[chaos706:407] Re: Geeks: Need a job?

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 05:06:42 -0700

I've noticed the appearances thing myself.  Usually the person hiring you has no idea what you will be doing once in.  The first step always involves some sort of show.  Usually your second interview or so is the real one with the technical people, allowing you to let loose a little more.  It's a shame that with a company of any size that they basically have to remove a lot of static before you get a real interview.  When there are 1,000 people applying for the same job, the recruiter or hiring manager is the buffer and has to pick only about 20 or so people to send to the engineers to interview.  With this shear volume, their evaulutions will surely be really shallow.

I always like going through external recruiters to get into a company because you usually bypass the shallow proxy that the company has put in place.  The recruiter has an incentive to get you directly to the person hiring you bypassing all the BS.



On 10/16/06, 0x0000 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

... as long as i'm giving out trade secrets, I will further point out
that you should *never* make your best impression during the interview
or during your first few days on the job - in any kind of an HR-related
situation, the only thing you can do to secure a job is to control the
perceptions of the potential employer - if you have to go all-out just
to get the job, then you have probably over-extended yourself, and can
only be a disapointment to the employer in the longer term.

Far better to get a job off a half-hearted attempt at an interview,
then really surprise them with first rate performance reviews.  It's
relativistic, but it works.  In short, never do any more than you
absolutely have to to get hired - save your brilliance for when it's
really needed - solving tough problems that none of their other people
can solve for them.  ... obviously, this assumes that you really are
very good at your job - but if you're not, you shouldn't be going for
the high-end jobs, anyway.

Of course, keep in mind that I haven't worked in the Deep South in -
what more than a decade?  Closer to 15 years, I think.  Typically the
lower wage-scale jobs they offer in that region require submission to
much more authoritarian nonsense than you will run across in, say, New
England.  In fact, I've noticed that the less the jobs pay, the more
hoops they tend to make you jump thru to get them.  Odd, but ... well,
there it is.

The other thing I took to heart some long time ago was an observation
by a co-worker that the people who make the most money do the least
work - that is:  the managers, corporate officers, etc, are typically
paper pushers who never do any real work (this is not universally true
- I have worked with some really good managers, for instance), but when
you get to the exremes - not that the day laborer who makes minimum
wage or less works like a dog for below-subsitance level wages, while
the richest man in the world - who has never done a days work in his
life - makes more money in an hour while he sleeps than many people see
in a lifetime of hard work.    Hard work does not lead to success -
persistence and smarts help, but hard work actually holds you back,
since you never make enough at it to advance.   The only people I know
who don't really see this are typically middle managers who find live
petty lives of conflated self-importance and get off on stepping on
what they consider "the little guy".

This is the difference between constuctive work to get a job done and
what we used to call (back when I was a day labourer) "riding the
clock" - performing the role of "warm body" and getting paid for it -
which - again, in my personal experience - is a lot more acceptable to
"hiring managers" than actually being productive.  I believe this is
because that's what most of the "hiring managers" do full-time - they
ride the clock, somehow believing that the company's profits magickally
come from having a bunch of people in a building who confrom to a
particular corporate image.   Most actual work, in my experience, is
accomplished by the "unemployable" or the "renegades."  Certain these
types are the source of most actual innovation.

As you may be able to tell, this is a very interesting topic to me.  I
was at first deeply shocked to find that so many companies prize
appearance so greatly over ability, but I have grown used to it over
the years and have developed strategies that have worked for me - your
mileage may vary, of course, and I really don't ecourage anyone else to
follow my example.  At least, not unless you're quite serious about
getting yourself into a position where the system doesn't push you
around so much as it just screams  at you out of sheer frustration ...

--- John C <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Whether it's Google or not, why would you ever go on an interview
> wearing
> jeans?
>
>
> On 10/15/06, 0x0000 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >
> > > Hey, we don't wear suits!
> >
> > The I met at the hotel in San Jose who *did* get hired was wearing
> one -
> > he was also about 22 years old, very clean cut, and had only
> rudimentary
> > geek skillz ... of course, he probably wears t-shirts and shorts to
> work,
> > now, but that don't make him a geek...
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> >
>
>
> >


0x0000


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