nice if you like your job, but then again, that's why he's interviewing. Whether or not a person likes a previous job has nothing to say about whether or not he'll like his next job, unless, of course, you're looking for a spineless twit who will go with the flow regardless of how they treat him.
It's more important to recognize a cultural fit and find someone that will get along with the employees, but again, this can vary wildly. I worked at a startup and we interviewed a manager from a large corporate company to be our BA. We went into the interview thinking there's no way we'll like this guy, but it turned out he was awesome, and a great cultural fit too.
No career plans or vision
Not everyone has a long-term. Not everyone knows what they'll be doing in five years, especially when they're younger. My first two jobs, I told them I'd be gone within a year and a half. I don't remember saying it, but when I quit a year a half later, they aid I told them that during the interview and they just didn't believe me. The better question is what will it take to keep me here for five years, and what is your firm going to do for it as well? Of course, people most likely can't answer this question until they've had a few jobs under their belt, so they realize what they like and don't like.
No skills
There's really the primary thing that matters.
Answer my skills with conjecture
I didn't read this far, but it sounds like 'Don't BS me'. I'll agree there as well.
I agree with csomar. I probably wouldn't work for you.
[+] [-] jmilloy|14 years ago|reply
The interview failures described in the article occur when neither party understands this.
[+] [-] bjdixon|14 years ago|reply
I find many interviewers have no idea that it's a two way street as well. I guess it shortens the interview for me though. I don't want to work for someone who only wants answers, not a conversation.
[+] [-] darrikmazey|14 years ago|reply
I severely disagree with the attitude conveyed. People would do well to remember that a work arrangement is mutually beneficial, always. You take a job because it is in your interest to do so. You are offered a job because it is in their interest to do so. No one employs someone while taking a loss on them, yet companies treat interviewees as if they would be lucky to land such a wonderful job.
If this attitude came out in my interview, I'd immediately walk out. If you're treating me in this way before I even work for you, odds are it's not ever going to get better, only worse.
[+] [-] minsight|14 years ago|reply
Not to worry. I will only work for someone who can manage to conquer problems of scale such as skimming a resume and finding pertinent points. If you are unable or unwilling to do so, we'll eventually have a problem and I'll be better off elsewhere.
[+] [-] drone|14 years ago|reply
That you thought it appropriate to write a blog post with simply the title of "Why I won't hire you," is the reason "Why I will never interview with you." (And, for many others as well, I'm sure.) It has little to do with the content (although in fact, the content only gets worse with conceit and self-inflating statements) and everything to do with your attitude.
Who wants to work for someone who already thinks they're better than the majority of humanity? I'd want to work for a manager who knows how to communicate effectively without being abrasive, and who has excellent skills in resolving conflict and helping their team grow to their maximum potential. Everything about your blog post suggest the opposite combined with such a level of hubris, that I could only imagine working for you would be the worst job I've ever had.
Good luck with that hiring thing.
[+] [-] tkiley|14 years ago|reply
The best developers I've ever worked with tend to lack career plans. If you're sufficiently happy with your life that you don't need a change strategy, that's pretty cool.
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
That's the thing these interviews fail to take into account. They assume that everyone wants more, when that's not always the case. Happiness means knowing when you have what you want, and enjoying it.
[+] [-] llambda|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmilloy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peteretep|14 years ago|reply
I don't know about that, but my experience suggests that most CVs you get for a job interview will be unsuitable.
[+] [-] anons2011|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bitdiffusion|14 years ago|reply
The situation is very different however. In my experience, top talent either a) have their own company or b) are well-looked after by their current employer (at least one would hope so) so they need to actively lured away; how about you tell me why I SHOULD work for you rather than give all the reasons why I can't?
Oh yes - and the author is an arrogant dick.
[+] [-] radarsat1|14 years ago|reply
I have a good BS detector too. Lots of people do.
Here's the problem: Lots of people are full of BS. That includes interviewers.
Since people are very sensitive to BS either way, a BS impedance mismatch can completely ruin an interview. That means that the BS-appraisal process must complete efficiently and accurately within the first 30 seconds of the interview, which is quite a difficult demand.
Let's discretize the BS axis into two categories: full of BS / hates BS.
So we have 4 situations:
* Interviewer is full of BS, wants to hear BS. Interviewee is full of BS, provides BS. WIN
* Interviewer hates BS. Interviewee is full of BS, provides BS. FAIL.
* Interviewer is full of BS. Interviewee hates BS. FAIL.
* Interviewer and interviewee both hate BS. SUPER WIN.
The problem is that neither the interviewer nor the interviewee are aware of the BS-status of the other individual.
The interviewer, however, is generally in a power position, since we can assume the interviewee wants the job. Therefore it is really up to the interviewee to estimate the BS-status of the interviewer.
So, only two situations are really going to be fundamentally compatible, one of which has much of a chance of landing a good candidate. There is easily a 50% chance of something going wrong at this point just out of luck, or as a result of a misestimated BS status.
If there is a detected mismatch, the interviewee can make a choice: Fake personal BS status (BSer tries to be "real", anti-BSer gives up on personal integrity and provides some BS because that's what is expected by the BS interviewer); or, be true to himself, and either walk out of the interview (politely!), or get down to business and present himself as a serious individual (for the non-BS interviewer).
So, the BS estimate is critical. Moreover, since it's easy to get the impression that most people are full of BS, there may be bias present in the estimator that helps to get things off on the wrong foot.
Notice that _none_ of this has anything to do with whether the interviewee is actually the right candidate for the job. Right off the bat, the BS-status and accuracy and speed of the interviewee's BS estimator is a huge factor in job-getting ability, regardless of other skillsets.
And that is why interviewing sucks, for both parties.
[+] [-] radarsat1|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bh42222|14 years ago|reply
Be Passionate. If you are bored working in a similar job somewhere else, you’ll be bored with me.
Does the job involve rockets or something like that? No?
Well good luck finding exactly someone who is both highly skilled AND not bored by your job.
[+] [-] balloot|14 years ago|reply
Employees: 1
He's been doing this for almost a year and hasn't hired anyone. Sounds about right.
Also, the website is taking 20s to serve any page. Maybe he should spend less time blogging about how awesome he is and how everyone sucks, and instead build a website that can handle a surge of traffic.