Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

astr0man posted:

I took a quick look at your pdf resume and it seems alright except that:

these things aren't languages

Resume updated

Space Gopher posted:

This is jumping out and screaming at me as a major issue. Can you go into more detail about what trips you up? You're shooting for technical jobs, so the technical questions are do-or-die. Non-technical stuff is more of a pass/fail "is this person capable of doing work on time and passing the 'minimum acceptable human being to be around' bar?" and a potential tiebreaker between technically qualified candidates.

Don't be afraid to apply anywhere that looks like they might hire you, just for practice. Right now, if you're unemployed, you've got time to schedule interviews anywhere. Even if a company says "our core business is providing disruptive solutions to enhance lethality over the critical link between warrantless phone surveillance and drone strikes PS no women, negroes, or Irish need apply," you can still use them for interview practice and decline the offer if they get back to you. Plenty of big corporations do a similar thing from the opposite direction: they identify a candidate before they open the hiring process, but still bring in a few outside applicants they'll never hire just for the sake of demonstrating due diligence.

I had to work and support myself throughout college, so I wasn't able to give enough attention to the theoretical CS concepts. I don't have my sort algorithms memorized, I've forgotten nearly everything taught in my advanced C++ course, and about the only design pattern I knowingly use is MVC. All I know is that I've been told I write good, boring code.

Strong Sauce posted:

Space Gopher is right. Even with your other resume problems, the biggest problem is there's a year gap on your resume.

I am not one to normally say this, but honestly, you need to figure out how to reduce that one year gap on your resume. Did you do consulting? Work on your own projects?

Edit: Not to say ValleyWag, Pando or TechCrunch are not sometimes on the money. But their entire existence is as a tabloid, not actual news.

Updated resume adds the other independent projects and their timespans. I currently drive old people all over town and fix malware-infected computers for cash. It's hardly profitable and not related to my career. I've contacted a few Twitch.TV streamers to see if they need/want any coding done for them.

I take Gawker with a grain of salt, but Valleywag seems to hit the mark more often than not.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2014 21:51

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 07:44

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

take a day off and apply for jobs, then take another day off when you have interviews.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 00:31

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Some people like myself need to learn this lesson the hard way, but we are all trying to help you deal with this lovely situation so that you come out of it in the best possible way.

I don't know UK laws, but if it's just like the US, you can't collect unemployment if you voluntarily quit. By the sounds of it, the company is doing its best to make sure you do voluntarily quit. Businesses are taxed and pay a small portion of your unemployment checks, and because it's the business's job to get revenue, one way they do that is to minimize costs. They still need developers to make the stuff that gets them revenue. Once they prove they can churn out something, anything's fair game. If you voluntarily quit, they couldn't be happier.

Since this company is milking the hell out of its employees, don't feel bad for milking the company. Search for jobs on company time. Take smoke breaks to do phone interviews. I wouldn't go as far as say do everything in your power to get fired, but start fighting back until you can truly jump ship for another job.

Please see a mental health counselor to vent your anger and give you an outside perspective on everything going in your life. This is one of the very few regrets I have. Had I seen a counselor sooner, I would be in much better shape than I am today. I truly thought I was being rational in my own head, but people and the world aren't rational; in dire circumstances we rationalize things in a very tunneled way so that it gives us hope. From an outsider's perspective however, it looks like you couldn't handle a tough situation. That's a tough first impression to overcome.

I did you want to do. Now I'm in a much worse spot. Please, please, please do not repeat the same mistakes I did. I don't wish for what's happened in the past year of my life on anybody.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 13:57

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

I applied at a development shop and this is their recruiting process.

quote:

1. Complete and submit Part 1 of the Challenge.
2. Evaluation of Part 1: Typically takes 1 week. (process can end here)
3. Assignment and submission of Part 2 of the Challenge.
4. Evaluation of Part 2: Typically takes 1-2 weeks. (process can end here)
5. Phone interview. (process can end here)
6. Addition to our "To Hire" Pool. When we need to add developers to our staff, we hire from this set of people who we've already vetted, looking for developers who have the best match of skills to our current needs and are ready to join us.
7. Assignment to your first project.

