Interviews
Saturday, February 23, 2008 9:18:47 AM (Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)
So this week I got to participate in 2 interviews for potential ThoughtWorks candidates. The first was a "cultural fit" interview. A group of ThoughtWorkers including myself took the candidate out for lunch where we just talked about things from our feelings and perceptions of what it means to be Agile to the different distinct accents within North America.
It was cool to do the interview as a group. I'm sure we all came away with different ideas and noticed different things about the candidate. But really it was just to see if we felt that the candidate would fit in within a team. Would I want to work with this person?
The second interview was a pairing interview. Eric and myself met with the prospect and locked ourselves up in the boardroom to work through a problem statement. Really it was whatever we could come up with as we were walking to the office. The way the interview is interpreted is based on the experience of the candidate coming in. In this case we wanted to see if the prospect was receptive to ideas, how familiar was he with OO, could he actually jock a keyboard. The interview went well, I thought!
After now having been on both sides of the TW interview process, I started to reflect on my own previous interview experiences...
In high school my buddy Jeremy and I applied for a position at McDonalds in our neighborhood. (Banff Trail what's up!?) We both got a call back for an interview, one after another so we went to the interview together. The hiring manager at the location sat us down together since we knew each other and interviewed us as a pair. It was fun, maybe to much fun... neither of us got hired.
After that I applied at Domino's Pizza, (right on Crowchild Trail, right across from ... "Banff Trail, what's up?") I got a call back for interview, and I showed up straight from school with my back pack and my blue fitted LA Dodgers hat tilted and tossed to the back. I was less interested in impressing the person hiring, and more interested in finding a job that would be fun. I somehow got the job...
In June of 2004, I had just finished my college diploma and still working at Domino's Pizza. I was sleeping in one morning, after working a closing shift at Domino's when I got a phone call.
Person on the phone: "Hi this is... Alex Smith, an instructor at SAIT. I spoke with Gary Funk, and he suggested you to me as a candidate for a C programming position. Would you be interested?"
Mo: "ahhh... yeah of course!"
Person on the phone: "Would you mind emailing me your resume so I can pass it along?"
Mo: "ahhh... yeah of course!"
....
So I jumped out of bed, spruced up my resume (hmm... should I put Domino's Pizza on or not?) in about 20 minutes and fired it off to Mr. Alex, and went back to sleep.
Around noon I got a phone call from a Mr. Sergio...
Sergio: "Hey Mo, my name is Sergio. I just got your resume from Alex and would like to meet with you. Are you interested?"
Mo: "ahhh... yeah of course!"
Sergio: "Can you be down here in about an hour?"
Mo: "ahhh... yeah of course! Down where??"
...
Lucky for me I was a delivery driver at the time, and my car was still operating (somewhat... I miss you Honda!) I slapped on some jeans, and collared shirt and got my butt down to his office. After about an hour, Sergio was showing me the point of sale terminals he was working on and the current code base. He was walking me through parts of the code base that he thought I would need to know about. It turned out that Sergio had a family emergency and had to leave the company...
So I got my first job as a programmer... it was literally that fast!
I once interviewed at Cambrian House, by a friendly gentleman named JR. He took me to a room with a table in the middle and a couple of people working on laptops. He pulled up an exercise ball sat on it, and offered me a chair to sit on. I don't remember the questions he asked me or what the position was even for... I didn't pursue the job, because I was starting a family at the time and was afraid to take the risk. (no benefits, long hours... startup y'know). On a side note, I later found out one of the people working in the room was a man by the name of Richard Hurst, who's been described as "One of Western Canada's top software developers." Opportunity missed!
I had 2 interviews with IDC. First a phone screen, then an in office meeting with the <something> Manager. I was in awe of his intelligence that I was afraid to ask questions. I was hired then left after a few months. (It wasn't the right cultural, or technical fit for me! Boo... VB6!)
When I had my in office interview at MediaLogic, I showed up in a suit. Man did I feel silly afterwards... I figured everyone downtown wore suits... I didn't know! When I walked in to the office I saw a pool table, with a bar style kitchen, a big flat screen TV, a dart board, with colored walls that can be moved around to change the shape of "cubes". (we later created the super cube for some of the dev team... long live the super cube!)
My in office interview was awesome, it was with the dev manager, Mr. Luu, and the team lead, Mr. Adam. I remember getting fired up when Adam started to grill me on questions about OO, and design patterns. I realized that I had a lot to learn but was infected by his passion. I had a second interview where I was given a problem that tested my knowledge of ASP.NET and ADO.NET and I bombed. My saving grace was that I went and talked to Adam about what I was trying to do, and basically walked him through my thinking. I got the job!
I interviewed at ATCO iTek. It started off with a phone screen, then they emailed me a technical assignment to solve, then I had an in house interview. At my in house I asked if I could meet the team, and the answer was a No. I accepted and then later turned down the job.
I should have learned from my first interview at Domino's Pizza. The moral of the story is... don't just try to impress the person hiring you. Make sure they impress you! Know what you want, ask lots of questions to find out if the place is what you want. If you don't know what you want, it's worth taking the time to figure it out before firing off resumes. I don't mean to sound like I'm a pro at interviewing, I'm not. Based on my experience, this is just how I see it so far...
