Man this is the strangest thing to me. I used to be a carpenter. I would show up at your job site with my tools, you might ask me a couple questions, I've had guys ask me to lay out a wall or two off the prints. Call a reference to see if I show up to work. Then I get the job. Usually, doing something myself or my boss never had done before, and we would figure it out off the prints, and build it.
I just go turned down for a job I was perfectly qualified for because I 'didn't seem eager enough.' Other notes from the interviewer said 'I'd be ready to go day one' and 'seems easy going and easy to get along with'
What the fuck is wrong with people? When did working at your shit company have to be my passion instead of my job?
and in that case the expectations in the programming job would be more lax, and few people would care about your "passion for the company."
Even controlling for that difference, I still think you make a good point. Though it's probably true for modern corporate business culture in general, and not specific to programming.
No. These are companies that I worked for for years at a time. That is not a correct analogy. I have been hired, and worked for 4 years based on a 10 minute conversation.
Imagine that instead of your competent self, you were an incompetent carpenter. How long would it have taken, on the job, for your boss to figure out you were incompetent? How hard would it have been to fire you?
Because that's the big issue with programming jobs: Many places hate firing, and it sure takes a while before we separate whether someone doesn't understand the tools that are currently being used, and will learn, or he's hapless.
So in fact then fear has become the biggest motivator for both hiring and firing... no wonder the industry is in a mess.
Also in the building industry, the foreman may not be a carpenter by trade but at least he has some carpentry experience; in my time in the trenches too many project managers / bosses don't even have sysadmin experience let alone programming experience. Buzz word bingo, vague hunches, me too'ism, and voodoo psychology are used as yard sticks in the hiring process instead.
Your passionate, hand-crafted response gives me an indefinable but good feeling about you, tankenmate, and I'm on board with your approach! Also, I've learned from experience that people who use the phrase "voodoo psychology" are deeply analytical as well as trustworthy.
> Usually, doing something myself or my boss never had done before, and we would figure it out off the prints, and build it.
Yes, of course. That's been my entire career in software as well. And I'd suggest that's what people should be looking for: the ability to build something they've never built before.
The page won't load for me so I haven't been able to read the article yet, but I am a construction worker turned programmer as well. I have found myself in the same boat a number of times. I have been turned down for a couple of jobs due to not being enthusiastic enough or because I couldn't come up with a good enough reason for wanting to work at that particular company. Recently I was turned down for a job because I have a side hobby that might distract me from my main job. sux.
The people making the hiring decisions have
two problems: (1) Ignorance about software,
programming, and the associated technology
and (2) resentment for the compensation level
of good software developers.
So, who are these hiring people? People
from CEO to HR to middle managers who
know less about the work than the
candidate employees do. This fact is
like a chicken bone stuck in their throat
because it is totally against the
100 year old norm, back to Henry Ford's
factory, of an hierarchical organization
where the supervisor knew more and the
subordinate knew less and was there to
add routine labor to the goals of the
supervisor.
So, with the resentment of (2), the hiring
people expect and very much want any
candidates to know basically everything,
including absurd details no one should
bother to remember.
Or the candidate needed five
years of experience with Java when
the language had been out for only three
years and likely only James Gosling
had that much experience with Java.
Or the hiring people want five years of
experience with MySQL and experience
with DB/2 and SQL Server don't count.
Or they want C# and Visual Basic .NET
(different from C# essentially only
in syntactic sugar) doesn't count.
Or they want C Python and Algol, Fortran,
PL/I, C, and assembler for several
processors don't count.
And with the ignorance of (1), the hiring
people don't know what's important and
what's trivial.
So, for
> When did working at your shit company have to be my passion instead of my job?
the hiring people, lacking any better criteria
for not making a hiring mistake,
basically want the candidate to
grab their ankles and swear everlasting,
life long fealty and commitment to
their six month project.
Moreover, such interview questions
are obviously a really bad joke
for someone with a lot of significant
software experience and/or a good
college degree in computing; that is,
the hiring people, based on near total
ignorance and incompetence,
are trying to
give oral exams in computer science,
to someone obviously long since
highly qualified.
Any competent professional or worker
of any kind needs to keep in mind that
it's super tough to build a good
career working for ignorant, resentful
people. So, try not to do that.
Keep in mind that only a tiny fraction of
jobs provide a stable career with
compensation sufficient for
a three bedroom, two bath house,
wife, kids, college for the kids,
and retirement for the parents.
Broadly the solution for someone in
computing is just to see the bright
side -- how much hard/software
can be had for $2000 -- and
use that to start and run a
successful business.
A good example is the Canadian
romantic matchmaking service
Plenty of Fish, long just
one guy, two old Dell servers,
ads just via Google, and
$10 million a year in revenue.
Other fields of high specialization
have seen and responded to much
the same problem: So, they have
a profession with, maybe government
licensing, legal liability,
professional peer-review,
meaningful, challenging certification,
code of ethics, etc. And, e.g.,
as I understand, the legal profession
says that in a business, a working
lawyer can report only to
another lawyer, never to
a generalist, line manager.
Really, old-line businesses, or
any business with old-line attitudes,
can be just terrified of software
developers and work hard trying
to minimize the power of the
developers, e.g., use
divide and conquer by making
sure no one programmer is essential
and, instead, the organization has
various cases of back-ups.
But the ignorance (1) and resentment
(2) go a long way to explain the
nonsense.
Finally many VCs like to see
technical CEOs -- good.
>the hiring people, lacking any better criteria for not making a hiring mistake, basically want the candidate to grab their ankles and swear everlasting, life long fealty and commitment to their six month project.
That right there should be a sign that the candidate is getting a really good deal out of this offer, which means it's out of his/her league or you're paying way too much.
I just go turned down for a job I was perfectly qualified for because I 'didn't seem eager enough.' Other notes from the interviewer said 'I'd be ready to go day one' and 'seems easy going and easy to get along with'
What the fuck is wrong with people? When did working at your shit company have to be my passion instead of my job?