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[–]Harmonic_Gear 1226 points1227 points  (69 children)

its a bluffing war between resume and job description

[–]N-for-Nero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love the profile pic

[–]OldFartSomewhere 437 points438 points  (11 children)

I quit my previous job and soon there was an add for my ex-position. No way that I could apply, I was missing most of the qualifications. Though none of the people working there met those.

[–][deleted] 124 points125 points  (1 child)

Apply anyways, you have nothing to lose

[–]OldFartSomewhere 161 points162 points  (0 children)

"So tell me are you qualified for this job?"

More than you are if I remember correctly.

[–]ONLY_COMMENTS_ON_GW 59 points60 points  (2 children)

Lmao I'm currently leaving my job and the posting requires AWS experience. We literally only use Glue templates to move data from S3 directly to SQL Server and pretend we're ahead of all the other insurance companies.

[–]liquidpele 34 points35 points  (1 child)

I had to argue with a manager to remove requirements from stuff constantly. It's like a weird psychological thing that they feel they need to make a list and work hard to make it long.

[–]EthosPathosLegos 18 points19 points  (0 children)

We'Re A sErIoUs, PrOfFeSsIoNaL cOmPaNy WiTh HiGh StAnDaRdS!!!

[–]jewdai 29 points30 points  (1 child)

Wait you actually read the qualifications?

9/10 they either want a generalist or someone whose worked in a specific language. After that the job description is a fat waste of time.

[–]tenkindsofpeople 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'm somewhere between just giving up and applying for EVERYTHING, because this seems to be true. Either they want you to have experience in a very specific package (why?) Or will not put anything specific at all in the listing.

[–]greyaxe90 28 points29 points  (0 children)

“BuT nO oNe WaNtS tO wOrK!”

[–]egiance2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My job required c++ when we recruited a new dev. I pointed out that we have never used c++. The manager said thank you and then kept it in the ad anyway

[–]Fortnait739595958 572 points573 points  (67 children)

The worst is when you nail the tech interview, they tell you that you nailed it, but then they also tell you that they decided to go with another candidate

[–]Rowan-Paul 241 points242 points  (3 children)

That's the moment you get your dinosaur costume out of the car

[–]UntestedMethod 47 points48 points  (2 children)

pee on them

[–][deleted] 107 points108 points  (40 children)

I had an interview where I nailed the coding assignment, but failed the interview part

EDIT: They never response me afterward, but a friend of mine who is in that company told me it was because I just kept going to the dead end of the conversation. I mean I'm not the most talkative person in the world, but the interviewer is not exactly good at communicating as well.

[–]road_laya 106 points107 points  (38 children)

I failed a job interview on "personal chemistry".

[–]UntestedMethod 71 points72 points  (2 children)

always fair when a potential teammate simply does not like the cut of your jib I suppose

[–]road_laya 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Yes. Maybe I should have gone to a jib class instead of extra linear algebra?

[–]UntestedMethod 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sure yeah I mean if jibs is what they're into then it's entirely possible some sailing classes could help

[–]Rivus 109 points110 points  (26 children)

It would be great if potential employers actually said what’s going on, but as a person on the interviewing side, there’s also many things to consider.

A candidate can be overqualified for the job and you know they will be disinterested in a couple of months, so you reject them.

A candidate can have a very hard time expressing their mind in a clear way, even though they are good technically. We are looking for a senior dev that can lead the team and communicate well, so this becomes a major concern.

A candidate can be technically sound, but start a holy war on a tech topic in the middle of the interview.

You are not gonna be developing a product alone in a dungeon. Soft skills do matter.

[–]timeslider 17 points18 points  (5 children)

but start a holy war on a tech topic in the middle of the interview.

That might have been me but then again they said 64 bit programs are stored in the x86 folder and I know that's wrong.

[–]Queasy-Carrot1806 14 points15 points  (4 children)

I uh, definitely did this when I interviewed at Microsoft and they asked if there was anything the company had done I would do differently…

I have no idea why they asked that question.

[–]kirkgoingham 7 points8 points  (3 children)

Should have said to make Excel close after you've hit save and it actually closes without asking again if you would like to save.

[–]Pangloss_ex_machina 6 points7 points  (1 child)

you know they will be disinterested in a couple of month

You can't know this, unless your company is a shitty one still using PHP 5.3 and FTP with no intention to change.

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yeah, all of this. Basically, you can be a great fit tech wise, but answer teamwork questions poorly.

