Get A Job!

[ToadMan]

Having interviewed a good number of people for engineering positions I can tell you this: 1) I don't care what your mark are/where 2) I don't care what university printed your piece of paper. I've interviewed 4.0 GPA's from MIT that couldn't find their ass with both hands and a flashlight, I've also interviewed collage drop-outs that could probably implement the entire system from scratch on a weekend. (ok the latter is an exaggeration, the former is not.)

[Prometheon]

You guys are nuts. Any job that I apply for in my field, the FIRST thing they do is say "resume and transcripts." And if both aren't damn impressive, you're likely not getting the call.

[Lauren]

theres no doubt that in a world of growing credentialism, some employers are going to have to sift through candidates by looking strictly at their numbers before offering interviews but those employers may not need creativity or thinking outside the box and shouldn't be surprised when they get that in low amounts. save for a few fields where you simply cannot be wrong, most employers would rather hire an employee who can think for themselves in a dynamic way than someone who gets lost because the problem won't fit into the formula.

 

 

my happy thing is that this months vogue came in the mail today!

Edited June 21, 2010 by Lauren

[Prometheon]

But it isn't mutually exclusive. Getting mediocre marks in no way makes you more likely to be an "outside of the box" thinker. In my experience the people who have their shit together both do well in school and can come up with creative and novel solutions to problems.

 

"Oh, I'm too CREATIVE to do well in school. The shackles of intellectual credentialism are just too rigid for my brilliant mind."

 

Looks like rationalization for laziness to me.

[ToadMan]

Here here!

 

I've never bought that crap. But at the same time, I'm saying from my side of the table marks don't matter. Recruiters might care about the, but that is up chain. Once you get to talking to me, I ask you to show me how you think. That is, I ask problems and make people solve them on a white board. If you can't solve them, then you probably aren't good enough to work with me.

 

And nobody give me the "nervous in the interview room" crap. As an interviewer you can tell the difference between "forgetting by fluster" and just plain old not knowing.

 

Maybe we should start a thread about this... it's kind of an interesting topic.

[Lauren]

But it isn't mutually exclusive. Getting mediocre marks in no way makes you more likely to be an "outside of the box" thinker. In my experience the people who have their shit together both do well in school and can come up with creative and novel solutions to problems.

 

"Oh, I'm too CREATIVE to do well in school. The shackles of intellectual credentialism are just too rigid for my brilliant mind."

 

Looks like rationalization for laziness to me.

 

time after time you insult me by implying i said something stupid that i by no means said. here's a direct quote made by myself "you love getting good grades and you think that means a lot. and it does, but it doesn't mean everything." no where did i say grades aren't important, and that graduating by the seat of your pants is a good idea. obviously try to get the best grades you can, by putting in as much effort as required/you can summon. i'm just saying that its not such a big deal that you should give up years of happiness for.

Edited June 22, 2010 by Lauren

[bishopx]

I have been hiring people in the software industry for well over 15 years. First off like Toadman, I have had MIT students as interns, and they were as useless as tits on a bull. Some of the developer level guys I hired were spot on some of the finest engineers I've ever worked with, but I've had better interns and better hires from way less prestigious schools. As for the transcripts, let me tell you a secret...it's more to confirm you really went and that your resume isn't BS. If people are going to lie on a resume, the first thing they'll lie about is education. I gave less than a damn about grades. I carried a 4.0 GPA most of my college career, and I've seen my hire files at every company I've worked at, and no where did it say, "Wow he carried a 4.0!!!" At any of the schools I went to.

 

 

So you wanna know how to get the job you want?

 

1) Honest resume

2) Deviate from the norm, write a short paragraph or two detailing you accomplishments at previous jobs. Keep it real and keep it honest. This is the stuff I wanted to see.

3) Be yourself in the interview, pretention and BS are obvious. No one likes a fake.

4) Research your interviewing company. Know their business and prepare strong questions about them and

the position you're interviewing for.

5) DO NOT TRY TO IMPRESS AN INTERVIEWER BY PLAYING A KNOW IT ALL.

6) Eye Contact and show interest

7) Take notes, come prepared.

8) Turn off your goddamned cellphone.

9) Dress for success. Ladies nothing to revealing, and gents dress like you want the job.

10) Let the interviewer lead, do not dominate the conversation.

 

I have a generic list of interview questions floating around somewhere, I will post them when I find them. They can prove very helpful.

Edited June 22, 2010 by bishopx

[Crusader]

Here here!

