You are probably being undervalued
A different take on the interview process
Can I start this newsletter by saying that interviews suck? Is it okay Anton?
Well, I will do it anyway. They suck.
Assuming you were lucky enough to be selected among hundreds if not thousands of other applicants, you will receive a phone call from someone at the office, most of the time from HR.
She calls to ask for some basic details about your experience and what you’re looking for. All the nonsense questions that everybody mostly answers are the same.
HR: ”What are you looking for in your next company?”
You: “People who truly care about the product.”
HR: “Why did you leave your previous company?”
Me: “The people didn’t care about the product.״
Note to self: Come up with a better Q&A for next time. And make it 3 for Pete’s sake. You know people love those trios.
This part is quite nice, nothing too nerve-wracking. Then you get to the actual interviews, where you will be asked, tested, and inspected about your knowledge.
You will sit in a room with another person, sometimes more, who will first start with the niceties and ask you if you want to drink something, ask you about your ride, and make sure you feel “comfortable”. Now, after the interviewer makes sure all the friendly questions are done, they get to ask you some tough questions to test your knowledge.
’What kind of tree would you use to build this structure?’
’How long would it take this agent to get to his goal?’
And sometimes it gets as absurd as: ‘How many stop signs can you fit in Chicago?’
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any problem with questions that test your knowledge in the field you’re about to engage with. I have a problem with the comparison metrics. We try to compare people based solely on their skills rather than looking at who they are.
‘Universities and employers should assess 'Grade Point Trajectory' for potential’
Throughout the book, Grant keeps reminding us about the importance of measuring backward. In other words, consider the rate of improvement over time.
Do you know the story about José Hernández? The guy who was born into a family of migrant workers? Well, if you don’t, let me tell you.
José spent his early years moving between the U.S. and Mexico, working in fields with his family. Even though he came from a poor family, had a big language barrier, and worked in the fields, he managed to get a degree in electrical engineering. His dream, by the way, was to be an Astronaut at NASA. Hernández applied 12 times in 12 years, and guess what? He was not competent enough. Thousands of people applied each year and he was just not good enough.
Over the years he improved both his tech and NASA’s required skills only to be rejected over and over again. Long story short, he was accepted to be an astronaut.
Okay, what’s the problem here? Another success story of someone who was consistent and persistent and eventually achieved his dream.
Well, not everybody is as persistent as him, but that’s not even the main thing here.
His past in correlation with his achievements shows you the kind of man you are considering as a candidate. Imagine how dedicated Hernández is if he managed to achieve so much when he came from so little.
Qualities are not measured only by a resume.
When companies follow the standard interview course, they mostly ask the right questions, but they ignore the important answers that follow. For example, when you are asked:
Interviewer: ‘How was the ride?’
You: ‘It was okay, the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv road is always jammed. But I was able to put in some progress in the Newsletter I write.’
Interviewer: ‘Nice. What is the newsletter about?’
You: Tech books
Interviewer: ‘Awesome.’
Now, most of the time, you will just move on to the next topic. But here’s the first point where the interviewer might miss some important details about the candidate.
She is willing to take a bus that takes over an hour to get to work.
She does not complain about it.
She uses her “dead time” to do something useful.
She has a newsletter about topics that might be relevant to the job.
She is taking courageous steps to do things others are afraid of.
Consider another scenario: a candidate who has frequently changed jobs in the past will be flagged as a ‘red flag’ for instability and will probably go down in the list.
Allowing him the option to express himself in a letter can reveal perhaps a quick learner or maybe a hunger for new challenges.
And if all you need is working hands, I assume that it’s okay. This screening process is good enough for you.
But most tech companies look for more than that. They want people with critical thinking who can solve problems and overcome obstacles. And when they screen in the standard way, they miss a bunch of diamonds in the rough.
All of these shortcomings lead us to an important question: What can be done differently? Here are some suggestions:
Consider the candidate’s background as well as his current knowledge.
Instead of solely focusing on the candidate’s last job or degree, look into his background. What challenges has he faced? How did their unique experiences shape their life?Ask more than ‘What is your strength’
Ask candidates which obstacles they had in their lives to get to where they are and how they overcame those. This question can reveal much about the candidate’s history and problem-solving abilities.Compare candidates based on a correlation between their past and their present
There’s no simple formula for that one. You need to know what type of person you are looking for, the urgency, and the skills required. You can find many details about a person by knowing what he’s been through.
In conclusion, the standard process review might be efficient, but it often fails to identify true potential. By changing course and reconsidering a new approach, we can reveal those people with a hidden potential.
In the book, Grant says:
’Overlooking candidates who have overcome obstacles and focusing solely on past performance can cause us to miss out on individuals with significant potential and resilience.’
Remember that climbing 10 steps is much easier if you start from step 3. People like José Hernández need first to find out there are steps. Then they need to start climbing.
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Constanly. I've been through an exciting decade of software development. I interviewed many people and hired some. Being in a mixed soup of engagement models – full-time employment and freelancing/contractor work I have a perspective from both ends.
In the beginning, I put a lot of effort into whiteboard interviews and technical questions and paid close attention to answers.
This over the past decade, and eventually when hiring for my own company, transformed more into a casual talk with the candidate because:
1. Everyone who can code can probably put together something in React.
2. Leetcode is a pretty bad indicator of nearly anything. As someone who studied math and solved many Leetcode problems on different websites more than a decade ago, you don't need any of that to build web apps.
3. There is no way to accurately assess the person's willingness to work and contribute in a couple of hours, so you have trial periods.
Because I'm moving back to FTE, I'll get stuck on some whiteboard interviews with counting the stop signs in Chicago. But the truth is, I'm confident there's missing critical work in any organization making software that I can effectively work on and bring to the next level. Unfortunately, there is no way to learn this through interviews.
Let me join the chorus "Interviews suck"! :D
Current interview system is built around scalability and repeatability. Companies do not want to create an elaborate training process to conduct interviews. So what they do instead?
1. Hand out a cookie-cutter set of bland questions which are asked for the sake of it.
2. Conduct Leetcode style interviews where problems are available aplenty and interviews don't have to put effort in preparing for the interview