If you've been laid off, please avoid this mistake in interviews
I interview a lot of people and in the past year that has included a lot of people laid off for COVID reasons. I've noticed that there is a big difference in interviews with people who have been laid off versus those who are searching while having a job - and that difference is confidence. People who have been laid off talk at me so much more than other candidates. They spend precious minutes of a phone screen trying to explain away why they got laid off or giving me a laundry list of achievements. Sometimes I don’t get to ask my full screening list of questions because they have spent so much time trying to explain every single project they’ve ever done. As a hiring manager, I get that these are tough times and lots of companies are laying off. I do not think it is your fault or that you are unqualified. I would not have taken the phone screen if I did not like your resume! Don’t hide the fact that you got laid off, but it’s much better to note it ‘Yea the company hit hard times and laid off a bunch of the workforce, but I’m really excited to talk about how your company is tackling XYZ.’ Then move us to a conversation about how we could work together. Paint a picture of how you could fit in at the company. Ask about what the challenges are that we have right now, then help paint a picture of how you could help solve them if you joined. The candidates who already have jobs tend to seem more self-assured and spend more time asking me questions or engaging me in conversation - and that is very appealing!
I know this may not be very helpful advice because I get that you need a job yesterday. It can be very hard to relax and be your best self in those situations, but if you can slow down a little and put yourself in the mind-frame of "hey they would be lucky to have me and need to sell me on their company" it will help you to come off as a better and more desirable candidate.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 76.5 ms ] threadIt's all a cruel real shithorrorshow rapejape
Instead, focus. Calm down. Think about writing software and building cool products. Redirect your energy into enthusiasm and try to have a conversation about adding value to your potential future employer.
I was told I was acting too desperate and lacked confidence, to which I countered... how can I not act desperate when I’ve been lonely for so long? (Of course the answer to that is to enjoy being alone/single first, but I was getting huge FOMO and envy during college-age years when everyone else seemed to be in a relationship and I wasn’t). In hindsight, breaking out of a negative feedback loop requires a lot of conscious effort, or else reality becomes a nonstop fulfilling prophecy.
1. Sometimes talent is hard to recognize, as in the people that you listed.
2. Sometimes the whole company is such a bad situation that they have to fire whole teams/branches indiscriminately.
But still, I think that parent comment about "a lot of talented people being out of work for a long time" is not true.
I would say that's most of the time. Companies often have to outsource their head-hunting because so many of them are so bad at it, and entire companies have been created (e.g. TripleByte) because other companies can't figure out how to properly measure talent.
And arguably, the main reason in the first place that managers hire so many people they are OK letting go later on is because their managers (one level up) aren't able to properly observe it happening, on account of the measurement being so poor. If the measurement is that poor, you're basically guaranteed to have hired lots of great people who won't have the opportunity to flourish.
Anyone let go right now - it sucks - but it isn't you that sucks. It is the monkeys that are managing the pandemic that suck.
Keep your chin up!
The codicil is that I'm not sure you can separate someone's productivity from their fit in that role, with the given management and stage of the company.
Where I worked, 200 people working on two products at a start up became 100 people working on 1 product at a startup all in the course of a single morning, and the people working on the product that got the axe were just as smart as the people working on the product that didn't.
Some of them didn't work for years - all smart capable developers, but no one was hiring. It's sort of surprising that didn't happen this year, but the next crisis is always right around the corner.
It's all fun and games until it happens to you.
You can also make some open source contributions to show you are still gaining skills even if not getting paid.
Remember the Dunning–Kruger effect. We are surrounded by confident and wrong people.
Confident and wrong people are the ones who will try their ideas out and get it right eventually. Those who are not confident will keep passive learning and planning and get stuck in self-doubt, and hate others for succeeding by just doing things "wrongly".
I think there's a meta DK effect in light of DK effect: those who learn about DK effect and think that it is favorable to them are the ones to whom it doesn't apply favorably to.
What’s the practical difference? There isn’t an objective measure of competence in software. An interviewer has to make a decision on potential performance from very little information. Strong communications skills are a huge benefit to a candidate, which includes selling ones self. It is up to the interviewer to direct the conversation and determine if the candidate’s commentary is bullshit.
DK isn’t confidence, but more specifically is confidence contrary to performance.
Because for decades we've been systematically rejected and unable to apply our gifts due to momentary misunderstandings at interviews that just crush our lives like anvils again and again. If someone has enough to pay me enough to afford rent and expenses like internet / water / power andlemme know what I need to learn on top of all I already know and I'll deliver.
As the interviewer, if a candidate goes on and on about something irrelevant, note that, interrupt them, and move on.
You're recognizing that these candidates are in a difficult situation, but you're not taking any steps yourself to support them.
If OPs hypothesis is correct that their rambling is a symptom of "just-got-laid-off-panic", then letting the candidate discredit herself due to that temporary condition is unhelpful for everyone.
Example: [John/Jane Smith] was a software engineer at Big Bill's Railroad working on a content management system. When Covid-19 hit, people suddenly stopped riding the trains on Bill's railroad, and Bill had no other recourse but to reduce his workforce: less ridership, less revenue. Unfortunately, [John/Jane Smith] was part of this RIF and [John/Jane Smith is] now back on the market.
If it comes up in a HR screen, substitute [John/Jane Smith] with the appropriate "I" during conversation and it's a Covid-themed template that everyone will get. The above is a crude example, but you should try to turn your experiences into paragraphs. Not everyone has the "leisure" of being in an impacted industry and it's more difficult to do if you've been fired rather than laid off, but it's important to package yourself for various audiences. Put your experiences into singular paragraphs, trim out all the cruft and fat, and you have good blurbs about yourself that are quick and informative.
Shown middle finger to startup and left in 2 days to way more exciting career.