- Soulex
- Apr 1, 2009
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Cacati in mano e pigliati a schiaffi!
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Ok gents, I've been doing a lot of interviews lately on both sides of the table, for reasons I can explain later. I've helped enough people / answered questions / etc. enough in the past few months about this that I should probably make a full and proper effortpost about it, since a lot of goons seem to be getting done with school and starting to enter the proper educated workforce. I'm putting it in this thread because it's a better place for it than the regular chat thread.
CAVEATS: My background is that of a low/middle management, white collar worker in the DC-area military industrial complex, clocking in at roughly 7 years of experience, 4 years in-industry. Just enough to fill a senior role as an analyst and a mid-level for management. Some of the stuff that I'll be discussing will be industry specific, but a lot of it will be generic and universal because white collar work is generic. So you'll have to excuse me if some of the stuff I say doesn't apply to your aspirations to be a horse butthole inspection roughneck or something.
Specifically, my focus is on the dreaded "Culture Fit" portions of interviews, as my background is that of a generalist rather than a specialist. I have interviewed potential subordinates (~100), peers (~50), and superiors (~10). Recently, to keep my skills sharp and save some cards for a potential power play later, I have been interviewing at other companies for my level or above. I am 3 for 3 on getting offers in this adventure, which is largely meaningless, but I'll explain why later too.
I will not be talking much at all about resumes. That's another topic for another day, that requires a lot more in-depth industry specific discussion. The only thing I will say is that if your resume isn't one page long, I'm not reading it unless it's insanely interesting and for a senior position. I don't expect cover letters per my industry, but if you provide one, and it doesn't blow my socks off, I'm tossing your resume without reading it. I've had resumes in the past with amazing cover letters and advanced the candidate based on that. So consider them a choose your own adventure - just be aware if it's not interesting it will sink you.
TERMINOLOGY:
Junior refers to people just entering the workforce. Age is largely irrelevant, but they tend to be in the 22-26 range. Experience is typically 0 to 3 years in-industry. Your resume will fit on one page.
Mid-level ('mids') are 3-7 years related experience and are the bulk of the workforce. Age is also irrelevant, they can be as young as 28-ish to as old as whatever. Your resume will fit on one page.
Seniors are 7-10 years of related experience, and again if you're noting a trend, age is irrelevant. My first program manager was a year younger than I was, having worked in-industry since 22. You resume will fit on 1.5 pages at the absolute maximum, ideally still just one.
UNIVERSAL RULES:
If your application has moved forward, DO NOT HARASS THE HIRING POINT OF CONTACT. Email them one time, at least a week after, and don't be surprised if they ghost you. poo poo happens.
Resumes don't include references anymore. If I want them I'll ask for them later in the process - or, more likely, HR will ask for them. They take up valuable room.
If you're a junior it's ok to pad your resume with poo poo like knowing office or being self-driven. I don't want to see that poo poo on anybody mid level or above.
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THE PROPER INTERVIEW PROCESS: The proper interview process consists of several components, which I will be covering in detail below: 1) An online application* 2) A phone screen and/or phone interview 3) An on-site interview 4) The closing negotiations.
1) The online application. This gets an asterisk next to it because sometimes if the company is small enough, you don't have to do this one. I was a referral hire at my company and I still had to fill out the online application because the talent management software that is popular with most companies does not really like it when you manually put someone into the system. It's just easier for everyone involved to just loving fill out the thing. The purpose of this stage is to screen out the absolutely insane amount of applications that are straight up invalid with the job requirements. I hate them, you hate them, but there's nothing that can be done about this. I found this out when I put up my very first requisition and HR informed me that they had received 7k applications for a 14-day req, but the system had screened them down to roughly 500. Seven. Thousand. Who was screened out, you might ask? People that live outside the US. People that checked off 'NO' to 'are you a US Citizen'. People that don't have a bachelors degree and/or an expected bachelors degree by next year. People that have a PhD. All of this poo poo was straight up in the requisition posting. It doesn't matter, people will apply to anything and everything because idiot career counselors still dish out 'just apply! you lose nothing if you just apply!' advice.