 

I've never bought that crap. But at the same time, I'm saying from my side of the table marks don't matter. Recruiters might care about the, but that is up chain. Once you get to talking to me, I ask you to show me how you think. That is, I ask problems and make people solve them on a white board. If you can't solve them, then you probably aren't good enough to work with me.

 

And nobody give me the "nervous in the interview room" crap. As an interviewer you can tell the difference between "forgetting by fluster" and just plain old not knowing.

 

Maybe we should start a thread about this... it's kind of an interesting topic.

 

I'd like to see a thread about this, need to do real interviews for coop jobs soon. FIZZBUZZ!?

[ToadMan]

I went a head and made a thread and pulled in most of these posts.

 

I wanted to add a little to what Charles was saying.

 

A lot of this will depend on employer, so it's good to try to get a handle on how they crank internally. For where I work, those are all great tip for when you talk to managers. I'll comment a little in line for each of them.

 

1) Honest resume

- This is my number 1 too. I add to it, don't put anything on your resume you aren't able to talk about 100%. Sometimes when we interview people with a lot of experience they will give us 5-7 page resumes with every project from 1984. Let it be known that I will pick something on the second to last item, I will google it, and I will ask questions. The defense of "I did that 10 years ago" doesn't wash with me. If it's not a skill you still have, then it's not a skill you should pretend to have.

 

2) Deviate from the norm, write a short paragraph or two detailing you accomplishments at previous jobs. Keep it real and keep it honest. This is the stuff I wanted to see.

- A little be more managerial than I get into... Anything more that bullet points gets the glaze over from me (sorry to say). I have lots of things to do, interviewing people is pretty low on my priorities list.

 

3) Be yourself in the interview, pretention and BS are obvious. No one likes a fake.

- HEAR HEAR

 

4) Research your interviewing company. Know their business and prepare strong questions about them and

the position you're interviewing for.

- This is pretty managerial too. I know one manager who will always ask "what is our current product line?". I think it's important to know what a company does and some basics. When I interview I always have 5 minutes to let people ask me questions. Generally I don't even care what they ask me. A big don't in this group is asking about unreleased or currently in development projects. First, you're not going to get an answer; Second, you look like a dick.

 

 

5) DO NOT TRY TO IMPRESS AN INTERVIEWER BY PLAYING A KNOW IT ALL.

-HEAR HEAR

 

6) Eye Contact and show interest

- Ok sure enough.

 

7) Take notes, come prepared.

- Similar to my thoughts on 4. I don't really look for people to take notes, in fact, it makes me a little uncomfortable.

 

8) Turn off your goddamned cellphone.

- HEAR HEAR

 

9) Dress for success. Ladies nothing to revealing, and gents dress like you want the job.

- I agree to "Dress for the job you want". It's important to listen to the information you get before coming to the interview. My workplace is casual, generally we have a no suits policy on interviews... people who come in wearing suits are out of place. For my place, you dress a spec above casual, but don't go too far.

 

10) Let the interviewer lead, do not dominate the conversation.

- Oh yeah, for sure... I mean we will ask you questions and we want answers... once we have an answer it's best to stop talking.

 

Some thoughts for my line of work (I interview for low level programming jobs):

 

- Be prepared to present your skills. We ask real questions, and we want answers. It's NEVER a good idea to question the value of a question. Doing so *might* mean you have some insight, but it usually comes off as "This problem is beneath me". Everybody answers the questions at some point, if you want the job, it's not beneath you.

 

- Understand the solutions to problems if you are going to look them up. Many many many problems we ask are out there on the internet. You can look them up and memorize the answers. Don't. I know about how long it takes to thing through these problems, if you write the solution from memory, then I'm going to throw you a curveball that is built on the question. If you don't know why the answer is right then you will fall a long way trying to get the curve.

 

I'm all out of ideas there.

[shade]

Toadman give me a better job asshole

[johnny]

I'll bring my two cents:

 

1) Honest resume - for cripes sake, who does a 7 page resume? Sure, if I wanted I could do a 3-4 pager, but it would be full of so much extraneous BS that I'd get reamed for it. 2 page resume, 1 page cover letter, grades if specified. Done. Most people should be able to do that and have a good shot at getting their foot in the door. In my (limited) experience the cover letter and the resume seem to matter about equally, and should reflect each other. You used photoshop in a previous job? Great - resume that shit and talk it up in the letter, son. *cough*

 

2) Deviate from the norm, write a short paragraph or two detailing you accomplishments at previous jobs. Keep it real and keep it honest. This is the stuff I wanted to see. - OK, I can agree to something like this. After reading x number of cover letters and resumes, I'll agree that things start to glaze. But this is what will make someone stand out - snapping the reader out of it and making them pay attention to what's in front of them. Appeal to their company/industry by including something relevant and personal, but don't go overboard. DISCLAIMER - depends on the industry itself as well - marketing would probably like this more than an accounting guy, but nothing is set in stone. Also - proper grammar. Good grief, the number of spelling mistakes on some of the submissions I've seen are sometimes god-awful.

