When I’m looking at hundreds of resumes, I want the high-level stuff for all applicants where I can easily find it to weed out the wildly unqualified people and the resumes submitted by Indian headhunter who thinks someone who worked in network engineering for 3 months in 2007 is qualified to be a senior drainage engineer.
The reason I still want your regular resume, cover letter etc, is that I do examine those once the 90% of people who never should have even turned in an application have been filtered out.
Protip: if you aren’t going to get a good reference, dont put them down as a reference. Half the people I was gonna give a position to in the last year lost the job to surprises when we checked references right before sending an offer letter. Be up front if you had a colorful exit. Heck - if you left a previous job for ethical reasons and it pissed off your unethical employer, that’s bonus points with me.
Sorry, buddy, I didn’t get an easy lay-up of a job once because I candidly I told them I got fired for not knowing shit about that particular industry (which was separate from the job I was applying to, where I actually had a bit more knowledge). It turns out that the employer that fired me will only verify dates of employment, not cause for leaving, so it was a mistake to be honest.
In fact, it’s almost always a mistake to be honest in job interviews, unless you’re jesus christ. Your first (only?) job is to service the emotional needs of the employer, which usually means not asking any probing questions about how they do business, and certainly do not demonstrate you are a serious person by talking about real deficits and how you plan to overcome them; because there is some asshole out there who is applying for the same job who will just be lying their ass off and saying how big the employer’s dick is and the employer won’t figure out they hired some incompetent fool for another few months.
I once got some feedback from an interview for a job a didn’t get. They asked me how I felt about paperwork. I said that I didn’t love it, but it needed to be done, and I made sure to finish all my paperwork by the end of the day, or end of the week at worst. This was a person-centered job, so I thought it was an OK answer. This was not the right answer. The right answer was, “I’m PASSIONATE about doing paperwork.”
Maybe you appreciate an honest candidate, but most people don’t, and there’s no way to know who is interviewing you.
Do you want evidence? Look at LLMs, designed through multiple reviews and iterations to provide “the best” answer. Guess what? The two traits that all LLMs excel at: obsequiousness and authoritativeness–that’s the energy you need to bring to job interviews.
Your first (only?) job is to service the emotional needs of the employer
This is mostly true even after you get hired. Most people are just large children with poorly managed emotions. It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It matters if your boss feels good.
I know its anecdotal, but I’ve interviewed for dozens of jobs and ended up getting an offer every single time. And it’s not because I lie.
The most important thing in an interview is confidence. I don’t show up begging for a job. I ask them questions and essentially get them to explain why I should work there.
And the confidence starts before the interview. I work in municipal government right now, and my cover letter wasn’t some flowery bullshit about how I was excited for the opportunity blah blah. I included specific process improvements I wanted to bring to that specific city. I was able to do that because instrad of shotgunning my resume, I tailor it to the jobs I want.
I asked for the top number in the salary range because I’m very good at what I do. Some people ask for something in the middle because they think if you ask for the top number you’re immediately dismissed. I’ve never seen that happen. If the salary range has a top number, that number’s already been budgeted, so they’re willing to pay it. Strategically asking for less hoping you’ll get the offer tells the employer that you’re not sure you’re as qualified as the other candidates and are pitching yourself as the budget option.
If the number is a problem but they still want you, they’ll offer a lower number.
I’m learning not to be honest in interviews by being rejected after interviews where I’m honest.
You’re an objectively better candidate than I am. Not only do I lack recent experience, I’m also have gaps and some very unrelated low-level jobs. I’m applying for close-to-entry level work in a field I’m actually highly critical of in ways employers definitely don’t want to hear. With all my “red flags”, it’s best to be as normal and not threatening as possible.
Which does shake my confidence, a bit, going in feeling like I have to misrepresent myself, but it’s something I need to work on as a cynical manipulation of the process.
I have 2 points in response. First off, fuck cover letters. I don’t care if I’m applying to be CEO as an outside hire, you can get a feel for my personality at the interview, not through a sycophantic writing exercise. Second, I thought references were only allowed to confirm the dates you worked at a company, but that might depend on the region, I guess.
If you are specifically interested in this job, you can write a cover letter. If you’re interested in any job and don’t care about this particular role, we’re gonna interview someone else.
And you’d be amazed what you hear. Sometimes you give a reason for the call and the receptionist spills the beans before transferring you to HR.
That’s our secret, Captain. We’re all interested in any job. Any interaction you have that suggests otherwise is specifically designed to make you feel that way.
It depends on the job, really. In my perfect world, the shitty retail and fast food jobs that nobody is gonna be excited about wouldn’t even have interviews. They just need warm bodies.