Seriously, these things are awful. Especially the ones that make you fill out every block from your resume then require you to attach your resume anyway.
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2a) The Phone Screen. So you've been contacted by an actual human being that wants to talk to you! Hooray! The purpose of this screen is to make sure that you actually didn't just check off what we thought you wanted to hear. Sorry, this person is likely from HR and has absolutely no power to do anything other than ask you questions you probably already answered. It's lovely to get to this stage and hype yourself up thinking you're almost there, but again this is a necessary component of the process. You can find out if this call is a phone screen or a phone interview, if it's not immediately obvious, by asking the emailing/calling person. It's 100% ok. Say something like "Just so I'm adequately prepared, is this a screening call or an actual interview?" and your contact will tell you. They aren't going to pull a gotcha on you, they're already burning time contacting you. Phone screens are quick calls, sometimes as short as 5-10 minutes. They look at your resume and you verify certain parts of it - sometimes distilled down to 'would you say you have between 5-7 years of experience in this industry?' or 'how confident are you that you will complete your degree by [insert time]?'. It's nothing personal.
2b) The Phone Interview*. Hooray for real! This is sometimes combined into one call, sometimes it's not. This is likely with a person that has actual for-real hiring power! But don't get too excited yet, as you're only just starting the actual interview process and there's probably 12-15 people in this pool. The questions that will be asked in these calls are often entirely work history / technical related. The reason behind that is simple: We're pretty confident that you're not lying to us about your basic qualifications, now let's see if you actually have technical skills. I can't tell you what questions will be asked beyond that, as it's 100% company/position/industry based. Just be prepared if you have an actual phone interview to be prepared for a majority of technical skills questions. Phone interviews can last anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more, your interviewer will let you know before you agree to a time. Please make sure that you have a quiet place with good cell reception, that you have verified beforehand, to take the interview call. I've had applicants on a call do it from outside; which is fine...except it was a windy day. Or in a stairwell with bad cell reception. Really fucks with the process, which could end up in your rejection because we couldn't get the detail we needed because we had to repeat the question/answer six times.
*THE WEBCAM INTERVIEW: This gets a special note. Sometimes you'll have to do these in place of a phone interview. They're loving awful and I hate them. What's going to happen is you're going to have to dedicate a space and time to properly set up a webcam, dress up like it's a real interview, and awkwardly answer technical questions while staring at a camera on your laptop. It's going to be low quality and lovely, and you're going to be nervous and awkward. For the love of god make sure you wear pants, and do a sound check BEFORE the interview.
RED FLAG: If you're given any sort of take-home homework that requires more than an hour, two hours tops, without compensation. You'll see this in computer toucher jobs a lot with programming tests. I recently had to do one that involved a program management case study - an hour to read, half an hour to write. That's the upper limit of what you should tolerate, but it's up to you how badly you need/want a job that makes you jump through hoops like this.
RED FLAG: If you're hired without an on-site interview. Yeah, sometimes this happens. That doesn't make it a good idea. If they hired you without making sure you're not some kind of sentient crustacean with the personality to match, what's to ensure that your coworkers aren't? I'm not saying don't take the job. But it's like buying a car without a test drive  .
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3) The On-Site Interview. Aw poo poo, you're in it now. This part is going to be a lot more detailed because this is it, the big leagues. The company is spending actual real money on you now. But don't get cocky, as there's probably 4-5 people that made it this far and you're just one of them. But, chances are they're either flying you in or paying you mileage to get here. If you're being flown in, chances are it will be early in the morning for a mid-morning interview followed by a late afternoon return flight, unless your interview is multiple days long or there's serious distance involved. This isn't a vacation, so don't gently caress with the travel plans unless you have to. Often enough companies get a special rate for doing same day in / same day out.