 

3) Be yourself in the interview, pretention and BS are obvious. No one likes a fake. - Ditto that. But I find confidence does help to make a person a little more memorable.

 

4) Research your interviewing company. Know their business and prepare strong questions about them and

the position you're interviewing for. - This helped me to land my first co-op job. Another way to differentiate yourself is to take an active (but not a know-it-all) interest in the company/organization. If they ask you why you're interested in the job, this will help.

 

5) DO NOT TRY TO IMPRESS AN INTERVIEWER BY PLAYING A KNOW IT ALL. - Ditto.

 

6) Eye Contact and show interest - Similar to showing confidence and making yourself look that much better than the guy who mumbles and looks at the wall. I haven't seen much of the mumbling or wall staring, but I've heard stories.

 

7) Take notes, come prepared. - Come prepared, same as 4. Take notes beforehand, sure. During? If it works for you, sure, but personally I don't really bother with it. I do come to interviews with a pen and something to write on though, just in case, along with my references.

 

8) Turn off your goddamned cellphone. - Really should go without saying.

 

9) Dress for success. Ladies nothing to revealing, and gents dress like you want the job. - No arguments here, it never hurts to look good coming in. One place I worked at, one group within the company would 'appreciate' it when a new hire was a nice looking woman, to put it lightly. I can't speak to the rest of the organization, but the people doing the hiring on my end weren't focused on that, thankfully.

 

10) Let the interviewer lead, do not dominate the conversation. - That's why there's usually time for questions at the end of the interview, but don't over-do it either. In some cases the interviewer has answered the same questions all day long and just wants out, so in this case there may be such a thing as a stupid question. Good rule of thumb - don't ask anything that should be available on their website.

 

 

For my last two positions I've had to do over the phone interviews which are a slightly different ball game. I find being honest and showing interest get you far, but rambling can kill you.

 

Questions for the more knowledgeable than I:

- bringing references to an interview and asking if they would like them after the interview is completed, yea or nay?

- how much weight do you lend to extracurriculars on a resume?

- are follow-up letters/emails afterwards really worth it?

[garsk]

I think the first thing you need to do is wear pants, sadly I have made the mistake of not wearing pants during the interview process and did not land a job.

[RicardoObviouso]

fuck all of this. 100% of this crap can be found on google.

 

apply to jobs that you are sincerely interested in, and everything else will take care of itself. if an employer senses true desire, passion and interest, they'll find a place for you in their company, regardless of experience and education.

[Audio of Being]

Make sure you have a professional handshake....this was drilled into me during class one day...

[Moonlight_Graham]

I think the first thing you need to do is wear pants, sadly I have made the mistake of not wearing pants during the interview process and did not land a job.

 

Really? Once i forgot to wear pants and surprisingly DID land the job. My friends think it was because it was a phone interview so it didn't matter, but i still say my sexy put me over the top.

 

fuck all of this. 100% of this crap can be found on google.

 

Ya most of this stuff is on google for sure. But its still interesting to hear what employers of the Bored think.

 

 

Make sure you have a professional handshake....this was drilled into me during class one day...

 

lol ya, don't give a handshake to another man if you're gonna be all limp-wristed and a girly-man.

[Lauren]

fuck all of this. 100% of this crap can be found on google.

 

apply to jobs that you are sincerely interested in, and everything else will take care of itself. if an employer senses true desire, passion and interest, they'll find a place for you in their company, regardless of experience and education.

 

 

this is what i'm saying. i know too many people with too little education in great jobs to truly believe that effort/grades is where its at. it will help a lot of the time in many places, but if you really mean it and you want that job, the guy with the 4.0 over your 3.0 is still lacking. dummies are dummies, no matter how they do in school.

 

i have reference upon reference at my fingertips because my teachers truly like me. going for coffee or beers or personal conversations during office hours will stay with a prof longer than that jimmy guy who came to class everyday and did well but gave little to no personality. i got an a last semester not because i did super well or because i worked super hard but because she liked me, knew my potential and knows i have a lot to offer.

