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So I've been interviewing engineering candidates for a long time, for a large company. We'd do the typical process (for us technical guys) of asking a series of engineering problems related to the job we were hiring for. Most engineering candidates expect this and it went fine. We each made up our own complex questions and design scenarios so as to avoid the stuff popping up on the interwebs. Now, I'm starting to interview non-engineering candidates for my new company: artists, sound guys, etc. I wonder how effective these sort of "working interviews" would be with that crowd? Is that the kind of thing these candidates are prepared for? I was thinking, for artists, to have them sketch out during the interview an object, or scene, described in words. I have no idea what I'd do for the sound guys but yea, stuff like that. Oh, if you have questions about how we actually decided to hire which people, feel free to ask, I won't mention the company so I can discuss the details. And I no longer work for them anyway.
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Aug 4, 2013 18:01
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 00:43 |
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Why do some people majorly inflate their salary range? Is this from some sort of self-help internet publication or something? I just had a bachelor's degree CS student ask me for $80k a year plus benefits for an entry level coding job. I mean, does he think I'm going to counter with $10k and then we'd work to something reasonable, like we're haggling in a flea market or something? I just move on to the next guy.
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Aug 21, 2013 00:30
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WampaLord posted:Alternatively, why don't job listings have a salary range included? Seeing "based on experience" doesn't really help. Both sides are just waiting for the other to name a number first because whoever says a number first loses. For huge companies, I imagine it's a matter of competition. Competitors can just read your listings and offer better for high value positions or, and this sucks for the candidates, decide that, "oh look, XYZ corp our direct competitors is only offering $24k for new entry-level hires, let's do the same." Instant wage fixing for replaceable/plentiful people. For small companies like mine it's because we have a really tight budget and want to get maximum value for our dollar. Candidates seem to think its a them vs the company thing when negotiating for their salary but, especially at small business levels, its more like a prioritization scheme. You're not thinking "okay, let's talk this rear end in a top hat down to $N a month." Rather you're trying to decide: "If I give this guy what he'll be okay with, I'll have to forego some equipment/conferences/etc., is he really worth it?" Or maybe: "This other guy wants less and is almost as good, can I make do with him? I could probably also afford part time help with what I save. Is this first guy worth 1.5 other people?" Flat out stating what the position would pay means people are going to ask for at least that much. You'd have to state a lower value instead and then you'd risk driving off good candidates who might actually be willing to work for that actual value you'd be willing to pay. To make this on-topic: if you're interviewing with a huge company, negotiate your salary but don't be ridiculous. You're still dealing with a busy staffing agent on the other end. He will either just ignore your offer and give you a low-ball offer, or just write you off entirely, if you ask for incredulous levels of salary. Also don't ask about pay at your technical interview (if you have one) as the engineers doing the interview have no idea what the company is willing to offer and don't even have the authority it discuss it. If you're applying to a small company, be reasonable. They likely have a super tight budget for hiring. They also won't want to do the whole back and forth negotiation thing that professional recruiters and staffers are willing to do because generally the people hiring also have a job that contributes materially to the company and the time they spend messing around with your demands is less time they have to actually work. If you really feel like you deserve a super high salary, go ahead and state it, but don't be surprised if they just say, "Thank you for you time" and move on. Alternatively, if their initial offer is much lower than what you want (like, $20k lower, but honestly this should never happen unless you have out of touch expectations or are applying to the wrong level of job), feel free to withdraw your application, they likely don't have much room to raise it anyhow. Lastly, if you're negotiating with my company, work for free. You can sleep on the reception couch and I will buy you frozen yogurt to eat and bring you a bucket of water (every day!) to wash with. Truly generous terms.
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Aug 21, 2013 01:31
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me your dad posted:I've got a three person interview next week. Is it perceived as being creepy to check out the interviewer's Linkedin profile in advance to the interview? It's creepy if you want to talk more about the interviewer's past jobs than you do about your own qualifications. I interviewed a candidate a bit ago (mentioned this in the Linked In thread) who totally creeped me out because he had all these questions about my career and I didn't know he looked me up on LinkedIn. If you have a couple specific questions about their work history, bringing it up like, "Oh, I saw on LinkedIn you worked for XYZ, [insert question]?" should be fine. Stuff like, "Oh man XYZ is AWESOME what was it like there?" would be out of place.
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Aug 29, 2013 18:21
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StarSiren posted:
Don't mention the speech impediment, just say you can be somewhat shy and you find that it sometimes [whatever you feel it does to hamper you] but you've actively been working on overcoming it. That's actually a nice honest weakness that doesn't sound alarm bells and shows you can recognize your own faults. If they follow up on why (they won't) you should mention the speech impediment thing and how its colored your life, but this will never come up. That weakness question (I ask it myself, though I ask for 3) is really just a chance to let the interviewee hang themselves with answers like (I've actually heard these in interviews): "Sometimes I don't like to work, so I just pretend to do work all day while watching netflix.", "I'm pretty lazy and find getting to work everyday a chore.", and "I tend to sabotage things I don't like or disagree with." Try yourself out on the question that managed to kill the most candidates in my most recent round of interviews: Describe a time when you went above the "call of duty" in a job or school setting. Why did you choose to do so?
