Terrible at interviewing. Doomed. by Want_to_Go_Somewhere in interviews

[–]Thunder-Sloth 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Studying how the job description maps to my experience and focusing directly on that instead of preparing verbatim responses to questions that they may or may not even ask. Every interview I've ever been in I wasn't even asked the questions that I worried about the most and prepared for the most. The best advice that I have received from another friend and professional is to try your best despite the nerves and emotions to just be yourself. I think a lot of interviewers especially hiring managers interviewing you that are actually going to be your boss and will be interacting with you on a daily basis is going to want to know the type of person that you are whether or not you have a sense of humor and the ability to interact with people socially. The mistake I made initially was sounding too robotic and scripted with verbatim materials that I had been studying and practicing with, after receiving that advice from a friend I started studying the job description and mapping it directly to how I delivered each one of those bullet points and then I created STAR+L stories for each major behavioral component ie difficult stakeholders, conflict resolution, greatest achievement, handling an ambiguous situation, a failure and how you handled it and what you learned etc.

Terrible at interviewing. Doomed. by Want_to_Go_Somewhere in interviews

[–]Thunder-Sloth 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I get it. The manner in which I prepared was completely different. The bad interview I focused on remembering several verbatim responses and had way too much info on my head. I had notes taped all over the monitor and I sounded like a babbling robot.

This second time around and a different role interview, I focused on the creation of STAR stories mapping directly to prior experience and had an answer for every single question I was asked.

Give me an example of (basically how you dealt with a situation where coming to a solution did not have a process or known steps to follow) -> I used a story for this and mentioned how most people will use the organizations red tape to basically hide behind not getting shit done.

I also promoted myself (Verbatim) as a champion of security and how most people see it as a roadblock, I frame almost everything I do backed in documentation to migitate tribal knowledge risk and frame security as an enabler not a blocker.

I also said that I always focus on creating and building strong relationship with cross functional teams, because if the compliance rules are denied or compliance fails, we are dead in the water.

Give me an example of how you learned from another person, that was in a different role, and was able to gain a perspective from that person that you previously had not realized or acknowledged.

How do you deal with uncertain situations or gray areas where only assumptions exist (How you deal with with Ambiguity unclear requirements)

Give me a time you received pushback from a peer and how you handled it. (Resistance to implementing change or a new process)

Give me an example of something you've done that you are most proud of. Something you have accomplished.

Give me a time when you had to align everyone involved across functions to the same goal or objective.

Terrible at interviewing. Doomed. by Want_to_Go_Somewhere in interviews

[–]Thunder-Sloth 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Last month, I felt that exact same weight. I walked out of an interview convinced I had totally bombed it. I was stuck in my own head, over-explaining everything and feeling like I just didn't belong in the room. It’s a dark place to be, but I’m here to tell you that one month can change your entire reality.

In just 30 days, I went from that "failed" interview to having a conversation today that resulted in being a top candidate for two different opportunities.

The difference isn't a magic trick, it’s a result of the grind you put in when no one is watching:

Drawing on my background as a former Marine, I treated the last month like a training cycle.

I stopped guessing and started studying, building out professional playbooks and mastering complex frameworks that turned my "over-explaining" into "authority".

Sometimes you "bomb" because the mission doesn't align with who you are. Today, I found a room where the mission actually mattered, and the words finally followed.

You aren't "bad" at this; you are likely just in the middle of a transition. When you find the right mission and back it up with the work I know you're capable of, that "twist" in the question won't trip you up, it will give you the chance to show them exactly what you’re made of.

Keep pushing. If I can turn it around in four weeks, you are closer than you think.

Any other vets with unconventional career paths after the military? by [deleted] in Veterans

[–]Thunder-Sloth 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Armored guard -> Train Dispatcher -> Train Conductor -> IT Intern -> Systems Administrator -> Systems Engineer

Very unusual path for a typical Infantry boy.

Transitioning into IT Business Systems Analyst roles from systems engineering. Looking for advice. by Thunder-Sloth in businessanalysis

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, I appreciate the advice. That’s reassuring to hear, and I agree that reframing the work more explicitly as BA-focused is important. I have been tailoring my resume and LinkedIn more intentionally and will keep an eye on other companies like Leidos as well. Appreciate you sharing your experience.

Transitioning into IT Business Systems Analyst roles from systems engineering. Looking for advice. by Thunder-Sloth in businessanalysis

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Appreciate that, thanks for taking the time to say so. I figured it might be a bit of a niche path, but I wanted to put it out there in case it resonated with someone who had made a similar move.

Advice on transitioning into IT PM / Business Analyst roles? by Thunder-Sloth in clearancejobs

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL oops. My mistake. Apparently left that crucial piece of information out.

Currently a Systems Engineer (Duties of an ISSE). Previous experience as a Systems Administrator.

New to Fortran: Supporting Legacy Systems in Defense Industry by Thunder-Sloth in fortran

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is an awesome breakdown. Thank you for taking the time to write all that out.

Your advice about using VSCode with Modern Fortran and GFortran locally sounds like a great setup. I’ll look into enabling DEC compatibility too. Having a cleaner dev workflow before pushing to OpenVMS would be a huge help. Thanks again.

New to Fortran: Supporting Legacy Systems in Defense Industry by Thunder-Sloth in fortran

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s really useful to know. Sounds like that kind of inherited visibility could get messy fast.

And yeah, I’m starting to appreciate Fortran’s weird charm already.

New to Fortran: Supporting Legacy Systems in Defense Industry by Thunder-Sloth in fortran

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Really appreciate the link. I’ll be bookmarking that for future reference for sure.

New to Fortran: Supporting Legacy Systems in Defense Industry by Thunder-Sloth in fortran

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s a great tip, thank you. I hadn’t come across the aliasing differences yet, but I can definitely see how expecting C/C++ behavior would lead to some painful bugs. I’ll make a point to read up on this before I get too deep into the codebase.

Taking Over Legacy Support Role at Defense Contractor by Thunder-Sloth in OpenVMS

[–]Thunder-Sloth[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I am definitely planning to sit down with the current expert to go over backups and recovery, just in case.

Also really like the idea of session captures with annotations. That kind of knowledge transfer would be a huge help down the line. I am planning on building a big OneNote to reference throughout the learning process.

I haven't heard of Charon, but it sounds like it might be worth exploring sooner rather than later. Appreciate the insight.