Edited June 23, 2010 by Lauren

[sodamntired]

how do you answer this question:

What's the nicest thing you have ever done for someone?

Edited June 23, 2010 by sodamntired

[Lauren]

i put an ad on kijiji ottawa to be a volunteer dogwalker to get myself out of the house and moving. no one has replied, which isn't surprising because of recent dog thefts (who steals other peoples' dogs?). i got an email today from some jackass who only wrote, why don't you get a job? the thread title reminded me of this. fucking asshole, mind your own business.

[ToadMan]

Toadman give me a better job asshole

 

What do you do? and if it happens to be programming low level devices, send me a resume.

 

 

fuck all of this. 100% of this crap can be found on google.

 

apply to jobs that you are sincerely interested in, and everything else will take care of itself. if an employer senses true desire, passion and interest, they'll find a place for you in their company, regardless of experience and education.

 

I don't know what industry you are in... yes, passion and interest are important, but knowing stuff is way more important. I say knowing stuff, because as I said, I don't give a shit about grades. I give a shit about me handing you a problem and you working that shit out.

 

Yes, lots of this stuff is on google. But there is also plenty of bad advice on google. I thought it might be interesting so share some experiences between a more trusted audience. Anyway, like everything else, if you aren't interested and don't want to add, then don't comment.

[RicardoObviouso]

i'm an employer and i'm likely the most financially successful person here. i didnt get to where i am by nitpicking do's, dont's and resumes to find the best people. unless you're left to work locked in a room by yourself, desire passion and genuine interest is going to get you farther than simply "knowing stuff", as any of those three attributes indicate just that at the most miniscule level.

 

i haven't set foot anywhere near the offices of the companies i principal in over a year, and i haven't spoken to the people making the day-to-day decisions since february. these businesses are all successful beyond my wildest dreams and NO ONE there had a reference check or had to answer any retarded questions. you show me desire, passion and genuine interest and i will show you money.

 

when it comes down to it, all these vastly available tips and tricks to surviving an interview really do is give the assessor the false impression of faculty, which in turn puts the candidate at a disadvantage. true decision makers don't need bells and whistles and question sheets that go on for miles.

[Muran]

You know, I'm not sure if anyone else is interested, or if Evan is even willing to share, but I'm extremely interested in hearing how he gained all his wealth at such a young age. You make it sound so easy. You seem to have led such an amazing life thus far, and you're so intriguing...

 

I know that sounds like a come on, but it's not, I assure you lol

[Computer]

It probably involves his parents and their connections/money. Not to take anything away from him, I'm sure he's largely successful due to his own cunning, but I don't think you can get to where he is without a solid foundation built upon by forces outside of your control.

[ToadMan]

Different sectors anyway. You largely haven't said what your businesses do. That makes a world of difference.

 

I'm an engineer at the highest market cap tech company in North America. You can tell me that "knowing stuff" doesn't matter. Sure, maybe not in your industry. When you have to ship a real product with real deadlines, then you need to be able to put out a design. In my organization I don't have time for people who are passionate to spend figuring out how to get things done.

 

I could make various assumptions about your business. But I'm going to refrain.

 

What I'm trying to share here is the spectrum. Maybe to get in with you all people need to have is desire and passion, but if that's all you have on the other side of the table from me, the recruiter will walk you out by lunch time. That's the straight dope for my employer, and may others here in the valley.

 

There are lots of people here on "the bored" that hire, there are lots of people that have been hired. So yeah, lets talk about what it takes. Lets not talk about interview survival skills so much. Your spot on there, it's mostly bullshit and doesn't help you. That's why I ask hard technical questions, because you either know it or you don't, and if you looked it up on the internet I'll know because after you write the answer I'll spin the question. You can tell the difference between google knowledge and real understanding pretty quick.

Edited June 28, 2010 by ToadMan

[Moonlight_Graham]

Different sectors anyway. You largely haven't said what your businesses do. That makes a world of difference.

 

I agree, what an employer is looking for (ie: education/knowledge, experience, potential, personality etc.) certainly varies considerably depending on what job you are applying for and/or the sector it's in.

 

For people posting with tips/experiences here, it may be helpful if they stated what field they are talking about.

Edited June 28, 2010 by Moonlight_Graham

[Lauren]

they don't want anything in the grocery store cashier industry. you don't have to look normal or be smart. just stay at one store long enough and you're sure to be manager one day.