Every job that I have worked at has been from me applying and interviewing on my own without a friend or coworkers help.
That said, you have to constantly be interviewing for new jobs regardless if you’re at a job and happy. I never said no to an interview. Indian head hunters? Yes. 3 month contracts? Yes. Lower level or jr positions? Yes. You need those interview skills. Only way to get them is to interview as much as possible.
But it doesn’t end there. You have to document and write notes on the interview. The point of this is to be able to learn from your mistakes. I always ask for interview feedbacks from people that interviewed me and ask them for constructive feedback. I ask if I can add them on LinkedIn because I truly enjoyed my call with them. Whatever feedback they say will help you improve your next interview.
Currently as a hiring manager in this AI world, I care a whole lot less about your skills and a lot more about your personality. Don’t use AI to help you answer questions. I can tell you’re reading from a monitor. I can tell the difference between a ChatGPT backed system and a Gemini backed system. Just be yourself. If you don’t know the answer, tell me how you plan to get the answers. How are you planning on checking your code if I’m not in the office? How do you ask for help if you can’t meet a deadline?
Not sure where I was going with this. Haha.
Have a nice day!
90% of the time in interviews is showing enthusiasm, energy, being sycophantic, and most of all-- showing examples of having applied soft skills1. The remaining 10% is showing technical know how.
- That being said, here’s a Life Pro Tip: make personal notes of personal achievements at work, or outside examples in your volunteering, school work or social clubs if you are just starting in your career and/or have no previous work experience. It does not have to be dramatic, but let’s say you are a good mentor, help friends and colleagues with tasks to finish the entire job effectively, or saw defects in product and did not pass it despite potential delays, etc. From my experience, most people neglect soft skills. Any organisations are still team-based and human-facing because you work in a team, so it’s good to develop personable and soft skills. And I got flak on Lemmy here before because many users here are introverts (a lot tend to be IT workers), but unless we finally get UBI, even in the sector full of introverts, that’s just the reality and a person has to suck up with interacting with others to get a job.
Replace the “Interview skills” bar with “knowing the right people”.
This is true. If you are not interviewing at least one a quarter (even if you’re happy at your current job) you are doing yourself a disservice. It is a skill in itself that needs to be trained and kept current. As a side effect you might get offers and jobs you didn’t even know existed.
I switched jobs twice in the last 10 years and as a result at least doublingy salary, without ever feeling the need to switch, just to keep interviewing as “seeing what’s out there”.
Also allows you to reject jobs by asking for ridiculous amounts of money, sometimes failing successfully.
Reminds me of the ‘joke’ where a secretary goes into her bosses’ office with a high stack of résumés, puts it on his desk. He then randomly takes half a pile and throws it in the garbage. The secretary, surprised and a bit shocked, asks him why did you do that for? Those are perfectly good résumés. To which he replies I don’t hire unlucky people.
You interviewed well, but we’re looking for someone with a more “related to a current employee” skill set.
actually looking for rhyme or reason to getting jobs in the 20’s.
Employment is just one of those things that happen from time to time. Life coaches, gypsy tarot readers and employment agencies are just a few of the shysters who will attempt to offer shape, meaning, reason or hope to it, but these things just happen or dont and theres nothing anyone can actually do about it either way.
should add a 3rd bar, nepotism, or how well the interviewer/hr likes you or your fit for the company,
That’s part of interview skills. Be kind, relatable, pleasant.
Add a fourth bar. The physical attractiveness scale. Attractive candidates are more likely to get hired and even earn more over their career.
You need to have that level of skill to get a job, because 99% of available jobs have recruiters that want you to kiss their asses.
maybe things wouldn’t suck so much if companies hired based on who’s the most qualified only. Instead of going off a set of instructions bigger than a phone book of the entire world
its also subjective, one employer may just look at 100 applicants and just wait for another one, or look for specific things you did or not.
I stopped accepting offers to be in the interview stage after too many, what I thought were, great interviewees ended up being shitty colleagues. Being a great interview seems to be an appropriate bar to jump over for sales, and upper management.
Add “masking” if you’re even remotely neurodivergent.
at some point between when I got my first job and now, I’ve like stopped masking as much because I can’t even get an interview at other retail stores.
like a grocery store had an opening, which they somehow filled within like less than a day. like half a year later there’s another opening and I apply and everything same day as when I got the email they had an opening. these bitches never got back to me.
Nah, the biggest slice is knowing how to game the application algorithms they use to choose who to even interview.
that usually isnt known to to applicant, all you see is a job listing.
That’s my issue. I’ve been offered every job I’ve ever interviewed for, but getting the interview is the hard part.
And in the end, the jobs I’ve had have come through that third “who you know” column that got me to the interview.
I’d actually be a little concerned if this was the case.
It could mean your application is so trash only really desperate employers are willing to interview and hire you which opens you up to working for shit employers.
I haven’t actually had to make an application in years now. I’ve been approached directly for my last 2 jobs.
Don’t need that if you know the right people
And a fourth bar that extends beyond the top of the page simply labeled “luck”
Besides the doors my parents opened for me, every single opportunity I have had has been because I walked through the door and asked. I have found that often, you make your own luck.
The ‘born into wealth’ bar is so large, you’d need a microscope to see any other bars.
Ever seen the difference in wealth between millions and billions?
Put another way, Elon could spend a million dollars a day for a thousand years and still be a billionaire.
When people are starving and can’t get healthcare or basic needs, that’s just fucking disgusting.
This should be the top comment.
And can’t forget the bar for “nepotism”!
Nepotism is often the only bar on the chart.
Both of these are covered by “knowing the right people”.
There’s actually research on how little correlation there is between interview performance and job performance in most cases. This includes cases with “objective” tests during the process, if I remember right.
Yeah, just because you can do something for an interview doesn’t mean you will do it again repeatedly for years on end.
And the list of skills needed and duties in the job posting often don’t overlap much with the actual work.
this is why the final step of our hiring process (don’t worry, there are only three steps, one of which is simply a short HR screening call) is to come to the shop and walk around and look at stuff and talk about it effectively
if you can’t do that, you can’t do the job, because that’s like half the job.
What’s the job just out of curiosity?
automated machine design
Also, if you made a mistake in an interview, that shows nothing about how youre capable of learning from a mistake.
Id rather work with someone who admits they made a mistake and learn from it than a person who “knows it all.”
And with what some recruiters put on linked in, some barely have any idea what they’re doing and just have some nonsense red flags to rationalize their job.
It’s bad.
