Eric the Mauve posted:

Yes but mostly those firms focus on executive recruiting.

In the world of lower management and ICs, if you ever happen to run into one of the 0.5% of third party recruiters who are actually great at what they do, you'll know it immediately. Because the playbooks run by the other 99.5% are so nearly identical.

The comparatively few companies that are actually willing to invest up front in hiring and training the right people usually have their own internal recruiters, who are good at their jobs. And since they work for one company, they can be properly incentivized to seek quality over quantity. Third party recruiters who serve numerous lords are more consistently rewarded for churning quantity, not quality.

If you run into a third-party recruiter who is actually good at placing quality candidates, chances are that person is early in their career, and soon enough will end up in the executive headhunting end of things and/or employed as an internal recruiter. Or awakening to the realization that they can make a lot more money in straight-up sales and exiting the field.

ultrafilter posted:

Reputable recruiters don't charge candidates.

dpkg chopra posted:

I assumed SouthShoreSamurai is an HM or in charge of talent search at his company but holy lol if recruiters are charging $10,000 for a landing a job

Trickortreat posted:

Are you sure about that though?


Definitely failed the IQ test though. I should have clarified it wasn't literally an IQ test, but I had 12 minutes to answer as many questions as possible and they were all puzzles and math questions. Still forgot how exciting it feels to get past the initial screening stage though. Here's to hoping!

wash bucket posted:

I've done a couple of phone/online interviews with a company and now they're asking me to do something similar called a PXT Assessment. They described it as a 90 minute light SAT.

I guess these are common now?

wash bucket posted:

I've done a couple of phone/online interviews with a company and now they're asking me to do something similar called a PXT Assessment. They described it as a 90 minute light SAT.

I guess these are common now?

wash bucket posted:

Okay this thing really was just the SAT all over again. And apparently it spits out something like this?

lol at how much of hiring people is handled by "systems" now. Applicant tracking software decides if a resume is worth looking at. Assessment tests decide if a candidate is worth interviewing. Everything just turns into a number.

HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:

Today, I'm about to have my first interview in over 5 years. Has anything changed about the interview environment since 2018 or so? Much of the recent thread has been resume-related so I figured I'd ask. For perspective, I am close to finishing a deep learning-heavy PhD in biomedical engineering, and I'm looking at mostly tech/R&D jobs with machine learning/deep learning job titles/requirements.

I did read the OP and the old OP though I am already familiar with most of what they had to say.

Lockback posted:

Remote or in person?

In-person? Nah, nothing majorly changed.

Remote: Make sure you are showing an environment that is conducive to work. Be mindful about what you wear, how you're sitting, etc. All that stuff is amplified.

quote:

Remote: Make sure you are showing an environment that is conducive to work. Be mindful about what you wear, how you're sitting, etc. All that stuff is amplified.

HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:

I am close to finishing a deep learning-heavy PhD in biomedical engineering, and I'm looking at mostly tech/R&D jobs with machine learning/deep learning job titles/requirements..

CarForumPoster posted:

Way to go! The world is prob your oyster as far as jobs. Hard science PhDs tend to have a high propensity of being oddballs who write poo poo code and can’t follow any processes, so even a little signaling that you can work with other people and acclimate to corpo life will put you in the top 5.

HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:

Thanks

People seem to like working with me, but the jury is still out on not being an oddball! (or not writing poo poo code or following processes). Anyway, yeah, I'm also optimistic towards my job prospects. Machine learning and data science are pretty hot these days.

As for the interview, it ended up being all technical questions, which seemed strange for an initial phone call. I think I did fine, but it's hard to say without actually seeing the interviewer's face. At a minimum, it was practice!

CarForumPoster posted:

I can't imagine a poster by the name of HOMOEROTIC JESUS writing bad code.

CarForumPoster posted:

Thats a very startup-founded-by-inexperienced-science-people phone interview to have. Was that your read?

EDIT: In case you want advice: If this is a Series A or pre Series A startup I'd call that a red flag worthy of further inquisition. If its 50+ employees post Series A, its kinda odd for a phone interview and I'd have more follow up questions for you like who did you talk to, are they having technical people do phone interviews?

HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:

<3

Yes, that was definitely my read from the interview. The interviewer was a head engineer there, I think mainly because they have no dedicated HR person on account of being small (~20 people at their US site).

I was finally able to chat with my friend at the startup, and it sounds like the company just got Series A funding. Said friend is enjoying their time over there, claiming great work-life balance, solid pay, good coworkers/management, and interesting problems to work on. They've been at the company for several months now, and they gave a hearty recommendation for the job so long as my partner and I wanted to live in the area. This mostly addressed my concerns, but I'm still wary of startups due to their storied propensity to fail unexpectedly and catastrophically whilst being exhausting sweatshops.

Anyway, there's little point in worrying about it unless I get an offer or a followup interview. I intend to keep applying and interviewing elsewhere.

ultrafilter posted:

The YOSPOS interview thread has some good guidelines on how to assess startups in the first few posts. Worth a look if you're interested.

CarForumPoster posted:

mmmm its like a succulent bite of cheesecake every time I nail a prediction *shudders priapically*

Red flag. Specifically, its a red flag for "founders cant manage cash/headcount and product, will burn through it failing unexpectedly". Head engineer phone interviewing at a small company is normal. Hell, that's me and my job. That said, doing a grilling technical PHONE interview hints at some personality risks.
Why are they prioritizing technical grilling over understanding whether this person can work with the other team members? Is this the type of place that likes brilliant jerks?
Why are they mostly asking technical questions rather than selling YOU on working there? You left unconvinced that their startup didnt have the technical startup problems. They should sell such that you dont think that quickly. Instaed you left with a feeling that it was odd any it makes you less likely to hold on other interviews meaning their chance of landing you is lower. This hints at inexperience.

Without details from the other side I can't really KNOW whats going on there, but based on stereotypes I'd call this company a risky startup. That said, just because its risky doesnt mean it isnt an awesome opportunity. Just means you need to calculate expected value differently than you would with a big pharma company or something.

CarForumPoster posted:

HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:

Yup, great questions and reasonable assumptions. It puzzles me to have this sort of technical screening without, at a minimum, a Zoom call so people can use a whiteboard to work through answers in front of the interviewer. I've heard they've had trouble filling this position; they had hired one person who reneged before their start date to go to another company, and other candidates thereafter have had grossly inadequate technical skills. That explains a little bit why they started off with the technical interview. But I'm not really sure they're offering enough money to lure in the candidate they are looking for. The tippy-top of their range is $160k, which at best is a tepid salary for ML guys right now. Factoring in that they're looking for a technically-skilled ML engineer with relevant biomedical domain knowledge to work at a startup with who-knows-what funding... something needs to budge to make the number look right.

So, anyway, you are very right in that they need to do better about selling the position to applicants. Especially when machine learning engineers have their pick of jobs these days. You can't just give off bad vibes about your startup and expect applicants to be eager to accept offers.

1) Based on what I know about their funding, they should be fine for about 1.5 to 2 years. I don't know for sure, though.
2) Wish I could have asked about the relationship between the founders in the interview, for sure, but it sounds like they get along well based on my friend's assessment.
3) Founders still retain control of the board.
4) Asking about the changes the interviewer had seen would have been great, but alas I did not. My understanding outside of the interview is that they have spent the last year developing prototypes of their product. They now have potential clients testing it while various aspects are refined further.

That YOSPOS thread looks like a great resource, thanks ultrafilter!

CarForumPoster posted:

I mean...theyre gonna have another interview before offer, right? Ask then. I hope theyre not making an offer with a number on phone interview, if so...another red flag. If they do, dont join for less than 1% of the company which they cant give you because their Series A employee option pool is prob 10%.

HOMOEROTIC JESUS posted:

That's great advice. The questions will definitely come out when/if the follow up interviews occur.

quote:

Startups/Technology Jobs -- your resume doesn't matter as long as you have enough buzzwords on it for the recruiter to send you along. From that point, the screenings are all very technical and as long as you know your poo poo technically, you will almost certainly get a job offer out of it. Technical companies do a bad job of caring about anything other than technical skill, so basically none of this thread applies to you.