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The difficult part of getting through interviews is to realize that your technical skills don't matter that much. What matters are two things. The first one is of course leetcoding. It's not related to the job, but the corporate nutheads made it an obsessive cult. But what is even more important is that you have to correspond to a happy company stock picture. You know where coworkers sit/stand in a group point to something with bright smiles of idiots and sparkles in the eyes so bright that can illuminate your way to the center of Universe, where Edem is located, elevate your soul, give you enlightenment, lead to nirvana, and produce growth, growth,... It's a strange cult, but after all Silicon Valley was always famous for strange cults. I guess this one began from In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters. The fact that the described companies didn't do so well, and it is known that the data was faked, has done nothing to the followers of the cult. Anyway, here's what you have to know. If you failed your interview, be aware that 90% chances it was because you were tested against so called "soft skills". People who interview you were either instructed or most likely brainwashed about the importance of adaptability, leadership, culture fit, etc... all sorts of corporate bs. Especially if you are in the middle of your career, you most likely have more knowledge and skills than the person who interviews you. Or even you can be interviewed by a hiring manager, who is not a technical person at all. Here's what all these people believe in. They think that behavioral interview questions is the best tool to evaluate your soft skills, which in turn they think are very important. The truth is that they are looking for people who will overwork their asses off with bright smiles like in the stock picture and produce growth, growth, growth,... leading to success and ultimate nirvana. The essential skill you must acquire to pass an interview is to answer these behavioral questions and correspond to their sick fantasies. Interview is like a date, interviewers fantasize about the ideal romantic life with you, where you will make everyone happy, besides growth and nirvana, you know. Remember, hypothetical answers won't do. You must tell a story about yourself. It must be well told and be inspiring. It makes sense: if you are in a theater, you must be prepared to act. Study common behavioral questions. Compose stories about yourself and practice telling them with your friends. The stories don't have to be true, they have to be inspiring and make a non-technical person salivating. Here's an example of a behavioral question. "Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. How did you handle interactions with that person?" Invent some guy and some project you were working on. Invent some situation where he lost it. Describe how you remained calm, blah, blah, some corporate bs. Be prepared and good luck serving the corporate machine!
Hope you're cozy working alone in that server room, enlightened guru
You switched to discussing me. 😁 How sweet. Hey, what I wrote about is not a secret. Any interview guide will tell you to be prepared for behavioral questions. Check biginterview.com, for example, the S.T.A.R. format, etc.
I agree to some extent of what you are saying, because I've worked on a team with a few people who got in using their soft skills and they were mostly all talk and no delivery/shitty delivery; they were fun people to work with but they were just soo obviously not qualified. But I'm also scared to work on a team where the people have no soft skills what so ever? What is your proposed solutions here? Have you considered the fact that some teams might value people who have soft skills and are good to work with over people who are skilled technically?
I started my career in another country, so I can talk from my own experience. I see the problem is that all this soft skills bs developed because the middle layer of HR has to earn money. So they developed this fantasy akin to the fantasy of happy romantic relationship, where you must find an ideal person or you are failure. In the country I worked in, nobody bothered about "soft skills". Yet, we were a successful company. You see, most of people usually have naturally soft skills. If you managed to survive until your 30, most likely you know how to socialize and how to get along with other people. The cases where it started impeding the work were exceptionally rare. Most of the time the job is not done like in the fantasy picture of brightly smiling people in a group waving their hands. Minor conflicts are regulated by a good manager, for major conflicts, there is a conflict psychologist. But as I said it is exceptionally rare.
Or you know maybe just MAYBE everybody can become a code monkey with zero effort and the companies are actually focusing on whether the candidate will be a good fit with the culture by avoiding coding champs who are assholes and ruin the entire work environment. But what do I know
Someone summarize this morons rant.
Interviewing comes down to telling stories. You should just make up the best stories, even if they aren’t fully true.
Tl;dr - hates behavioral interviews. Although his rant is absolutely unhinged and neurotic I agree on the substance. Instead of asking tell me about a time where I give canned responses ask me a question about an ACTUAL existing/past/foreseen issue in YOUR company and how I’ll handle it.
You appear to be on the verge of full on schizophrenia. I recommend Aripiprazole.
I like the way I am. But thank you for care! 😁👍
This rant is misguided. First, the point of a company is growth. Second, engineer role job is creative in nature. I want to know the ways you solved a problem (and if you did just by working extra hours will not work in your favor). If you don't follow the STAR steps, I don't care, I will fish the data out of you. But if don't have anything worthy of a story, then what did you even do in your career?
Are you giving yourself as an example typical for the whole industry? Besides, what I have written is not a secret or revelation. You have to be prepared for the behavioral questions, period. That's what any interview preparation manual will tell you. For Amazon in particular you have to know their Leadership Principles. If you answer close to the text, you will pass.
The way you phrased it read like it was a bad thing.
It is only Monday dude.
Yes I agree about the theatrics aspect of the culture. I guess it all started it with Google. I guess once a while there are genuine moments of innovative breakthroughs but those are extremely rare and people try hard to replicate that everywhere so now it becomes like a mass produced culture.
I think everything started with online dating actually. The problem with soft skills is that like on online dating platforms the hiring people are looking for an ideal candidate. You don't need all the soft skills to be great at your work, but there's this mythical image of brightly smiling workers, constantly collaborating and producing excellence. So if you don't have the right answer to one behavioral question, the hiring process rejects you and moves on in a search of a dream. It's impossible to be an ideal candidate and satisfy all the behavioral requirements. You just must learn the game and act, it's a theater.
Preparation manual. It's actually a peek into the mindset of hiring people. https://business.linkedin.com/content/dam/me/business/en-us/talent-solutions/resources/pdfs/Guide-to-screening-candidates-30-essential-behavioral-interview-questions-ebook.pdf
For Amazon interviews you must learn their Leadership Principles and reply to the behavioral questions correspondingly.
TC?