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IT Horror Stories: Interviewing
By Dan Morrill
Expert Author
Article Date: 2007-10-31
I interview a lot of folks, I coach, I mentor, and I cull resumes with wild abandon.
I love this job because I get to meet people, lots of people, and help them get to where they want to go, but as with everything I need a little help from the folks who actually make it to the phone screen (about 10% of folks make it to phone screen). This is some helpful advice, from a person who is on the phone screening IT Candidates about 4 hours a day.
If you say you are an expert in C#, and you do not know how to manage page thrashing, and have never heard to the term, time to lower your score. If you have no ideas what threads are and insist that Microsoft uses a parent/child relationship in programs, it is time to lower your score. On a scale of 1 to 10, and if you give yourself a 9 or 10, that means that you fundamentally eat breath and live in C#, please understand the basic slang that goes along with it. If you do not know a classid from an instantiated object, time to lower your score.
If you call yourself an expert in IIS, and have no idea what webresource.axd and trace.axd are, time to move along and lower your score. Only 4 in 10 can answer this question at all.
If you think your kids playschool computer is what everyone should be using, you might be a redneck
If you call yourself an expert is MSSQL or any SQL and do not know how to answer this question, "I need a query that will pull data from a database and sort them ascending" then time to lower your score. Less than 1 in 10 can answer this question at all.
If you ask me why I didn't use interview questions like you expected, and you expected questions from such sites as Interview up, or my own favorite interview questions, well sorry to disappoint you, but you are interviewing for a specific job, I will interview you over job specific issues to see how you will address them or think about them to solve the problem.
Do not talk about a bomb, knife, gun, or attempt blackmail during the phone screen, I am not the one who will make the final decision, I am actually step 2 in 5 five step process. I do understand that you have not worked in a while, and now I know why.
Grammar, spelling, attention to detail, all are very important in a resume, especially if you are going to be writing code, or writing reports. How well you articulate on the telephone is also very important. Umm is not an action verb, nor does it suffice for a real answer to the question. It does not matter how brilliant you are, if you can not communicate, no one is going to know, and few will extend the benefit of the doubt. There are 20 more people behind you today and it is very busy.
Do not torture the interviewer, do not ask questions that make it sound like you are greedy, if you made it to the phone screen, and you already know the price paid for the job, do not ask for two times more than what the job is paying as your first question. Then spend the rest of your question time debating with me during a phone screen on why you should get that much money, and here is the dice salary survey to prove it. It might be fun to torture the interviewer, but you will pay a penalty when the conversation ends.
If you show up for your interview in your jacked high 4x4 and can not park in the parking garage you might be a redneck.
Do not have me go to your showcase web site when I ask about "let me see an example of your work" and have it lock up my browser. I use IE 7 and Firefox 2, I will try with both, no I will not help you debug your web site during the interview.
If you show up for your web cam interview in your PJ's with a beer, you might be a redneck.
Do not go all extensential on me, while it is great to ask about Quality of Life questions about the job, and I will totally answer them, do not start asking if everyone has the same religion. While there is room for religion in life, and in work, do not take it upon yourself as a private mission to evangelize the office with what ever religion you have. And do not let the phone screener know that this is now your new mission in life, when it should be about getting in the door at the job site.
I am not your friend, while I do understand that you want a job, and most likely need a job, calling me "bro" and appealing to my better nature "you have to help me out" really will not work during the phone screen. Again I am step 2 of 5, I do not make the final decision, and to get the position placed I have to work in the best interests of the customer here, not in my own or your own best interest either.
If you show up to the job interview wearing overalls, then you are probably a redneck.
If you have me go to your blog, make sure that it is appropriate and safe for work. If I bring up a bunch of naked pictures on your blog in a work setting, I personally will not appreciate that.
If you show up to the job interview wearing just your best baseball cap, then you might be a redneck.
You will be tortured, you will go through the following steps:
1.Your resume will be reviewed - 90% of people fail at this point because I am looking for something specific
2.You will get a phone screen - only 3% of people pass at this point because you looked good on paper only
3.You will get a sit down session pre-interview (to make sure you do not shed your human skin and breath dryer lint, as well as to see how you handle a social situation, 90% of the 3% pass this point)
4.You will get a formal interview with the client, less than 1% makes it at this point
5.You might get a job offer at the end of the 5 step program
6.You will get hired somewhere else
Statistically your numbers are not good, as a candidate you stand a less than 1% chance of getting hired. That is a realistic number, because of the focus that we have on quality and the way that we apply quality control.
While there are ways to game the system, this one is interesting because HR works directly with Technical folks, the technical folks do the phone screen and the resume review. HR simply finds people that match against the job requirements. This is unique, there are few if any people or companies that will have technical folks who are familiar with the job, or have done the job (or similar) in the past, and know that job inside and out. This is probably why we have such a high rate of people not making it through the system, but the system works, and when we hand a person to the client, the client knows the level of quality control that has happened before, meaning as long as the person is hitting on all cylinders that day, they will probably get the job.
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About the Author:
Dan Morrill has been in the information security field for 18 years, both
civilian and military, and is currently working on his Doctor of Management.
Dan shares his insights on the important security issues of today through
his blog, Managing
Intellectual Property & IT Security, and is an active participant in the
ITtoolbox blogging community.
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