[Chicago] Pro-forma introductory post

[Brian Curtin]

On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 14:42, Walter Askew <waltaskew at gmail.com> wrote:

> As for how to handle interviews, one thing I've learned (especially after
> working for two companies that were duds) is that you should be interviewing
> them as much as they are interviewing you.  If you interview them seriously,
> they'll take you seriously.  For example, I always ask if they do version
> control and unit tests, and I try to get as specific an idea as possible
> about exactly what my role would be and what projects I would be working on
> as well as an idea of what the culture is like.
>

Absolutely. As an interviewer, when someone leaves me without asking any
questions, I can only assume that they already know everything. If they
already know everything, why are they interviewing with us?

Another thing is, if you can teach your interviewer something, you've done
well in my eyes. By asking the questions you mentioned, you'll break into a
little conversation on them, and hopefully teach a thing or two. "Oh so you
guys use Subversion here? Have you ever looked into Mercurial" - "No we
haven't, blah blah blah, why do you think we should?"


> It's also a good idea to request an interview with a developer -- you
> should be able to get the straight story from programmers who work there
> about what the company is really like.  As long as you are a big enough
> nerd, the programmer will probably end up having nice things to say about
> you as well.  If you ask serious questions of the company that's
> interviewing you, they'll see you as a serious applicant and you will also
> get a better idea of whether the job would be a good fit or not.
>

I'd be alarmed if anyone was interviewing for a development position and
wasn't already setup to interview with one or more developers. Where I'm at,
we'll run a new grad past two to three developers depending on the team they
would be going to.

A way to find out if a place is a good fit is to ask what process(es) they
are using. This is another place where you can go on one of the fun tangents
of interviews, complaining. Ask them what works, what doesn't work. You'll
find out about a typical day in the life of a developer at that company, and
you'll see if it's something you'd be interested in doing.
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