uh oh...

..he's gonna get attacked again.

i hope Hollow's read this one too! loved the comments on the last article.

Honesty

I went to one interview and thought I'd failed miserably on the Tech test. It wasn't until after I'd been in the Job for a few weeks that I was told one of the reasons I'd got the job and not one of the other candidates, was answering 'I haven't a clue I'd have to look that up' to one of the questions instead of waffling.

... and the job is worse again ...

Looking forward to the next article - "you've got the job and it's a load of sh1te", because lets be honest, how many times have you gone through the mill of the interview processes, got the job, started and realised the place is a total disaster, or got the job on the basis of prerequist x and y, to find you're doing z and your career is nicely sliding off the rails...

The author seems to have come down a peg or two since the previous article and now has some decent, if basic, advice. I'm still not sure I believe it all (Really? You want me to swot up on interview puzzles that might crop up? Are you hiring someone to work for Puzzler World or do you want someone who can actually do the JOB you're asking of them? Just because MS/Google have "weird" interview techniques that people think are cool, doesn't mean they apply in the same way to Joe Bloggs hiring a code-monkey - my favourite answer in an interview was "I have no idea, but if you give me an web browser, your technical documentation and twenty minutes, I'll find out that information for you, like I would if problems I was uncertain of cropped up during my job") but it's a mite more useful, even if completely contrived (Don't turn up late? Gosh, never considered that).

To the Author: An elitest attitude just makes everyone hate you - the people you're trying to help, the people doing the same job as you, and the people who employ you. This second article is much more within the realms of "This is advice from someone who deals with this a bit more than you do" rather than "OBEY ME, MINIONS, FOR I AM INFALLIBLE!"

I don't generally remember the last book I read vecause I'm already on to the next one. Surely thats a more desireable trait in a go-getting trend-setting hip and desireable candidate for the meat mill?

Sir

Excellent flame bait. They'll be along in a minute to put the fire out I'm sure.

Is there no room in the interview world that encompasses the fact the people can get nervous?

When I'm working, I can walk straight into a viper pit of board level directors who are baying for my company's blood and come out of it with a recommendation for further work; but put me in an interview and I get nervous, hot and sweaty - I simply can't seem to help it no matter how confident I am.

Maybe if the hiring staff weren't so perfect I wouldn't feel quite so intimidated perhaps?

Some things missing

(apologies if double posted, had a few password related issues)

Don’t forget YOU are also interviewing the employer. We seem to be stuck in this cap-doffing “I am so grateful that you would wish to see me sir” mode that people forget the employer needs them. Sure, you may need the job more than they need you (as there are ten other you equivalents sitting outside) but you must be certain that what you are about to be employed doing, and with whom, is for you. There are also ten more jobs for you that might be better…

If you can, get a sensible friend to mock interview you. Ideally one who is a recruiter, not even in your field is fine. Get a friend (women, for want of a gross generalisation, tend to be more astute at this than men) to look at how you dress, how you sit, how you stand, how you appear in front of people you don’t know. If a suit is needed and you never normally wear one, then practice wearing it. You’ll look daft pulling at your collar because you have not worn a tie since school, and feeling comfortable is pretty important. Once your CV is on the “interview” pile you still have to make the first impression, and an ill-fitting suit, bad posture, weak voice etc. all add up to the first impression. It can be hard to shake. A good interviewer will make you more relaxed, but be prepared for bad interviewers.

Prepare answers for questions such as “what are you most proud of” and “tell me about the last time you disagreed with a superior”.

Practice a good handshake – not wet, but not knuckle breakingly firm. If you have sweaty palms, try and work out how to make them a little less damp (wipe on trousers/skirt, leave hand open not clenched etc). If you are a bloke and a woman is interviewing you – don’t stare at her chest. Look at her. Oh, practice looking at someone’s eyes too, not Hannibal Lector scary stare-out, but we have a distrust of people who never look at you.

You will be forgiven for nerves, but being a gibbering wreck is no good.