WHAT TO WEAR: The uniform of the day for your industry. This is my cop-out answer, sorry. I don't want to have to argue with ten goons saying 'lol west coast doesn't wear suits' or something like that. Here's a slightly more detailed answer SPECIFIC TO MY INDUSTRY (and probably just for men, sorry):
JUNIOR: You should wear at least a buttoned shirt, tie, and dress pants. Make sure your belt is the same color as your shoes. Don't wear overly fancy things unless you're 100% certain you can pull it off. Standard, extremely boring shirt/tie combo. At the junior level people don't expect you to be able to afford a suit, but if you can make sure it is tailored to your current weight/shape. A 250-dollar suit with 20 bucks in tailoring looks better than a 1000-dollar suit you bought off the rack with no modifications. You will not be judged how you dress if you wear things properly.
MID/SENIOR: You should wear a suit that is properly tailored, with conservative shirt/tie colors. Can't go wrong with a dark suit, light blue shirt, and red tie with minimal patterns. But again, I'm not a fashion expert nor can I speak for any industry but my own on this one.
RED FLAG: If the company expects you to fly in on your own dime without reimbursement. Or any travel really. I interviewed with a company a few weeks ago that paid for my metro ride to get to their office and coffee I bought at the shop in the building while waiting. Four years ago when I was looking for a job in the DC region, both my finalist companies paid for me to travel from Connecticut to DC to include parking fees at the airport, cab fees, breakfast (for the incoming flight) and dinner (for the return flight). If you're doing any sort of actual real travel (>35 miles) and the company has no mechanism to pay you for the effort, then you have to ask yourself how much you want that job.
RED FLAG: If the company is unwilling to front you the money to travel if flight is involved. I was a broke-as-gently caress fresh graduate working at a non-profit. One of my finalist companies originally wanted me to fly on my own dime (~800 dollars given the short notice) and they would reimburse me within 30 days. I talked to the travel person and they gladly charged it on their end; on the precondition that I give them >24h notice if I cancel. Which worked for me, because I had 400 bucks in my bank account at the time. If a company isn't willing to buy the tickets/make the reservation for a hotel (if needed) then it really shows they give zero fucks about applicants that can't cough up a grand or more for thirty days waiting for reimbursement.
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Ok, so now that that's out of the way, time to actually get into the dreaded on-site interview process.
What can you expect: More than likely there will be a few people involved in your interview process. A good on-site interview involves multiple people, preferably the people that you'll be working with on a regular basis. This could be direct team members, members of your larger team, etc. All of my interviews that I've taken recently involved at least one subordinate, one peer, and one supervisor. All the interviews that I've given have been as a peer, supervisor, or subordinate. This is important because the company needs to get a number of perspectives from multiple levels.
It depends on the industry and company, like always, but there will *probably* be little technical skills questions asked at this point. They've done their interviews for that already, and your skills have been demonstrated enough that they don't have to play that game. So why are you there? This is a culture fit interview.
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THE CULTURE FIT: The catch-all reason to hire and fire, the most subjective of all deciding factors and the overriding aspect of an applicant. Abused by some, hated by many, necessary for all. We can crack jokes about how some places use the term to mean 'not white enough / not hot enough / went to the wrong school' but that's not what I'm here for. The culture fit is actually important when you're talking about it properly, and I'll explain why.
Human Capital (that's you!) is expensive to replace and expensive to retrain. It can cost many thousands of dollars in labor and expenses just to hire someone, even juniors. It costs money even if you're fully trained, because you have to spin up to your new environment, a process that can take anywhere from a month to a year - during which you might not be a good return on investment at all. Most importantly it costs a lot of money to replace someone that left, because you've got that position/labor slotted out and now it's empty! This problem gets exponentially harder as you scale upwards, and can rapidly create a toxic environment. As I've climbed the ladder, I've learned just how loving expensive people are when they leave, and how much that eats into your overall profitability in a business unit. It's a lot of loving money.
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT IN A FIT INTERVIEW: Fit interviews can be conducted in a variety of ways, but the most common way is to just have a conversation. It's very hard for an applicant to maintain a carefully curated persona if they're doing four fit interviews back to back over the course of two hours. The purpose of all of these is to get you out of 'I'm in an interview oh my god' mode and into 'I'm having a nice chat' mode. It can be a little forced sometimes if both people don't have at least some chemistry, but it's usually fine.