I work 2 jobs. My main job is in municipal development, and while it’s a lot of work and I want them to pay me and pay me well, I’m also passionate about shaping the future of the city and protecting the citizens from developers who will cut every corner with no consideration for their impact.
My side gig is teaching underwater photography at the local university. It’s purely a passion project. In my last 5 years of teaching the course combined I’ve just about paid for one of my cameras.
There’s nothing at all illegal about checking references. Lots of places have policies to only verify former employment and whether or not they’d be eligible for re-hire because they don’t want to get sued, but that’s not the law.
wait I thought references was to confirm working at a place at a certain time.
are you saying I should skip references? or only put ones I know will get me in with your particular job.
you are just one interviewer. do other interviewers have different requirements? cause I’m starting to feel like I’m doing an awful lot of work that some jackass is going to just chuck into a pile of “don’t hires” for all the good a stupid cover letter does me.
I’m saying that when you’re given an opportunity to list references, list people who won’t give you a negative reference.
And sometimes the non-specific nature of employment verification can hurt you. A common rule for companies is only to verify when they worked there and whether they’re eligible for re-hire.
A good example from my personal past is that I worked at a company where I experienced an on-the-job injury in 2018 that required cosmetic surgery. Their insurance required the surgery occur within 2 years to cover it, but the wound had to finish “developing” for a year before they could do the surgery, so I had a 1-year window to get the surgery.
I scheduled the surgery with about 9 months to spare, but the date ended up being in 2020, and because of Covid I couldn’t get it done in the 2-year window. I had left the job in the meantime, so the former employer reached out with a settlement agreement to basically pay me cash that I could use for the surgery after Covid died down.
As part of the settlement language, there was a clause that I couldn’t be employed by the company in the future, which was fine by me because it was a retail management job I did after college while searching for a real job.
So if someone calls up that former employer and gets the standard response, it would be that I worked from X date to Y date and am not eligible for re-hire.
I explained that when interviewing for a job in 2021 that I ended up getting. They told me after hiring that I would not have been given the position if I hadn’t given them a heads-up about it because they were told I was ineligible for re-hire by the previous company.
When I’m looking at hundreds of resumes, I want the high-level stuff for all applicants where I can easily find it to weed out the wildly unqualified people and the resumes submitted by Indian headhunter who thinks someone who worked in network engineering for 3 months in 2007 is qualified to be a senior drainage engineer.
The reason I still want your regular resume, cover letter etc, is that I do examine those once the 90% of people who never should have even turned in an application have been filtered out.
Protip: if you aren’t going to get a good reference, dont put them down as a reference. Half the people I was gonna give a position to in the last year lost the job to surprises when we checked references right before sending an offer letter. Be up front if you had a colorful exit. Heck - if you left a previous job for ethical reasons and it pissed off your unethical employer, that’s bonus points with me.
Sorry, buddy, I didn’t get an easy lay-up of a job once because I candidly I told them I got fired for not knowing shit about that particular industry (which was separate from the job I was applying to, where I actually had a bit more knowledge). It turns out that the employer that fired me will only verify dates of employment, not cause for leaving, so it was a mistake to be honest.
In fact, it’s almost always a mistake to be honest in job interviews, unless you’re jesus christ. Your first (only?) job is to service the emotional needs of the employer, which usually means not asking any probing questions about how they do business, and certainly do not demonstrate you are a serious person by talking about real deficits and how you plan to overcome them; because there is some asshole out there who is applying for the same job who will just be lying their ass off and saying how big the employer’s dick is and the employer won’t figure out they hired some incompetent fool for another few months.
I once got some feedback from an interview for a job a didn’t get. They asked me how I felt about paperwork. I said that I didn’t love it, but it needed to be done, and I made sure to finish all my paperwork by the end of the day, or end of the week at worst. This was a person-centered job, so I thought it was an OK answer. This was not the right answer. The right answer was, “I’m PASSIONATE about doing paperwork.”
Maybe you appreciate an honest candidate, but most people don’t, and there’s no way to know who is interviewing you.
Do you want evidence? Look at LLMs, designed through multiple reviews and iterations to provide “the best” answer. Guess what? The two traits that all LLMs excel at: obsequiousness and authoritativeness–that’s the energy you need to bring to job interviews.
This is mostly true even after you get hired. Most people are just large children with poorly managed emotions. It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It matters if your boss feels good.
Yup, I’m realizing that merit and hard work is for suckers. The pathway to success is kissing ass. Unfortunately, I’m constitutionally incapable.