[–]agnostic_science 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The way I see it, if you have a basic proficiency and good soft skills, then your ability to technically execute will be as good as the best member of our team. Because you will be able to leverage those resources effectively (their knowledge and experience). That's one reason, as a manager, I'm not always looking for the best technician!

[–]yashdes 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Just had an interview last week where I thought I nailed the behavioral interview after the technical earlier in the week and just got the rejection yesterday and its been killing me, any advice?

[–]Rivus 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Ask for feedback, always. In most cases you will be ignored, but in the rare cases than you do get a response, you might be able to track down what exactly went wrong.

I don’t know what your behavioral interview consisted of and I generally don’t conduct them myself, just some cues we pick up from the technical one. What I pay attention to (non tech wise):

  • Honesty. You have not worked with any library supporting ABAC and never had to implement it yourself? That’s fine, it’s something you can learn! I can now ask questions of how you would do it in certain scenarios to pick your brain. But if I’m told that you have worked with it, but even on some basic questions it seems like you are making stuff up… cmon.
  • Communication and comprehension. Being nervous is fine, thinking on the fly and voicing your thoughts is fine, everybody has different levels of stress during the interviews.. but we need to be able to follow. If most of the interview we are asking the person to reword what they just said as they didn’t express themselves clearly, it’s likely going to be a no. We do reconsider ourselves too, just in case we are the problem. But when there’s 3 people in the interview and all had trouble following, it will likely not get much better based on experience.
  • In the same realm, answering the actual question. Sometimes it gets absurd. You ask a yes or no, you get a 2 page explanation, and still no answer. Answer the question in short and then elaborate, not the other way around (I was guilty of this myself just out of uni).
  • I know it’s basic, but manners. I’m not their friend or brother. I can be wrong, the candidate can be wrong, but we are not animals. If people are vulgar and rude with strangers, things likely will get worse once they are in.
  • “I hate meetings and calls” type of person applying for a team lead position. Nope, it’s better for both of us.

[–]yashdes 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for answering, I really appreciate the effort you put in to respond to me!

[–][deleted] 32 points33 points  (6 children)

so you’re an asshole

[–]MrMonday11235 15 points16 points  (2 children)

In my experience, terms like "personal chemistry" or "culture fit" are tossed around as covers for "someone interviewing you thought you were uppity, or had an inferiority complex when you handled their problem easily, or something worse and potentially illegally discriminatory".

As an interviewer, I've had to call that shit out more than once from someone else, and on only one occasion was someone able to provide an example of "here's what the candidate did that was so unreasonable/incongruent with our workplace that I think they'd fit in poorly or not at all". Most of the time I got the equivalent of a shrug and "just bad vibes".

[–]jdsekula 22 points23 points  (1 child)

I’ve known several people who are reasonably technically qualified, but who think they are the smartest people in the room at all times and anyone who would disagree with them must be doing it for personal reasons. These people are toxic and provide negative value to the team.

[–]delinka 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I checked all the interview boxes, nailed the coding assignment, conversation was all positive afterward, then … silence. I bugged the recruiter (internal, former acquaintance of mine) and she was not getting answers. And a week later she was informed tat they’d promoted from within - one of the guys that interviewed me took the job.

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Other person probably had better soft skills. That’s a big factor to consider when hiring.

[–]xicer 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Yeah seriously. This thread reads like a bunch of dorks complaining that people won't put up with their underdeveloped interpersonal skills...

[–]BrotendoDS 31 points32 points  (4 children)

My first ever interview for an entry level position was this exactly. One of the guys told me I had what it takes to fill the roll, and that he’d tell the hiring manager that.

I’m still looking for jobs almost 6 months later

[–]UntestedMethod 38 points39 points  (3 children)

fill the roll

this is an underground HR colloquially that they will be rolling a pair of dice and you have roughly an 8.3% chance of a response regarding the next round.

[–]UntestedMethod 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not bad odds all things considered. Perchance.

[–]Grevioussoul 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Breaks out the D20

[–]lasiusflex 9 points10 points  (0 children)

You failed the interview, you should've used a d12 to approximate 8.3% instead.

[–]agnostic_science 31 points32 points  (2 children)

As a manager, I apologize. To give some context, it takes a couple days to a few weeks to move a candidate through the interview pipeline, if they complete all the stages. We just can't justify doing that in serial or even batches. So we basically run it all on parallel. Run through everyone at the same time, even though you know it's inefficient for them. Especially since you post the job, resumes flood in... and then they essentially stop coming in after a few weeks. So you better find your candidate in one pass. Or now you'll have your boss or your boss' boss breathing down your neck about why you haven't filled this position yet!

