ofb.net — Written by Google employee, Niniane Wang: "Of the 300+ software engineers I interviewed for Google (and previously Microsoft), some of them really shone, and others seemed ill-prepared.. Below are some tips that I've gathered over time"
Jun 19, 2006 View in Crawl 4
spooqJun 20, 2006
Why would you ask this question? Realistically its not going to add very much to your knowledge of the person, and you just come across as needing to create some authority by creating a "confessional" situation. You are being scrutinized too, remember... what if the person applying were to ask, "So, tell me all the crappy bits about working for this company".
sagefool1975Jun 20, 2006
It applies to a high percentage of tech companies. If you want to apply for a tech job at a non tech company (I.e., a bank/finance institution/whatever) then yeah, a t-shirt might not go over so well. Common sense works well for dressing, there are no hard and fast rules.
Closed AccountJun 20, 2006
Yea but, BS degree at age 18 FROM cal tech? I don't think anyone can beat that. She is pretty damn smart.
metasquaresJun 20, 2006
The BS is the only singularly intimidating bit of that resume, and only because of her age and the institution she attended. The rest is impressive, but not to the level of intimidation - it only suggests that she works diligently within whatever system she is placed.Not knowing her pre-college background (maybe she comes from another country with a different secondary education system?), I couldn't say whether her age at graduation is notable or not anyway.
wembleyJun 21, 2006
@BillyBob - I'm not a ColdFusion developer, but ack, date formatting is something that's really easy but tends to differ slightly with every language -- I could tell you how just by looking up the syntax reference... some have a Date object (now = new Date(); now.getMonth(), etc), other just store a unix timestamp and you need to use a formatter (%Y/%m/%d), etc, etc. If you know a few languages its easy to forgot which one uses which, and who cares if they know it off the top of their head or not.Edit: did a search -> #DATEFORMAT(now(), "mm/dd/yyyy")#
022aJun 21, 2006
"Then the same 7 would probably make up a nice story about dropping the ball where they turned it around and became the hero."No. Like I said, the overwhelming majority just say "That has never happened". "Either way, when asking a question like that, the liars will lie."I've been in this field long enough that I feel confident I'd have an inkling if someone came up with that kind of story on the spot, face to face."Everyone makes mistakes. You, me, everyone. So it's a rather pointless question."You miss the point entirely. It's not about confirming the obvious (that everyone makes mistakes) to get my dick hard. It's about a number of different important things, seeing how a person learns from their mistakes, how they cope in a situation they aren't prepared for, how they research a new problem or subject they're unfamiliar with, whether they can admit their mistakes and take responsibility for them etc."How about asking about how they've stepped up for their previous company and what they did that makes them a proud employee? You know, a positive question as opposed to the negative ones you're asking."Can that smug bulls**t. An interview covers all kinds of questions, technical, positive, negative, personal..."As an interviewer, you should never ask negative questions. Negative questions will make you come off as a bonehead manager, and no one wants to work for one of those."There are no hard fast rules about what I can and can't ask. I'll ask whatever the hell I want within the realm of the law, good taste and fairness to find the best person for the job. Interviewing like you copped your script from "Hiring for Dummies" is a great way to get played by someone who knows the game, not necessarily how to do the actual work.
circlefusionJul 17, 2006
@billybob476"nfortunately, they are the ones who have something to offer you (i.e. a job). Not vice versa,"That is very strange. I wonder why they would hire people who don't have anything to offer the company.