Oh, and turn your bloody phone off too. As an interviewer I want you in the room, not answering a call from a mate, or updating your twitter crap. Speaking of which, did the last article mention making your Facebook page either completely hidden, or aligned to your CV interests? We check out Facebook from the CV name. Lots of dumb stuff on Facebook, and the CV is in the bin. We will not look past that which is open for the public, so we don’t do fake friend requests, but I am sure others will. Sometimes we leave it for the interview and ask if we should employ someone who… and display drunken FB picture of them vomiting on a cat, or mooning the queen, or whatever. The answers to that question can be very revealing. “So, are you proud of that?”

“No”

“Why did you put it on the internet then?”

“er”

Tips for recruitment consultants

Please can we have a follow up article of tips for recruitment consultants? This piece is better than "Why your tech CV sucks" but it's only fair to give hiring managers and interviewees the right to reply.

If nobody else wants to do it, I'll write it. Actually, after one too many calls from recruiters a couple of years ago, I already did.

http://wallpapering-fog.blogspot.com/2009/10/this-needs-to-be-said.html

A step up from last time

Its nice to read an article where I'm not being told I'm socially malajusted and borderline retarded and that's why I don't deserve a job. Perhaps you could do a version 1.1 of your CV writing guide in a similar vein?

It's the tone (directed at the author, not any commentators)

I am perhaps being played here, but what I really don't like is the tone of this article (and the preceding one). Some of your points are valid, but is it really necessary to be so antagonistic? Yes, we get it, there are some frustrating things you have to deal with in your line of work, but we all have frustrating things to deal with in our lines of work. You are reducing the power of your arguments by using the kind of tone employed in this and your previous article.

theregister...

or thetrollster.co.uk?

Dear Mrs.Connor

Dominic has worked really hard this term

which has resulted in various improvements

to his grammar, prose, delivery and sensitivity

towards the first years. Although this has not

quite qualified him for an "A" I do now find that

reading his work no longer gives me a stabbing

pain behind one eye. He is also a bit less of a cnut.

B.

its the written word people

Geez, trolls go away, this article is written with the intention of helping.

Whatever 'tone' you take from it is yours and yours alone

Personally I read it as intended, took no offence or was left feeling antagonised (really bigphil9009 ??) or patronised.

I'm on to a 2nd stage interview myself in the next week, I'll remember some of the points made here (most I already adhere to some anyway).

One of the side-effects of the current economic climate....

....means that at least in an ideal world, interviewers should really be looking at the "Why does your employment history end six months ago?" with less of a jaded eye. At the moment, it's not uncommon, if a job finishes for whatever reason, to have a few months (and in some cases a year and up) of downtime, simply because the jobs aren't available. Unfortunately, most employers seem to regard not having a job as a personal failing, rather than lean times.

Also, don't get me started on the possible reaction to admitting to a period of long term illness. Technically, they shouldn''t discriminate, but we all know that when the applicant to post ratio can be in the hundreds to one, they can always find some excuse not to employ the guy who's been ill before, and therefore, in their mind, may be ill again and let them down.

Anonymous to protect future employability.

Much better job than the CV article, which was just plain insulting on far too many levels.

Most of the advice still falls under the category of "bloody obvious" though.

Also, you missed one. If they ask you a question on a topic to which you don't know the answer, replay in a clear tone "Honestly? I don't know". If you're honest you'll make a better impression than if you try to bullshit an answer on the spot.

How come you invite such unsuitable candidates to interview?

I've been on both sides of the interview table and quite frankly "playing the game" is in my experience the principal reason that the wrong pepole get hired. Both parties should be reasonably confident before the interview is even scheduled that they are a resonable match: the interview can only be a final sanity check. If you're discarding people as unemployable at the interview stage your process is missing some steps.