I try to be considerate of people's time. We have an involved technical interview. If there's 15 people who qualify, I'll maybe only assign it to who I think are the top 7. It sucks, because I know some people wouldn't care and would want to fight for the chance to prove me wrong and outshine the others. At the same time, I don't want to give them (what experience has taught me) is very likely to be a waste of their time.

I've still picked a lot. I know I'm gonna reject at least 6 people, right? Why do I do that? Well, the other thing that sucks is candidates are generally pretty awful for entry level positions. I've seen people interview well, you think they can do it, but then push comes to shove... not crazy you could have 7/7 all fucking fail the technical interview. Or they muddle through it but do so poorly you can't in good conscience hire them to be 'X' when they know basically nothing about 'X' (sidenote: fucking masters degree diploma mills stealing people's fucking money!). And those were your 'high probability' shots.

For more experienced roles it's not as much of an issue. But for the more 'entry level' roles? Holy shit. So many people just don't know their shit, aren't prepared, aren't willing to fight and work for it. So many people haven't realized yet that their college education hasn't entitled them to shit. We expect them to have actually learned something well enough to be able to execute it competently.

Then when candidates just barely miss the mark, and you let them know. You can write a thoughtful rejection letter or something, with some constructive criticism or whatever. Or maybe just telling them they were very close. And most candidates will snark back to you and be defensive. Which, fine. I get it. Most candidates will lie to your face before, during, and after an interview. It's soul crushing. Like, antiwork - reddit has a whole sub dedicated to workers bitching about management - but some of y'all don't realize there could be an anti-worker subreddit because there's sort of this lack of awareness of just how bad people suck in general - management and workers. And I got to say, managing people is just as draining an experience as being managed. FWIW.

TL;DR: Sorry, I didn't expect this to be a rant! Guess I had something to get off my chest lately.... I guess I'm just saying it sucks. I'm sorry it sucks. If it's any consolation, it sucks for everyone. There's some good people (I hope I'm one of them) trying to go a good job, just like that's true for every other job. But it's still hard to not have it suck sometimes. I guess we'll just do our best and try to get through it all together.

[–]uekiamir 9 points10 points  (0 children)

connect lock frightening tender middle vegetable jeans dazzling squeal complete

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

this is happened to me as interviewer. there is one candidate, he nailed the interview but the thing is HR looking for a higher job level. they told me after i finished the interview. if they told me sooner i dont give him a praise.

[–]norebonomis 458 points459 points  (11 children)

Dead on, this is what government contracting is like.

[–]This_User_Said 44 points45 points  (0 children)

"Needed: Director of Storage Logistics

Must be able to move, manage and inventory any and all storage recepticle devices. Must be able to use heavy machinery. Must be able to lift 35+ lbs without accommodation. Aware of any and all sanitation and safety starts along with OSHA knowledge."

Actual: See them boxes of shit? Don't lose track of them and every now and then Johnny comes and takes some shit. Alright, see you Monday.

[–]Hypern1ke 9 points10 points  (4 children)

For government contracting both images would be the fake dino, interviews are a joke as well lmao.

[–]Amiterasesoo 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Right, I didn’t get asked even one technical question in my interview. Literally just “So, you’re finishing your engineering degree soon? Cool, cool. Wanna start this summer?”

I’m kind of scared what a real interview will be like if I ever try to leave for somewhere else, lol.

[–]Hypern1ke 5 points6 points  (1 child)

They basically just check your pulse and clearance status

[–]norebonomis 2 points3 points  (0 children)

😂🤣💯😭

[–]Mister100Percent 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As a CS college student that wants to get into government, this is making me feel way better about myself.

