> God damn it Chuck. I have been there (not as fancy).
Thanks for sharing this.
> When I got the what do you think question, I stopped talking and
> realized the interviewers (two) were asking me to tell them what I
> thought my job and approach was going to be---in order to judge
> whether or not I had the combination of skill, creativity, and
> background to do this job. I was lucky I saw this in a flash. So I
> took a long minute to think this through and decided the best approach
> was to think out loud and said that's what I was going to do, think
> out loud. At issue was the translation of Caltrans technical data on
> mass transportation into easily understood graphics for presentation
> to the funding sources and later to the public hearings. I knew
> immediately they did not want pie charts or line graphs. I decided the
> best graphic approach could be modeled on signage like those that
> signify gas, hotels, resturants and other facilities seen on freeway
> off ramps---and commerical logos designed for a specific product
> line. I speculated that this was pretty corny stuff from a graphic
> arts point of view, but the point wasn't great design, it was
> communication. This turned out to be a pretty good take on what they
> were looking for. They liked my portfolio and asked me to leave it
> with them (which scared me). After a relatively short presentation on
> how I would approach the project, they took me over to one of their
> dual screen Mac based graphics work stations and pulled up an Adobe
> Framemaker file and opened it. Framemaker at that point was not
> entirely point and click the way Quark was. It used an intermediate
> interface (for style sheet modifications) and then a separate GUI to
> see the finished page layout. I sat down and told them I used Quark on
> a PC. That didn't phase them a bit. They happily gave me a quick
> features tour on the spot and watched as I learned on the fly. I
> realized they were watching my learning curve, which at that moment
> was in high gear and was in pretty good form considering the context
> and pressure to perform.
My interview last week actually involved a position that would primarily deal with pie charts and line graphs.
Or the Web 2.0, Flash-Ajax version of reporting.
As I mentioned in a previous email, I was a bit mystified as to why this corporation had called me in for an interview. The position involved something called "database marketing." I've got nothing on my resume that relates to this, other than 15 years experience with database software, my design background, my library professional training, and some DIY experience with user interface design.
By the way, LBOsters should keep in mind that my resume does NOT include my main website, the one that has been around for 12 years and gets hundreds of thousands of visitors. So I'm doing a job search with one hand tied behind my back. This is part of the price I pay for being an out radical.
I went into the interview thinking that the job entailed some web development with databases and maybe some sysadmin work. Turns out that this was a new position that entailed presenting large datasets to other corporate clients. At one point the interviwer showed me a website to illustrate what they were thinking about doing with the position. The website was the one for Blue Nile diamonds. This website is notable for its use of Ajax in letting customers select types and grades of diamonds. I'd played with this website on my own, so I immediately knew what this job was about.
Reporting. Not one of my strong points. AJAX, something I'm familiar with but have no on-the-job experience using and implementing.
Web development rocket science. At a corporation with the money to throw at new tech.
I bet that the other job applicants were probably drooling over this position. I've been around the block enough to not get excited about any potential employment until I'm actually working there. I was also mindful of the fact that this corporate employer does things that makes my anti-capitalist skin crawl.
Which is funny, because last September I interviewed with an even bigger corporation, which I would say is decidedly less evil than the employer I interviewed with last week.
> But I didn't get the job. It came down to two candidates, me and a
> woman with more background in web design. They had compared portfolios
> and liked mine better. So it was a straight up and fair
> judgement. They called me in briefly to pick up my portfolio and told
> me they had picked the other candidate and thanked me for my
> interest. They said they would call me after the probation period, if
> the other candidate didn't work out. Shock. They were nice and did
> their jobs well. We shook hands. Going out I thought about them, and
> realized they were both older guys running a big project and probably
> preferred having a woman around the job site. Easy on the eyes, Less
> ego hassles, more friendly work environment, less tension, etc.
I think this kind of hiring decision is more common than people think.
> ``If you get 200 well-qualified applicants and can't settle for one, then
> you are obviously looking for God herself to work for you...''
>
> I used to think this. But now I am not so sure that's always the
> case. I think when some huge number of applicants don't seem to fit,
> the problem is that the employer hasn't defined the job well enough to
> know what they are looking for. What they get in interviews seems
> wrong not because the applicants are bad or they are looking for god,
> but because the employer's job concept isn't sufficiently refined to
> know how to appraise the applicants.
Would employers and applicants be better off if employers just selected new employees at random from a pool of qualified applicants?
You have a point here about employers not being clear about what they are doing with new positions.
> This sounded like polite bullshit to me at the time. But as I
> reflected on it later, I thought the problem was they hadn't decided
> on what the position should actually do. Anyway I saw the position
> re-named something else with a different set of experience and skills
> need in the UC job listing a few months later.
That is pretty common. I've applied and interviewed for jobs, only to see them relisted with a different description or even a new job title.
That's what happened to the "sure thing" interview that I was supposed to have on 9-11. The job was a straight-up web developer position. An insider was pitching me to the company. All I had to do was show up, not screw up and I would get the job. The 9/11 attacks cancelled the interview and it was two weeks before it was rescheduled. By the time I got in for an interview, the company had decided that they wanted somebody with more editorial and writing experience. That was something that I could handle, but it wasn't very evident on my resume or my background.
> A couple of years later, after I had put together a unix plateform, I
> realized why the unix guys had asked me about handling email. My
> answers at that point were too elementary for their taste. Meanwhile
> the office heads probably thought I was too technically minded to
> satisfy their people. I had mentioned that windows didn't do email
> very well, but that I could show office people how to configure their
> stations and get the mail system to work. But otherwise, I would
> follow the unix guys and their lead on that system. I had a UC shell
> account and could manage the user level configurations to set up a
> shell account and was familiar with the various email user
> interfaces. In other words I was probably just about right for the
> job.
Probably.
Oi, I don't miss ccMail.
> After a few more of these `good' interviews I started to turn sour. I
> can only take so much rejection before I start getting hostile. I knew
> that was the end of my days looking to get out of a trade I had been
> stuck in for years.
LOL. I've never gotten hostile during any interviews, but lately I'm more inclined to detourn the interview process.
I do have more interesting job interview stories that I can't post to a public list. Some of you will have to hear them over beers. One of them involves a portrait of the late Mayor Richard Daley. ;-)
Chuck
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