Interview Results.
Mar. 31st, 2004 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swestrupWell I had my interview today. I'm really not sure what kind of impression I made. I'm not naturally a people person, and on only 4 hours sleep I wasn't at my best. I think I made some points at the beginning when we discussed their product and I said I didn't see what market they were aiming at, and their UI sucked. Well, he agreed about the UI and said that they had a team working on it.
It turns out that mainly what they do is reverse engineer proprietary file formats so they don't have to pay licensing fees.
Anyway, I was then given a 14 page test and 40 minutes to do it in. I ended up taking 50 minutes because I was feeling dopey and because its been 5+ years since I wrote a line of C++ and 8+ since I wrote any Java. (And my programming style is REALLY cramped by not having an editor -- I don't write code linearly). The programming and math problems were trivial and on any normal day I would be confident I got it all right, but today I don't know. I'm pretty sure I made syntax errors, because I could not, for the life of me, remember the syntax for class inheritance in C++.
After the test we chatted a bit while the interviewer flipped through it. It was clear that having an 8-years out-of-date knowledge of Java and no idea of the current shape of the libraries, nor what SWING and JSP were, did not make for an impressive test. I think I got all of the geometry and probability stuff right, cause he just nodded as he flipped through those.
Anyway, at the end of it he asked about what kind of position I would like, what salary I was looking for and if he could have some references, so I don't think I've completely wrecked my chances. I gave him![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
_sps_'s cell number and e-mail since I had worked for him in 1999, and gave the phone numbers of the two folks I was working under at SNT, so they'll probably be contacted.
He then said they're currently just doing interviews. In about 2 weeks they'll take all the resume's and interview data and sort it. Then they'll call people who end up at the top of the pile. So, I have at least two weeks before I know if they're gonna offer me a job. I'm certainly not going to hold my breath waiting though. In the meanwhile I'll continue with my various attempts to find work, and see what comes up.
It turns out that mainly what they do is reverse engineer proprietary file formats so they don't have to pay licensing fees.
Anyway, I was then given a 14 page test and 40 minutes to do it in. I ended up taking 50 minutes because I was feeling dopey and because its been 5+ years since I wrote a line of C++ and 8+ since I wrote any Java. (And my programming style is REALLY cramped by not having an editor -- I don't write code linearly). The programming and math problems were trivial and on any normal day I would be confident I got it all right, but today I don't know. I'm pretty sure I made syntax errors, because I could not, for the life of me, remember the syntax for class inheritance in C++.
After the test we chatted a bit while the interviewer flipped through it. It was clear that having an 8-years out-of-date knowledge of Java and no idea of the current shape of the libraries, nor what SWING and JSP were, did not make for an impressive test. I think I got all of the geometry and probability stuff right, cause he just nodded as he flipped through those.
Anyway, at the end of it he asked about what kind of position I would like, what salary I was looking for and if he could have some references, so I don't think I've completely wrecked my chances. I gave him
_sps_'s cell number and e-mail since I had worked for him in 1999, and gave the phone numbers of the two folks I was working under at SNT, so they'll probably be contacted.He then said they're currently just doing interviews. In about 2 weeks they'll take all the resume's and interview data and sort it. Then they'll call people who end up at the top of the pile. So, I have at least two weeks before I know if they're gonna offer me a job. I'm certainly not going to hold my breath waiting though. In the meanwhile I'll continue with my various attempts to find work, and see what comes up.
