[Discuss] Looking for work

[matt at mattshields.org (Matt Shields)]

On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 1:19 PM, Rich Braun <richb at pioneer.ci.net> wrote:

> Jerry wrote:
> >> Don't volunteer anything and don't be negative.
>
> Edward Ned Harvey responded:
> > Agreed with everything Jerry just said, except "don't volunteer
> anything."
> > ... I feel the best interviews
> > are usually the ones where the candidates show energy and enthusiasm,
> > passion for the technology and love what they do.
>
> You're both right. ;-)  I have quite recent experience with this; just got
> the
> thumbs-down yesterday from an interview 10 days earlier.  My failure mode
> in
> interviews is that I ramble until a timer goes off inside me reminding me
> to
> give the interviewer a chance to ask a question.  On this occasion, my
> rambling took me down a dangerous turn.  One of my previous jobs ended in a
> horrendous way, and to this day I still feel a whole lot of rage and angst
> about it.  Deep in my subconscious is a desire to get all this off my chest
> and transcend the person who caused this wound in my life.
>
> *But* I shouldn't ever talk about it.  10 days ago, I did, without being
> prompted.  The facial expression of this hiring manager changed for the
> rest
> of the interview, so I pretty much knew his decision 10 days before it was
> officially communicated to me.  Perhaps there was another reason behind the
> adverse decision, but this gaffe stood out in an otherwise positive 3
> hours of
> discussions with 5 screeners.
>
> So in response to this advise from Jerry & Ned:  I think it's good advice
> to
> ramble on about positive achievements and/or things that you know the
> hiring
> company is working on, for up to about 2 minutes, but then you need to
> bring
> your comments to the point and prompt another question from your
> interviewer
> (usually, by asking an innocuous question of your own).
>
> -rich
>
>
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It's not bad to talk about negative experiences, in fact good interviewers
ask you about these experiences.  These experiences could be dealing with a
severe outage, a high conflict coworker, mis-management of a company, etc.
 It's how you reacted and dealt with a negative situation that they want to
know.  If you acted poorly, then of course they may not consider you.  If
you found a way to deal with the negativity in a good way, then it's a good
thing.  Honestly I believe that negative situations if dealt with correctly
help you build up.


Matthew Shields
www.sysadminvalley.com
www.jeeprally.com