First time interviewing someone

Mugu has been to enough interviews, being grilled, and things thrown at, but all in all having a good time. But last week was Mugu's first attempt at giving an interview.  The candidate is a student who is about to finish up his PhD.  HR and his prospective boss, who asked me to show up for "observation", were also present.

Granted, Mugu was supposed to keep his mouth shut and looked pretty, but sometimes I just couldn't resist  asking a few questions, much to HR's displeasure.  But then again, there were so many awkward moment of silence, Mugu thought what he did was justified to keep things in motion.

Even as a rookie interviewer, here are Mugu's opinions, and perhaps this would help those who are still in the interview process.

1) Mugu can get a sense of who you are from reading your resume.  Don't underestimate this statement.  You can have tons of friends and professionals giving you suggestions of how to improve your resume, but what ends up going in there reflects you as a person, and your preferences and biases.  Typically this is what Mugu gets from reading resumes:

• What you should know and what you don't know
• Your personal goals and career priorities (whether you have an objective section or not)
• Whether you're telling me a bunch of crap

2) When I ask you a question, I am looking for a connection.  Assuming that your resume is impressive enough to get an interview.  Now you walk in, all nervous, but all in the while trying to do your best to impress.  I assume that you are technically competent.  The question is, whether I can work with you.  That's how I ask questions:

• Things you should know.  I want to see if you are up to standard.
• Things I know you don't know.  I want to see how far you go before you reach your limits.
• Things I don't know.  I want to see if you can convince me to see things your way.

Strangely, the last type of question is most difficult.  I might not know the answers, but I will know if you are trying to BS your way out.  It's better to come clean and tell us that you don't know, either.

3) If you fail to explain things clearly to me, you don't understand the topic good enough.  You have spent years mastering your own topic.  Now it's time to tell people what great work you've done.  The problem?  No one understands what you are trying to say, because every other word is jargon.  One who truly understands his subject will be able to explain his understanding appropriately.  You can always keep asking why indefinitely, but it takes great wisdom to say when to stop.  It also shows me that you have put some thought into what you are doing, aside from just doing what your supervisor told you to do.

4) Don't think that you can change the way we do things.  Mugu has made that mistake in his more ignorant days.  Now I see what kind of a prick I was.  You are here to work with our system, not the other way around.  The difference you make will be your work, not your system.  One of the most popular things to say is, "I would like everybody to use [insert someone's favorite open source tool here]."  If it is such a good tool, it would have been part of the corporate workflow a long time ago!

5) If I like you, we will make things easier for you.  A big part an interview is to see if we connect, whether we "click" will be very important.  This is not an exact science, and that's why most people tumble on this.  In the mean time, while I don't want to be so biased, but I would be inclined to help you out a little if I like you.  But, of course, I cannot make it that obvious ...

What does Mugu want to see from you.  Mugu doesn't ask for much.  All that is required is that

• You have a good idea of what is required of you.
• You are honest about your strengths and weaknesses.
• You know what are important to us.
• Your resume has a good experience-to-page ratio.

I did not make that decision, but if I were chairing that interview, I would not have asked him to come back for a second interview.  Here is what happened.

1. Every other word he used was jargon.
2. He tried to BS his way out of some questions for which he should know the answers.
3. He told us from his resume he could speak a foreign language, but in fact he couldn't.
4. He told us, in no less than 5 occasions, how his GPA was so high he could go to prestigious schools I have never heard of.

Somehow I have a feeling that he will be working next to me in a few month.  Time will tell.

Interviews ... good, bad, and ugly

Wow ... it's been a while!  But I am still alive.  I have a couple blog post ideas, but for now let's pick up where we left off ... interviews.

Good thing is, I don't have to do this anymore, but I also would like to share with you some experiences that I have ... good, bad, and ugly.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

The Good

1) Ricky's Autos: An Italian chop shop, been around when grandpa's still sucking his thumb.  After almost four generations, it still has a very mom-and-pop feel to it.  Signor Ricky himself saved the day when I was asked questions to which I couldn't answer (there was only one, and it turned out they weren't looking for an answer at all).  Most of all, throughout the process, they treated Mugu with a helluva respect.  Respect, Ricky.

2) JC cells: Another mom-and-pop joint, this time they sell batteries.  It was probably the most relaxing interview Mugu ever had.  For two and a half hours, we talked more about economics and politics, more than we talked about batteries.  It's also a good sign when the HR lady could take jokes about them being evil (that means they really like you, too).  Don't try this, even if you think they can take these sucker punches; I got lucky this time.

The Bad

1) Oswald Lighting:  These people sell light bulbs.  Most of the time they were busy protecting their trade secrets than interviewing.  If they treat every interviewee like a potential industrial spy, you wonder what happens if you do end up working for them?

