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jostiniane
23d

I had the weirdest job interview in the world. A job that wasn't even considering due to lower compensation than what I am making.

Throughout my career I saw three types of interviews (some times I have 1 & 2, 1&3 or just 2 or just 3 or fail early in 1):

1. HR textbook style: your 3 biggest weaknesses, what would your coworkers describe (I fail most of the time here)

2. People coming to prove a point to you (what happened to me today): Somebody with a clear intention to prove you are stupid and/or lying.. You are guilty until proven innocent style of interaction. They will find one little thing that you read about 15 years ago and zoom in it enough (it takes a 1min read to go over that again) and to them you are stupid and that's it. Generally insecure people do that

3. Tech oriented hiring people: it always goes well even if I don't get hired. Where they focus on the skills that take years to master rather than zooming on something you studied 15 years ago and totally forgot.

The hiring person was in tech presumably for 20 years but I saw 0 important stuff in his github. (I can name and shame if it's allowed here)

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  • 4
    23d
    I'd guess lower compensation jobs also are insecure and consequently disrespectful as a package deal
  • 3
    22d
    @Demolishun the devrant community guidelines were made up before doxing was a thing :p It's the wild west here!
  • 0
    18d
    So if I understand, Insisting on a subject you don't know is wrong (and it may be important for the person conducting the interview) but judging solely on GitHub activity is right?
  • 0
    13d
    @osx94 Not entirely a subject, but a small detail. You can give me your field of expertise (let's say Node), I can ask some of the most internal things that you never bothered to keep fresh in memory. For example zoom into an implementation detail of the "v8 hidden class system". Not because it's a complex topic but because it's something you read about 15 years ago, you remember the takeaways but forgot the details. (I was asked about a similar thing but about a different ecosystem). It's a 5 min read that nobody bothers to keep fresh in memory.
  • 1
    13d
    @osx94 Github work really gives a good idea on the dev YES. I am not talking about the count of the green squares but I am talking about what the recent activity of the person looks like. No recent activity? that's okay. Good quality recent contributions? that's great. Low quality recent projects? that's the worst (what I noticed in the person above).

    My quality I mean: the complexity of the tasks being achieved? just more TODO apps? are there decent thoughtful tests in the changes? is the architectural design good?

    I literally saw the person having a couple of RESTful API projects that do nothing 🤣. The documentation is low quality. Like guiding a 5 yo on how to do basic things (the stuff you normally skip when writing a documentation). People suggested no name-and-shame so I guess I am still sticking to that for now.
  • 1
    13d
    @jestdotty That's my experience too. I keep interviewing even when I am totally happy in my place to keep an eye on the market (like should I do something completely different if I loose my job). Crappy businesses paying peanuts (or equity 🤣) seem to the ones requiring PhDs & people with 20 yoe + having the weirdest testing/interviewing practices.
  • 1
    13d
    @jostiniane to be fair having a REST app is already better than 80% of applicants' ability, if my co workers were anything to judge by...
  • 1
    9d
    @jestdotty I totally agree. I would say more than 80% for sure. I participated in hiring in my last 2 years and half. I reviewed tens of tech challenges and 2 people only did what the tech challenge asked. You would be surprised by the average dev out there.

    The tech challenge was more or less simple. It's building some sort of module to process files, detecting the formats, handling edge cases. You can put a solution in 1h or less. You can go the extra mile and spend 3-4h to cover everything and add string tests.

    With that being said, I would be shocked if you claim to be somebody with 20 yoe in tech and all you can show off is a couple RESTful APIs that do nothing in your GitHub. When I had my first meaningful open source contribution to a mainstream project, I was still in university.
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