[Novalug] Job interview "stuff"

[William Sutton]

I still say, "don't lie", in any manner.  Even embelishment can reflect 
badly on you if you are caught.

Sell your capabilities.  Tell them what you've done, highlighting your 
finest moments ("I did the following things to bring a new server up in 
record time after the RAID controller died").  Emphasise what your team 
members did as part of the process (unless you're just that good on your 
own).  Giving credit where it is due is a good thing.  Showing your 
ability to help the company in a pinch is a good thing (for example, in 
the course of my duties at my present job, I loaded several GB worth of 
data on an emergency basis when I had both the flu and bronchitis and 
was home on sick leave).

Be candid, but also be thoughtful about your answers.  A friend of mine 
was asked by a recruiter what my greatest weakness was.  He said, "He's 
too honest."  That response works on many levels, not least of which is 
that it turns an invitation to dish dirt into an assesment of a positive 
character trait.

You can also sometimes answer a negative question with a tangentially 
related answer.  "What is your worst experience at your current job?" "My 
team and I spent a week bringing a new data center online despite the 
client's insistence that it could not be done."

I'll reiterate this: Never lie.  Never.  I don't want people who lie, and 
I don't want people who shade the truth.  If you're willing to lie in an 
interview, I can't trust you on anything else.

William Sutton

On Tue, 8 Dec 2009, Nick Danger wrote:

> On 12/07/2009 10:46 PM, greg pryzby wrote:
>> You are interviewing for a job. You were granted a privilege to
>> interview. You are there to explain why you will be an asset to the team
>> and you can do the work and bring more than any other candidate.
>>
>
> Agreed. And I also believe its not your place to judge how stupid their
> questions are when you are in the interview seat. But I think I have the
> right to make fun of the questions afterwards :-)
>
> Just like writing code to solve a problem, an open ended question like
> "tell me about a time" is an opportunity to show your skills. Every good
> story needs drama and conflict.  I say 'lie' in the way a good author
> does. Note I do not mean 'lie' in the Sarah Palin autobiography way.
>
>> Oh, chances are you will be googled/facebooked/etc and what you wrote on
>> a mailing list will come back to haunt you.
>>
>
> Its something to be aware of. Im sure it has happened to most of us
> already. Then again, I was once judged for a job on my hair.
>
> Nick
>
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>