2) A-La-Pee Urinals.  Granted, this is not a dream job, and I don't qualify.  At least they could have ended it there. Instead they said they wanted me back for a second, then gave lame excuses with each follow up until they sent me a PFO for finding the other-than-you-right-person. I should have pissed on them.

The Ugly

1) Janice's Last Gig.  Got this lead through a friend of a friend of a friend.  I guess the fine folks at Janice didn't like this kind of wheel-greasing to ruin their reputation, so they decided to make an example out of me.  Invited me down to an interview, then again, and was told that an offer would come in two weeks' time.  After two weeks, I called them up, and they Mugu was told what the "right way" should be to get a job at Janice's -- start as an intern.

2) Money Shot Thrusters.  No, it's not a porn studio.  Somehow they got Mugu's CV, and decided to bring me down for an ambush interview.  Mugu knew that sometimes interviewers pretend to be assholes, but these people weren't pretending.  The "key grip" thought he was Johnny Wadd, and the "director" seemed to be getting a kick out being a jerk.  At least they reimbursed my expenses on time (to HR ... you know what "being on time" means).

Interviews ... between the lines, above and beyond

Interviews, I dread those.  The first couple are fun but it goes stale very quickly.  Here are some stats of Mugu's on-going job search process:

Jobs applied for so far: about 50
... from which Mugu feels he is very well qualified:  about 20
Opportunities Mugu got through
... networking:  3
... job fairs: 2
... unsolicited application: 1
... referrals from "headhunters": 5

Invitation Interviews:  about 12
... out of Mugu's "very well qualified" list: about 10

... from which came seconds: 2
... Mugu turned down: 1

Now some stats on the actual interviews themselves

Minimum personnel present:  1

Maximum personnel present: 5

Shortest duration: 5 min.

Longest duration: 3 1/2 hrs.

Of which I had to give a presentation: 2

Of which I had to fill out some form: 2

Of which I asked where the door was: 1

Shortest wait for (negative) feedback: before I leave

Longest wait for (negative) feedback: 4 months

Lesson learned

1) If key personnel is not present, you're (pretty much) toast.  Interviews at every "big" company should have at least the hiring manager and HR-rep present.  If HR isn't there that means the job might not exist.  I have had offers that were said to be on the way, only to be stopped dead by HR because the hiring manager didn't follow "procedure".  If the hiring manager isn't there when he said he would, he thinks you're not worth his time (for whatever reason) and gave instructions for his underlings to exercise extreme prejudice.

2) If your competition knows someone (and you don't), you're definitely toast.  The hiring manager pulls you over and whispers in your ear, "I would really like to hire you but the other guy knows people at the right places."  You know they are just playing it out.  It's not fair, but moving on is all you can do.  Be thankful that the manager is nice enough to warn you.

3) Be weary of instant positive feedbacks.  No one gives positive feedbacks on the spot anymore because they want time to think.  If they do, they want you out of the room without pissing you off.  Snappy offers to second interviews, and comments like "if you find a job, please let us know", or "we really like you, but this will take us a while to get back to you" are classics.

4) Key questions to prepare for.  This allows you to polish your answers to some sticky questions.  Most of the time the questions and answers are close enough but if they aren't, there will be opportunities for clarification.  Some common and important ones are:

• How did you deal with the asshole at your last workplace?
• How did you take care of impossible deadlines? (working longer is not the answer)
• Would your colleagues want to work with you again?
• What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them?
• What do you do when you are asked to do something you're not very good at?

You should have solid, real-life examples for each of them.  Also, even if these questions weren't asked, use every opportunity to bring them up.

While I am at it, here are some more

• Tell me about yourself (don't regurgitate your resume)
• What are your strengths and weaknesses (weaknesses shouldn't be real weaknesses)
• Where do you want to be 5 years from now (your choices: "Manager" or "Specialist")

5) If you are in a room full of assholes, they might be testing you.  Even though there are assholes at every workplace, chances all of them congregating at your interview is very slim; they have better thing to do!  So when you're in a room full of asshole-acting people, remember that they are doing that to throw you off balance so that they can see your true colors.  Emotional detachment is key to dealing with this kind of interview tactics.  Even if they are real-life assholes, at least it's a good attitude to take.  You can always say, "um, okay, maybe I will go where the people are nicer."

6) Talent agencies are whores.  Sign up with these "talent agencies" and they will give you some tips on writing resumes (at least get everything you have done nicely spelled out), but don't count on them in helping you land a job.  Once they realize you are not as on high demand as they hoped for, they will stop calling you for the "next greatest opportunity".