Emphasis mine. The challenge is pretty involved and requires conversions among binary, hexadecimal, and integers without using a language's standard library or third-party framework. The end result is you're a 1099 contractor with no taxes taken out of your paycheck (but you pay much more in taxes than a w2), and you can only get $35-$50 an hour. I can't tell if this is an incredibly convoluted process, or I'm just being whiny.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 19:16

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

You learn when you're ready when your potential employers give you a job offer. Degree matters not.

To bring people up to speed on my situation, I did get and accept a job offer. It's in my area, but the pay is poo poo even for here. Some pay is better than none, so I'll keep applying for jobs (which I should do anyway).

wolffenstein fucked around with this message at 23:07 on Jul 30, 2014

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 23:04

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Trim it down to one page. You can cut what you delete from the resume and paste it into your LinkedIn profile.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 20:50

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Hell yeah

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 23:41

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

I once had an impromptu coding interview to give, so I sat beside the candidate, booted my laptop into a guest account, and let the candidate do whatever they needed to implement FizzBuzz twice (their preferred language then a proprietary language). They still messed up FizzBuzz in their preferred language, but the candidate was thankful I allowed them to use a computer rather than a whiteboard. Whiteboards are fine for diagraming and illustrating something, but I've met coders that don't know how to use a computer that's not their own. Plus most people type faster than they can write. To me, using a computer over a whiteboard was a two birds, one stone solution. I guess I'm in the minority?

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 02:59

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Mniot posted:

That's me. ... And knowing that someone's watching me as I repeatedly misspell "function" or choose the wrong item from auto-completion or litter my code with quote-marks when I mean to type semicolons makes the whole thing awful.

I can't speak to your other points as this was at a small business with very specific needs. However on this point I was fully aware of people's degraded typing when somebody's watching. I didn't count typos against the candidate, because I've checked in typos myself by accident. When you try to run your code and can't figure what the error is or even which line number is referenced, then that becomes a serious red flag. Again this was for a small business. A candidate needs to be able to a little bit of everything, so a candidate that can't troubleshoot a simple technical support problem can be a big red flag depending on the small business's organization.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 09:04

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

It can happen. I remember a recruiter getting mad at me for suggesting a Skype call when I didn't want to drive 2+ hours from Sacramento to the Bay Area for such an interview. But yeah gently caress those recruiters.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2014 22:24

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Let the interviewer call your dad if he wants, but don't let your dad contact him. I'm not a fan of nepotism but since you're in such a situation, let it come to you rather than being aggressive.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2014 16:30

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Is there some reason why the drastic lifestyle change stopped you from doing iOS development? I'd focus on getting another iOS job even if you don't have the equipment right now so that you're at least employed and financially stable until you're ready to switch careers. Hell, I want an iOS job so then I can get out of web development with PHP, and I have a CS degree. How can I get some of your luck to rub off on me?

Even if you don't have the equipment, you still have the knowledge and experience. Also if your situation was anything like mine a year ago, please see a counselor or any professional help. They'll help you with your confidence better than any of us can.

wolffenstein fucked around with this message at 12:36 on Nov 1, 2014

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 12:32

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

https://careers.stackoverflow.com/cv/invitation/d8e1fa13-9693-4c87-9fe8-481ddbb76418

# ¿ Nov 5, 2014 20:36

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Tomahawk posted:

I've been looking for open source Ruby projects I can contribute to (mostly looking at gems and such) and I've honestly never seen any issues tagged for beginners. Any recommendations for finding such projects?

Find low priority tickets/issues. They're generally trivial to do.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2015 05:31

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

That query's a good start but figure out how to do it without a subquery.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 06:12

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Kuule hain nussivan posted:

SELECT id, name
FROM customers, orders
WHERE customers.id = orders.customer_id AND NVL(orders.total_cost, 0) < 100

I think NVL is how you dealt with NULLs on Oracle. I imagine ISNULL(value, replacement) works in some other languages as well.

what about customers who have spent less than $100 ever. customers can put in many orders.

# ¿ Nov 13, 2015 07:58

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Fish Ladder Theory posted:

you can comment on the doc itself if that's easier than replying

It was, and I hope future newbies follow your example.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 12:08

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

No and just the junior college and current university.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2016 05:45

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

You're probably right on the edge of entry level. Brush up your resume, get it reviewed several times, and go to meetups and network.

# ¿ May 3, 2016 23:50

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

I keep this bookmarked for situations like Zero The Hero's.

# ¿ May 12, 2016 22:32

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 07:44

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

Never not negotiate.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2017 18:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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