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Sep 11, 2013 17:27
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KernelSlanders posted:How did that kill candidates? Please tell me it doesn't involve Call of Duty. It's just a really good opportunity for candidates to reveal either a lack of work ethic or, sometimes, that they have questionable motivations. The first usually comes up when they can't think of a good example of a time they went the extra mile on something. I'm paraphrasing entire (awkward) conversations but a number of candidates basically told me, "I've never done more than asked, I don't think I ever would, its just a job right?". For the second pitfall, I had a couple of people use volunteer work as their example of going above and beyond, but when I asked them why they did so, one person said, essentially, it was a great way to meet girls. The other guy said it made him feel better that there are people worse off than him. FAN OF NICKELBACK posted:It's a good foundation for an answer, but I would definitely drop the word "claimed" and all insinuation that she might have been wrong. Simply, it shows your inner monologue with a negative edge; it is stronger to say something like "She let me know she called and was under the impression we had the item in stock, which we didn't. Someone from our store may have accidentally given her misinformation, or she may have simply called another store on accident, but either way my only concern was that she walked away remembering her experience with us the way we wanted to be remembered. Being the team lead and senior employee, it was a great opportunity for me to lead by example as well so I . . . " I agree, its a good start. Most people that had retail experience had a similar story, where an angry customer comes in and they bend over backwards to help them. Where you distinguish yourself, at least for me, is the reason you did that. It let's you demonstrate that you are a leader if you go with "it was a great opportunity to demonstrate to the rest of the staff what we expect...", or that you are conscientious and compassionate, "it just seemed like she had a rough day and I wanted to make sure she remembered our store positively...". Depending on how you want to present yourself, you can take it a lot of places. People tend to look for motivations that reflect a desire to help the team and coworkers, or (more unrealistically) make the company look good. Be wary of answers that stray too far into the "I'M A GOOD COMPANY MAN" realm. Stuff expressing the sentiment that, "I'd do anything for the people I work for!", is highly unbelievable and its unrealistic that your entire motivation could be the good of the corporation that you have no ownership stake in.
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Sep 12, 2013 01:30
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OperaMouse posted:What are good ways to find out how someone is to work with? Are you doing technical work? The best way to find out how someone is to work with, is to work with them. I make developer candidates code through a sample problem with me. I make artist candidates do a concept sketch process with me. If you have to work with the guy, I wouldn't attempt to modify your own style much. You need to see how candidates react to it and you're not actually the hiring manager or recruiter so you don't really have to worry too much about maintaining some corporate image/facade.
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Sep 12, 2013 19:02
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I have a guy who really wanted one of the positions, and he was an "okay" fit. After we interviewed him though, we found a "great" fit. Now I feel bad I have to tell this guy, who was really, really excited about it, "No, sorry, you were super excited about the job but you didn't get it." so I've been procrastinating. I should have told him today, but I didn't. I'm a bad person  Its not just people on the interviewee side who feel bad sometimes! CarForumPoster posted:Point is I've never gotten told yes or no on the first day they said I would. This is very true, with the best of intentions I usually don't manage to get back to people the day I wanted to. There's always some hang up. Sivlan fucked around with this message at 21:59 on Sep 18, 2013 |
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Sep 18, 2013 07:34
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 00:43 |
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yoohoo posted:Coming from the interviewee side, what would be the best thing an "okay" fit could do to get the edge over a "great" fit? I've been in that situation before and it can be very frustrating when you know you'll be great at the job if you can just get the chance. Unfortunately there is almost always someone there with more experience who gets it. How far with drive and determination get you? This directly affects me because I'm looking to make a career change into a field I don't have a TON of experience in, but I know that if I have the chance to prove myself I will absolutely succeed. But everyone it seems like wants someone with a proven record. I think I should clarify my terms a bit, I'm not sure how common this is across industries. I also point out that we do a competency test during the interview for our positions, so we have a lot more to go on than their resume and what they tell us. The great fit candidates are, at least for me, all the candidates who do well at the competency check. Deciding between them is generally not about ranking by the primary skill set but on other qualities like attentiveness, professionalism, enthusiasms, or useful other skills because I've already verified that all the candidates in the "great" category can do the primary job. By contrast the "okay" fit person is someone who barely squeezed by the competency check, but shows potential to be trainable quickly on the job, and has some other remarkable skill that I feel would be a great asset for the group. The people who don't have some other remarkable quality and don't do well on the competency check are just flat out "poor" fits. So if you can't somehow prove you're a great fit during your interview: either because its a field that relies heavily on previous experience to judge candidates, or because your skills just aren't that polished, you will likely be put in the "poor" fit group. All the effort you put into giving yourself an "edge", showing drive, determination, teamwork skills or what-have-you is what's going to help move you into the "okay" category. You have to keep in mind that all that time spent ramping you up and letting you learn on the job (which is what I would expect from someone who I felt was an okay fit) is money lost, so employers are going to want to stick with the great category whenever they can. Out of curiosity, what field are you trying to switch into? I find it interesting that your impression of the field is that all the jobs go to the most experienced candidates, because I find there's almost always some sort of entry level position for most fields just due to the fact that its so much cheaper to hire. And sometimes you really don't need 5-star-awesome-dude when the work is really just 2-star-halp-where-is-button stuff. I mean unless the field is like, "space marine" or "ninja assassin" or something super specialized, I would imagine there would be something where they wouldn't expect too much experience. Sivlan fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Sep 21, 2013 |
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Sep 21, 2013 09:39
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