I know its anecdotal, but I’ve interviewed for dozens of jobs and ended up getting an offer every single time. And it’s not because I lie.
The most important thing in an interview is confidence. I don’t show up begging for a job. I ask them questions and essentially get them to explain why I should work there.
And the confidence starts before the interview. I work in municipal government right now, and my cover letter wasn’t some flowery bullshit about how I was excited for the opportunity blah blah. I included specific process improvements I wanted to bring to that specific city. I was able to do that because instrad of shotgunning my resume, I tailor it to the jobs I want.
I asked for the top number in the salary range because I’m very good at what I do. Some people ask for something in the middle because they think if you ask for the top number you’re immediately dismissed. I’ve never seen that happen. If the salary range has a top number, that number’s already been budgeted, so they’re willing to pay it. Strategically asking for less hoping you’ll get the offer tells the employer that you’re not sure you’re as qualified as the other candidates and are pitching yourself as the budget option.
If the number is a problem but they still want you, they’ll offer a lower number.
I’m learning not to be honest in interviews by being rejected after interviews where I’m honest.
You’re an objectively better candidate than I am. Not only do I lack recent experience, I’m also have gaps and some very unrelated low-level jobs. I’m applying for close-to-entry level work in a field I’m actually highly critical of in ways employers definitely don’t want to hear. With all my “red flags”, it’s best to be as normal and not threatening as possible.
Which does shake my confidence, a bit, going in feeling like I have to misrepresent myself, but it’s something I need to work on as a cynical manipulation of the process.
I have 2 points in response. First off, fuck cover letters. I don’t care if I’m applying to be CEO as an outside hire, you can get a feel for my personality at the interview, not through a sycophantic writing exercise. Second, I thought references were only allowed to confirm the dates you worked at a company, but that might depend on the region, I guess.
If you are specifically interested in this job, you can write a cover letter. If you’re interested in any job and don’t care about this particular role, we’re gonna interview someone else.
And you’d be amazed what you hear. Sometimes you give a reason for the call and the receptionist spills the beans before transferring you to HR.
That’s our secret, Captain. We’re all interested in any job. Any interaction you have that suggests otherwise is specifically designed to make you feel that way.
It depends on the job, really. In my perfect world, the shitty retail and fast food jobs that nobody is gonna be excited about wouldn’t even have interviews. They just need warm bodies.
I work 2 jobs. My main job is in municipal development, and while it’s a lot of work and I want them to pay me and pay me well, I’m also passionate about shaping the future of the city and protecting the citizens from developers who will cut every corner with no consideration for their impact.
My side gig is teaching underwater photography at the local university. It’s purely a passion project. In my last 5 years of teaching the course combined I’ve just about paid for one of my cameras.
Sounds like your company was the one doing some illegal shit with those reference checks.
There’s nothing at all illegal about checking references. Lots of places have policies to only verify former employment and whether or not they’d be eligible for re-hire because they don’t want to get sued, but that’s not the law.
wait I thought references was to confirm working at a place at a certain time.
are you saying I should skip references? or only put ones I know will get me in with your particular job.
you are just one interviewer. do other interviewers have different requirements? cause I’m starting to feel like I’m doing an awful lot of work that some jackass is going to just chuck into a pile of “don’t hires” for all the good a stupid cover letter does me.
I’m saying that when you’re given an opportunity to list references, list people who won’t give you a negative reference.
And sometimes the non-specific nature of employment verification can hurt you. A common rule for companies is only to verify when they worked there and whether they’re eligible for re-hire.
A good example from my personal past is that I worked at a company where I experienced an on-the-job injury in 2018 that required cosmetic surgery. Their insurance required the surgery occur within 2 years to cover it, but the wound had to finish “developing” for a year before they could do the surgery, so I had a 1-year window to get the surgery.
I scheduled the surgery with about 9 months to spare, but the date ended up being in 2020, and because of Covid I couldn’t get it done in the 2-year window. I had left the job in the meantime, so the former employer reached out with a settlement agreement to basically pay me cash that I could use for the surgery after Covid died down.
As part of the settlement language, there was a clause that I couldn’t be employed by the company in the future, which was fine by me because it was a retail management job I did after college while searching for a real job.
So if someone calls up that former employer and gets the standard response, it would be that I worked from X date to Y date and am not eligible for re-hire.
I explained that when interviewing for a job in 2021 that I ended up getting. They told me after hiring that I would not have been given the position if I hadn’t given them a heads-up about it because they were told I was ineligible for re-hire by the previous company.
this just keeps getting more depressing as I’m reading and it’s making me think a life of crime might be preferable, honestly.
at least if I fuck that up I can still get a room and food.