Author: jeffohrstrom

I don’t like interviewing. It’s a stressful business for both sides, and the only solace I seem to have in being rejected for a job is that I wasn’t the one doing the rejecting.

I wrote this partly in rage, partly in despair when I’d been rejected for a job that I’d put a lot of effort into. And what’s worse, they gave me no feedback, so I was just left to stew and wonder why. This is the output of that wondering.

I have anxieties and insecurities to boot, and interviewing only seems to brings these to the forefront of my mind. I think about imposter syndrome, but I don’t really feel fraudulent about my intellect or achievements. I think embarrassed is more accurate. I’m modest. It feels impolite to talk about myself. I don’t do it regularly and I have all sorts of social strategies around avoiding it. It seems to me to be some flaw in our culture to want success and also be embarrassed by it.

But obviously in an interview you have to talk about yourself. The software/engineering questions I can do fine on, if I can only curb my enthusiasm for tangents and anecdotes.

So then it’s an evaluation of my personality. Am I honourable? Do I have integrity? Am I honest? Do I value team-mates input?

In answering one of those tell-me-about-a-time-that-such-and-such type questions I said this in an interview: “I know it’s perhaps the worst thing to say, but that’s the way we’ve always done it.” It was an honest answer, and that’s what integrity is right? Honesty.

I did not get that job. I’m sure they saw that as shifting the blame, which it was. I made a mistake. I can freely and easily admit that, but it’s rarely that simple.

The implication of “shifting blame” is that the institutions around you are never at fault (I have to use “fault” and “blame” for lack of better words in the age of blameless post-mortems. The alternative being something like “made, directly or indirectly, through action or inaction, a suboptimal decision and/or action” which just doesn’t roll of the tongue), but that doesn’t seem likely.

I think the conditions – both internally and externally – that allowed the mistake to happen are important. Context is important. Surely that’s why we made post-mortems blameless. So that people can freely explore that context.

Then, in an interview, how do you accurately portray that context? I can own the mistake, and I can even own the decision keep the status quo, but I can’t acknowledge that the status quo is bigger than me?

Here’s another thing not to do: Admit that you don’t have regrets. I think I got caught up in the semantics of this one, but I don’t have regrets. I’ve made mistakes to be sure, but I don’t dwell on them. I don’t live in the past. I don’t take life that seriously (another thing you should never say to a potential employer). Those mistakes have served their purpose which is to scare the shit out of me.

Now that I’m sufficiently frightened, I can make better choices. But there are other mistakes to make, and I may make them. There’s a big wide world out there, and I may not have the courage, strength or the conviction to take arms against a sea of troubles. I may settle. I’m not perfect and though I hope to do so, I won’t always choose right.

I mean the mistakes and bad choices we collectively make all the time in software development. Patching something instead of overhauling it. Scripting some hot-fix and forgetting about it. Caving into pressure by the PO (or whomever has sufficient power over you) to get something done quickly, not correctly. Not writing better documentation.

I’m going to make another mistake, of that I’m sure. Of course, I don’t hope to, but it’s absurd to think I won’t. But I’m also sure of this: I made it in good faith, I will own up to it and I will feel bad about it. I will try to fix it, and I’ll try to never do it again.

I think the worst part of interviewing is having a feeling of defensiveness. Like somehow you’ve got to justify your existence. For having to apologize and rethink every little phrase you utter (or write). What’s insidious about it is feelings are forever. Or for at least as long as they last, which may seem like forever.

Of course, no interviewer has really made me ‘justify my existence’. That thought is surely from the worst part of my anxiety. But life’s like that; you have all sorts of feelings in various degrees. Especially in high stress situations like interviews.

A recruiter will say ‘just be yourself’. What if being yourself is the problem. Your responses in interviews are your own stream of conciseness. And I for one, always seem to think better the second go around. Maybe I should prep better. Anticipate these questions. But that seems disingenuous to have canned answers to these things.

Also, how can I not be myself?

In a context where you’re being evaluated you’ll likely make assumptions about what your evaluators want to hear. That’s natural – public speaking is all about knowing your audience. But you don’t know the audience do you? You know your friends; you’ve just made assumptions about a public audience. If you’re a good public speaker, you’ve made good assumptions.

An interview is a little fucked because it’s a lot like public speaking, only very privately and thereby more intimate. So you’ll twist your answer to fit an audience you don’t know based on assumptions that are probably wrong. Then the evaluator, not getting the thing they’re trying to coerce out of you, applies a little more coercion. OK, another quick assumption recalculation and stream some more.

OK fine. Flip the script. Have no assumptions. Blurt out what you want instead of what they want. Good luck and Godspeed with whatever strategy you find yourself debating to use. Or kicking yourself for having used.

Somewhere in this time someone asked on twitter how to find a candidates’ integrity and I was thinking the same – because I had not shown it. I was wondering if you can measure integrity in an interview; if it’s even possible in such a short time.

People use these tricks: Tell me a story about when you made a mistake. Tell me something you regret – and what you learned from it.

The idea being that you can suss out someone’s bull shit. To hear them recant a story, and you have to (a) judge whether it’s an honest account of what happened and (b) judge whether the actions taken (or not) were reasonable. That’s a tough gig!

How about these questions as an indication of integrity. Do you cut in line, how do you feel about people who do? Do you hold the elevator door? Do you pet the dogs that lunge at you while their owners walk them? Thoughts on phone etiquette. Thoughts on children screaming in public.

My answers (to the questions nobody is asking):

(1) No. (2) It’s wrong, but, honestly, I don’t make a fuss when people do it. (3) Yes, why not? (4) To friendly dogs, yes, probably saying ‘hello puppy’ in some cutsie voice. (5) Kids these days, it honestly seems dangerous for them, but to adults – be reasonable, both in the use of and the expectations out of other users. (6) The parents are having a rougher go if it than you, so kindly, get over it.

I have this feeling that the best you can do is a bit of a gut impulse. Someone “feels” trustworthy. I’m sure it’s something to do with body language or speech articulation.

I look for modesty in people. Embarrassment. A sigh of relief that we’re moving to another topic. Instead of looking for the things honest people have, perhaps we should look for the things assholes don’t. Assholes don’t get embarrassed, they love to argue.

What others look for I cannot say. This particular company that rejected me did not tell me what I had lacked, so I’m only left to guess.

For better or worse, we’re always looking for validation in other peoples eyes. And we’re deeply hurt when we don’t find it. There’s no uplifting message, but I’ll offer this: somehow, some way, people seem to manage.

And I wonder if you can really show integrity under that circumstance. Maybe real honor can only come from instances when you have nothing to gain. Like holding a door for someone. Or petting a strange dog as you pass it on the sidewalk. Who knows? I surely don’t.