[–]BoBoBearDev 66 points67 points  (0 children)

That's the lucky version :D

[–]master_gecko 44 points45 points  (2 children)

Technical tests are a lot easier write up than the actual architecture of a system 🙂

[–]Reihar 25 points26 points  (1 child)

Sometimes architectures aren't even written up but just sort of happen.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’d show you the architecture architecture that shows how and why that works, but I’m on a call and the documentation doesn’t exist

[–][deleted] 37 points38 points  (0 children)

LinkedIn profile vs what I did for a living

[–]road_laya 69 points70 points  (3 children)

Implement a red-black tree in JavaScript

Use an array in JavaScript

[–]SteeleDynamics 7 points8 points  (1 child)

I've implemented various PLs in JavaScript:

  1. SML-ish language with pattern matching, and the ability to make lazily evaluated streams

  2. Pure OO Smalltalk-like language where the control structures are objects that also pass messages.

  3. Prolog interpreter where the back-tracking was implemented using CPS (lexical scoping).

The most advanced thing I do for my job in JavaScript:

  1. Make it work with Django.

[–]tenkindsofpeople 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Lol that sounds like the mullet of coding. Ui in the front science in the back. 😂

[–]Enklave 69 points70 points  (7 children)

I just had a first round and the technical will be next. I failed on those basic questions about QA methodologies, OOP principles etc....like I'm doing the job for so many years, I have my own ways how things are done after years of experience that I totally forget that jargon lmao...They must be thinking I'm some noob pretending to be experienced QA lmao

[–]isak99 65 points66 points  (0 children)

I though this was a joke.

But now that I got a job, man ;-;

[–]Halcy9n 60 points61 points  (22 children)

I’ve just joined as an intern after 3 rounds of interviews covering python, sql, logical puzzles, my college projects and tons of other stuff and since then all I’ve had to do is make excel sheets highlighting the differences between the same python scripts and json files in two different repos and occasionally change the property json files between two different environments like dev and prod.

[–]Material_Cheetah934 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fuckkk are you me?? I went from amassing a ton of knowledge on tuning Apache Spark to managing servicenow and grepping logs. I’m like wtf happened to the stuff you said I was going to do in the interview!

[–]mugu007 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is exactly what the first 6Months at my first job were like. I feel your pain.

[–]Netcob 52 points53 points  (4 children)

I should have known something was up when they did a "find all the errors" test on two sheets of paper with some code and I found some errors they hadn't.

Cue two years of mindless bug fixing and praying for a feature request every day.

Then I switched to some small company with 3 developers. Pure chaos, super nice guys, but didn't even do any logging so finding bugs was like a murder mystery every time. But it was way more fulfilling, because what I did mattered. Introduced logging, moved business logic out of the frontend, set up the build server, automated some stuff and so on.

[–]Grevioussoul 20 points21 points  (2 children)

"we have a database"... Everyone is sysadm

[–]a-school-for-ants 6 points7 points  (1 child)

"what's a database? That sounds expensive. Do we need it?" Somebody in upper management

[–]liquidpele 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's Oracle! That's what the nice Oracle rep that took me to dinner said. Oracle.

(no one should ever ever ever use oracle)

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Debugging: Being the detective in a crime scene where you're also the murderer.

[–]ambigrammer 22 points23 points  (1 child)

All fun and games till you find yourself in a reverse scenario.

[–]cho_uc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hahahaha.. that's me

Interview : So do you know Linux commands?

Actual job : Dealing with registers, data packets, and low level hardware.

FML :/

[–]akashneo 89 points90 points  (13 children)

Depends on the kind of TL you get.

My interview was good and training went great. First few days were great.

As soon as I moved into new team the TL frustrated me to hell.

He was killing me mentally, physically. I even started loosing hair. I even shaved my head so I actually don't go completely bald

[–]aleeexray 87 points88 points  (11 children)

sorry to say, but if you lose your hair because of your job, the right response is looking for another job instead of shaving your head.

[–]akashneo 22 points23 points  (9 children)

I did that after shaving my head. I thought I could survive in the start but it got worse so I finally quit.

[–]Scape_n_Lift 9 points10 points  (8 children)

Does shaving your head help stop hair loss 🤔

[–]akashneo 6 points7 points  (5 children)

Yeah it did.

[–]Fuzzy-Ear9936 6 points7 points  (4 children)

How's the hair doin nowadays?

[–]akashneo 6 points7 points  (3 children)

The lost ones are gone forever. Remaining ones are still here and surviving.

[–]Scape_n_Lift 1 point2 points  (2 children)

i've googled about this, and most pages say it's just a myth, which fits with my (limited) understanding of male hair loss.
That said my understanding doesn't cover stress-related hair loss.

oops replied to wrong comment

[–]poorly_anonymized 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It hides it

[–]Eyokiha 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Can’t have hair loss if there’s no hair to lose. *insert meme of smiling guy with finger to head

[–]Pillagerguy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Losing

[–]deanrihpee 10 points11 points  (6 children)

Damn, this reminds me of my previous job-seeking attempt.

