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Re: [PLUG] OT: (outta sight!) making IT in Philly?
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This is a great post, IMO. I'll offer a little story from my past.
I was interviewing as a contractor at a company in Harrisburg, PA.
The lady interviewing me was pretty impressed with my skills overall,
but we didn't have a large amount of technical knowledge in common.
I was still in school and working with a contractor that was trying to
get me summer work. During the interview I made the worst kind of
blunder, I outright lied. The interviewer asked if I had any knowledge
of SQL, which I did not.
When I affirmed that I had knowledge of SQL, she asked for an example of
an SQL statement. What an EASY question, which I could not answer!!!
So obvious that I was being dishonest. The job didn't even involve SQL.
Obviously, I didn't get the contract. That afternoon, I started learning
SQL.
In a twist, I interviewed for a position the next summer with the same lady.
She asked no questions about SQL, and I got the position. Luckily,
she didn't remember me at all from the previous year. That was a hard
lesson to learn.
I very much keep to the conservative side of honest, and totally agree
with Jeff's advice that you should not be afraid to admit when you don't
know
something. Nine times out of ten, when I do I accompany it with a statement
that I'm happy learn and confident I can learn what they need.
Jeff Abrahamson wrote:
><soapbox>
>
> A couple people in this thread have indicated that it's reasonable to
> lie or bluff in interviews. A naive interpretation of this could get
> you into trouble, so I thought it might be helpful to add the
> following for those without enough experience to read between the
> lines:
>
> - If you don't know the answer to a question, *never* bluff. Say you
> don't know. If you do know something related or a little bit, say
> that, too. You will garner a great deal of respect. I have talked
> to many colleagues who have interviewed people who have bluffed,
> saying something was true that wasn't, for example. It absolutely
> and instantly kills the applicant's chances.
>
> - On the other hand, you *can* bluff on things for which there's no
> correct answer, such as whether or not you are expert in a given
> technology, *as long as* you've done your research to know enough.
> What "enough" means varies, but, basically, you should know at least
> as much as a cheap consultant on the subject, except that you should
> know the limits of your knowledge and be confident that you can fill
> in the gaps. I got my first java job that way: I read a book, put
> it on my resume, and interviewed, saying I had experience and
> talking about those details I knew. It all worked, and they were
> happy with me through the job. But I knew what I didn't know, and I
> had ten years of programming experience to help me synthesize book
> learning in a way that let me talk about what one can do with the
> language.
>
> Just remember that people talk. People have worked at other places
> and have friends there. Hiring managers give feedback to headhunters
> (if that's how you got the interview), who will be interested in
> sending you on more interviews directly proportional to the feedback
> they receive. If the hiring manager thinks you're hot but can't take
> you, the HH is going to send you to good places. If the HM thinks
> you're full of it, it goes the other way.
>
><soapbox/>
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>___________________________________________________________________________
>Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
>Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
>General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
>
>
--
Andrew Libby
alibby@philadelphiariders.com
http://philadelphiariders.com/
___________________________________________________________________________
Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org
Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce
General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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