For subordinates, I screen for people that are hungry. I want my potential subordinates to have ambition, even if they have no idea how they're going to get to a destination I want them to at least know where they want to end up. I can accomplish this by asking them questions about how they picked their major or school, and letting them tell me their life's story from that point. I'll interject with questions periodically not just because I wanted more detail, but because I want to see if they're running off a script or can't handle people interrupting them. I've had one person snap back "if you recall what I just said" in an annoyed tone which caused me to pretty much nix the entire process.
For peers, I want to make sure that they're capable of handing not just their assigned workload, but also any additional responsibility thrown on top. Sometimes they literally start with a story that explains that using past work experience, which makes life easier. Sometimes they don't, so I try and direct questions that let them tell a story of increasing levels of responsibility. I want to be assured that as a peer, sometimes poo poo happens and I need to be able to rely on that person to help out with a reasonable request.
For superiors, I want to make sure they're not going to be huge dicks. These people are very tricky to do a fit interview for because they often are well versed in interviews at this point and will try and run circles around a central personal theme. I try and ask questions more about the teams of people they managed, rather than the work they did as a manager. Not just because I might not be familiar with their type of work, but because good managers know that it's the people under them that got them where they are. I'm also extremely careful to pay attention to the tone that they take when responding - I don't want to work for someone that browbeats or mansplains everything.
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4) THE CLOSING NEGOTIATIONS - This part is a little tricky because you actually should be doing this at the end of your phone interview AND your on-site interview. This is the part where every interviewer (should) ask: Do you have any questions for me?
THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD ASK: What is the expected timeline for next steps, should I move forward in the process? Obviously you should only be asking this question to someone who might know; you don't ask this question if you're doing a subordinate or peer fit interview. The answers you'll get will probably not be anything more substantial than 'we expect to move forward in a week or two' but you would be surprised. We had a few applicants ask this, get told 1-2 weeks, and THEN drop the bomb that they have a pending offer and need an answer in a few days. Sorry fucko, we got more people to interview and day jobs so I guess it's goodbye. Likewise, I asked this question four years ago and got told that HR moves very slowly and it will be likely closer to a month before I hear anything. It never hurts to ask.
WORK/LIFE BALANCE: If this is important to you (and it should be, IMO), then this is a question you absolutely should ask. Ask your interviewers in your fit interview when they last took PTO. You're going to get a variety of answers, but the thing you're looking for is what is expected of me at this level. When I was interviewing for my current company years ago, I asked my peer fit interviewer and they told me they just got back from a three week trip to South Africa. I asked my supervisor fit interviewer and they told me how they took a vacation to Disneyland to celebrate the end of proposal season. I asked another peer fit interviewer and they hadn't taken a vacation in a long time, because they were a workaholic so they just donate their PTO to others. When I asked a company I just interviewed with that same question, I was given a bunch of bullshit answers like 'whenever I can sneak away from the work' or 'I take a mental health day sometimes'. That doesn't paint a good picture for me, it says that either everyone is working themselves to death because they want to (no, because peer pressure), or that the project is so poorly managed they can't afford to have people missing for more than a day or two (hard no).
Don't ask about compensation because you're not at that level yet. Don't ask about benefits unless they volunteer that poo poo out there. It's incredibly offputting to have someone in a fit interview, roughly 75% of the way through the process, tell me that they won't leave their current gig unless we pay for their relocation and give them a 5k signing bonus. Buddy, we do both of those things if you're important enough, but you don't dictate the terms at this point; and you certainly don't demand it of me, a guy with limited direct hiring authority doing a peer interview.
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A universal truth is that beyond technical skills, which are usually pass/fail, you're telling your interviewers a story. You don't have to be a dashing adventurer that travels to parts unknown with a talking monkey on the weekends to be considered interesting. One of the best fit interviews I've done so far has been a 15-minute conversation in a peer interview where the guy was talking about restoring an old sailboat with his dad. I don't know poo poo about sailboats, but he went into sufficient detail in little tangents to explain the core concepts to me and I understood it. Which is good, because we were hiring this person to work on (drumroll) a knowledge translation project.
fin
Quoting so I can find it later.
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May 14, 2019 03:03