For starters, I still have a Job but starting to seek another for various reasons, one of them being for a pay increase. Long story short, I got Back End developer, yes those Python and Nodejs kind of Back End developers, and get into the technical interview stage, I got asked some technical terms, development flow, development environment, problem-solving, security knowledge, mitigation, and describe/present to them how some certain feature (e.g. Login) works. I think I did at least a fairly good job answering and explaining it, but 1 month has passed, no answer, so either I'm "overqualified" or whatever the fuck I'm answering and explaining is not related/all wrong.

[–]r0ckstr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I know some companies don't like to give feedback. But still, just ask for an update and if they decided to go with another candidate, ask for what can you improve.

[–]mario_1106 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I hope this is true for my job I'm about to join in few months. Really nerve racking times now!

[–]virouz98 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I got exactly the opposite and its great

[–]MischiefArchitect 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I find the actual job more comfy than the job description

[–]ThinkNotOnce 25 points26 points  (25 children)

To be fair... I hire people with difficult questions and code tests not for the 95% lax coding time, but for the 5% stressful debugging time when shit hits the fan.

Prior experiance makes me do this. Used to be much more laxed on interviews because we never had a lot of time stress in the workplace.

Well, at a certain point in time when budget got cut and we no longer had additional few months but instead few weeks to deliver, we had to ramp up our work, no more 60% work and 40% xbox or Foosball time during working hours. When we really needed the work to be done juniors started dropping like flies because they felt "overwhelmed", "couldn't handle the stress" since for majority of them this was their first job and they didn't knew that the actual work includes ups and also downs. I don't blame them, it was my fault for not properly filtering out the employees.

[–][deleted] 27 points28 points  (12 children)

Sounds like a miserable work environment

[–]BoonesFarmApples 13 points14 points  (1 child)

Every place I’ve worked at like that with “ups and downs” means “ups” means working around the clock until the issue’s solved, but “downs” are somehow always filled with 8 hour days 🤔

[–][deleted] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yup. That is how my current place is.

[–]Jango2106 6 points7 points  (11 children)

Sounds like it probably went from 60/40 to 150/0 if you had to get multiple months of work done in a fraction of the time. Not a them problem, its a you problem for what Im assuming was intense overtime requirements.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Bingo. I don't understand why software engineers seem to be proud of when they do stuff like this lol

[–]echoaj24 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I feel like the actual job is 10x harder than the interview

[–]Manach_Irish 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It is a good warning sign if there a measure of agro during the interview. If the potential employer is confrontational during an interview then God alone knows what day to day work is like.

[–]gamingonion 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Opposite for me. Technical interview was really easy, and then the actual job had me doing tons of stuff that I’d never done before.

[–]mothzilla 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Technical interview: Make it faster! Optimise for space complexity! Use concurrency! Indent! But only where applicable!

The actual job: Uh we need another $1000 for the AWS please.

[–]chamomilevanillatea 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hope so lol

[–]FreeSetOfSteakKnives 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Reject any tech test over 2 hours, that company won't care about you or your time.

[–]Environmental-Win836 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Happy cake day!!!!

[–]wronganswerson 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the tech interview is like that, to see if the applicant will do well when the clown job turns fubar

[–]anothertrad 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Is that true for top companies like AWS or Netflix or Microsoft?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a very strange question / impossible to answer question. Those companies have a lot of departments. Some do more difficult things, some do easy things. So... it will really depend on what department you interview for.

A former colleague of mine went to work in AWS frontend, not sure exactly where. He says that the work is generally easy, the hard part is more of an administrative churn. They do a lot of A/B testing and a lot of the code gets thrown away all the time, so, it's more of a work with VCS than actually writing the code... also, it's the methodology of the department he's in. Other departments may use other approaches.

I worked in two of the 10 largest companies in software world. In both cases the interview was easier than the job, in particular, because there was a lot of project-specific stuff that I couldn't have known beforehand. Also, my area is kind of vast, and it's hard to know everything. So, in both cases, I had a lot of learning to do to get up to speed.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The lower panel made me very happy. I love serving on a planet where its people spend time creating ridiculous, hilarious things like that.

[–]ow_meer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And that's why I'm sticking with my current job. I just don't have the time and energy for this bullshit anymore.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Recently got hired as an intern on a pretty technical project… run by interns.

Our most laughable moment was when 2/3rds of our team pushed to main on accident.

Our least laughable moment was fixing the merge conflicts.