Don't forget the best candidate may not be desperate for your job. Unless they're unemployed, in danger of being unemployed or pathetically anxious to get out of a present job or get more money then the main purpose of the interview (for the candidate) is to find out whether they'd enjoy the job on offer and there's a reasonable chance that the job won't immediately disappear or morph into some brain-rotting droid role. Turning up in jeans and a t-shirt (if that's your habitual wok attire) and dealing with the interviewer(s) in the same way you would if they become your colleagues rather than as a helpless supplicant is a perfectly reasonable strategy to ensure the potential employer wasn't lying about the promised working environment and will deal with you honestly later on, If the recruiters aren't prepared to compromise on their arbitrary criteria to get the best candidate, they're not doing their job properly.

Mind you, recruiters could save everyone a great deal of time by specifying those arbitrary criteria up front. If they include "you will wear a suit", "we will ask you about your reading habits or other aspects of your personal life which are none of our business", "we will ask a nonsense question we read in a self-help book" or "we will ask you for a sample of your handwriting" then we know in advance where to avoid. Because, even today, an expletive in the face often offends.

This article is spot on.

I agree totally. I didn't will all the points in his previous article, but what can you do.

An interview is all about selling you to the company looking to employ you.

You want to show how lucky they will be to if you accept the position. You do not want them to think that they will be taking a chance on you, instead they should be thinking of you as a sure thing.

I recall going for a tech support job an an online company. I impressed the interviers so much they called their boss in for the 2nd interview on the spot and they offered me more money than they advertised just so i would take the job.

I recall interviewing this guy for a network install and support tech. Part of his CV mentioned that he had setup his own network and installed the cables in the walls. When I asked himwhat IP range he was using and if he knew his gateway IP he looked at me like I was crazy..

The degree I'm studying is a course with a sandwich year out on placement. Right now we're all scurrying around making CVs, preparing presentations for mock interviews, and applying for the future placements that we'll be doing next year. Methinks the Personal and Professional Development tutor would like this article. I'm off to give her the URL, ta!

(my point from the last article's comments section about a strict 2 page CV limit still stands though. That ain't gonna happen unless I miss bits of my employment history.)

You missed one critical thing

Take an unredacted copy of your original/current CV along to the interview and hand it over before it starts - make sure you have enough to hand around if there is a panel.

It took me a good few "bad" interviews before I was told this (by a ex-techie recruiter) and it has never let me down yet.

Remember - the recruiter is trying to sell anyone for the job. Unlike you, he does not have time to write a CV tailored for the specific role you are applying for and his "stock" CV will reflect his idea of what is important not what you or your prospective employer think are important for that role. Even if he were technically skilled when he "joined the dark side" those skills will be invalid after only a few years and your CV and his "version" may differ radically.

The CV is the very first step in the interview process. It is often the basis for the interview and the discrepancies between the (sometimes faked) CV an agency fashions and what you originally wrote can wreck your chances at that perfect job in interview.

When I left Cray I spent a few weeks doing interviews with sometimes two or three interviews a day. At the time there were more jobs than people so agencies had no need to push staff but I ended up at interviews where the job was obviously not a fit. Taking your CV along ensure you do not get the blame for any such mismatches *before* you end up wasting the interviewer time.

Finally, the advice about the business research is important but if you appear to know more about the business or technology than those interviewing you, make your excuses and *leave*! The last interview I did this at was a certain maidenhead based speech to text company. I liked the company, its dieas etc but we all know what happened to them :-)

Sigh...

I've done three interviews in the last week, none of the interviewees bothered to even feign interest in the specialist area in which they will be working (storage/backup) let alone show enthusiasm. None of them had given any more than a cursory look at the company web site, one of them I worked with at a previous company was actually surprised to see me in the interview despite me managing the area the he will be working in and having my photo, name and a little blurb about me on the web site.

These are people who are supposed to be specialist in their field and at the top of their game. Pah.

Yeah mostly agree but

"it’s a tough market that may be getting worse"

Sorry but that's bollocks. I am still constantly hounded by recruiters for decent looking programming jobs (and some that are quite clearly crap of course) because I have a fair bit of experience and a good CV. If anything our market is getting even bigger because all the proles have realised that technology exists.

If you have skills and your current job is tolerable, a perspective employer needs to sell itself to you and you can be as picky as you like.