Back from the Interview.

[swestrup]

Not sure how well the interview went yet, but it sure went a lot smoother than the last few I've done. Mainly I just chatted with the Chief of Technology and the Head of R&D for 90 minutes; told them what I had done in the past and they told me something of what they were doing.

They seem to think I have the coding skills they need, but aren't sure what exact position to offer me. If so, its likely I'll get some sort of job offer within the next week. OTOH, maybe I made a complete mess of things and they'll never hire me. *shrug* not much I can do about it either way at this point. For now, I'll just keep my fingers crossed and wait.

Comments

[denizsarikaya.livejournal.com]

Best of luck.

Here's to things working out in your best interests.

[denizsarikaya.livejournal.com]

This "not sure what exact position to offer" seems to come up far too often for you.

If this should end up biting you again here, I suggest you ask them what you could do that would make it easier for them to give you a job, be it types of open-source projects to contribute to or what have you.

[skjalm.livejournal.com]

but aren't sure what exact position to offer me

This is always annoying to be told at a job interview. Unless it's a result of an unsolicited application?

A strategy that seems to have worked quite well for me in the past is to dare to disagree with the interviewer(s). It's amazing how much positive feedback I've gotten from saying things like "is that really a good idea?" when they described some process. Of course, you bloody well better be prepared to prove that it's a bad idea and that you have a better solution ;-)

And if you need a bit more fun in an upcoming interview with non-tech personel (i.e. marketing or HR people) you should try and ask them specifics about how the company is run, how the economy is and so on. Play hard to get rather than get down on your knees and beg. Besides, if they're not prepared to tell a potential new employee if the company's stocks went up or down in the last period chances are that things are not going well and you have to ask yourself if that's the kind of company you want to work for.

A few years past I saw a very good article on /. about what geeks/techs should do and ask about in job interviews. The interesting point is that it was written by a person who was used to sitting at the other side of the table in these situations. He/She was really surprised that geeks weren't aware of their own value and basically seemed to be very submissive and didn't dare ask any questions.

At my current work I actually made the COT apologize for the fact that he had a business school education and not a "real" tech education. The reason? I simply asked what education the interviewers had... it seemed to take them completely by surprise that I was actually interested in who was hiring me.

Not saying you're submissive, mind you, just trying to pour out some of my extremely extensive knowledge... said the guy who had only had job interviews with a total of four companies ;-)