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Admin
So many interviews / hiring is based on "have you played with the right toys"?, often asked by people who are clueless (IT managers) and being able to answer questions like "what are you looking for".
Poor hiring decisions and poor organisation ultimately leads to the WTFs in our industry.
Admin
That the interviewee was asked to code-review their production code: Perhaps if you are not hired you should bill them for your services...
Admin
Programmers shouldn't take criticism over code so personal. Code is not art. It's not something that you pour your soul into. It's just code. As long as it gets the job done and other programmers can maintain it, it doesn't matter who "likes" it.
Admin
What exactly does anybody expect to gain from the whiny "you picked the wrong guy" response to a rejection letter. Do they really expect the guy on the other end to suddenly come to their senses and exclaim "My God! He's right! What a terrible mistake we've made!"?
I heard a story from somebody a while back that after sending a rejection letter saying they'd picked somebody else they go a terse reply "then you have picked poorly".
Way to burn bridges.
Admin
"The Storm-out" might be a WTF, but it's all too common.
Admin
It's almost like suing your former employer to get your job back. I know the majority just up and quit on the first day back, but I bet there's a fair number of people that stay at the place they sued.
Admin
...which is a sure-fire way to plenty of timewasting interviews where every answer meets the riposte "but your resume says you're an expert with (insert WTFware here)".
And it's not just technical stuff they fake. I had the joys of meeting such an agency once. Told them that as a relatively new mother I wasn't going to relocate or stay away from home. They doctored the resume to tell the victim company I was fine for a contract that involved alternating 3-month periods between UK and Saudi Arabia...
Admin
Shouldn't this be in the "Tales from the Interview" section?
Admin
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The sad part is that the company that this "technical recruiter" works for is actually going to charge the client for finding anyone they deem fit. Meanwhile they're actually filtering out anyone decent. By very nature the recruiter works there because the recruiting company needed someone "technical" to do interviews. I'm sure this guy spouted off for a bit about servers, ISPs and IIS and was hired on the spot.
Admin
I had a telephone 'interview' once which went along the lines of:
I stumbled through some answers which I could tell the recruiter didn't understand and then named a contract rate which was 10% above the market rate. The next thing I knew the recruiter was asking me to start on Monday! Unfortunately, it was the project from hell and I left after my minimum agreed 3 months. The money was really good but not worth the stress.
Admin
I usually cut off stuff like this by handing them my resume. Had more than one interviewer find it interesting that what I gave the recruiting company is different than what I gave them.
It honestly makes me wonder how people like that stay in business. Honestly, if I found out that a recruiter was falsifying applicant data just to put people in front of me, I would no longer use the lying sack of crap.
Admin
It also sucks to miss the chance to say no to a job (or yes, who knows) because you can't phrase things in a reasonably safe way. A dispassionate approach - here's what I take to be the purpose of this code, here's why I'd do it this other way - might be a better tack to take in an interview situation.
Admin
Gaah, stupid distractions. That should read, "Had more than one interviewer find it interesting that what the recruiting company gave them was different than what I gave them."
Admin
Recruiter: Have you ever felt the side of the server to see if it was frozen? Me: No, that's not what that means. Recruiter: Actually, that is exactly what it means--the computer will be cold if it is frozen.
Admin
So...one page?
Admin
Actually, I was just looking for the `close tab' button. storms out
More seriously: Is TDWTF suffering a DDoS or something? Site's awfully slow, and it was downright offline for a few minutes. Maybe some actually decent attacker had his WTF posted here and he didn't like it...
-- Note from Alex: Slowness has been mostly caused by this, and it's since been fixed. Faster for all, I hope?
Admin
Why do recruiters like to pretend that they are actually companies that want to interview you?
A while back when I was looking for work, I got a call from a recruiter. From the sound of the call, it sounded like he was actually a company and wanted to interview me for an actual position.
Once I got there, he had me take a Perl test which I passed with flying colors. It was only after going through the test that I realized that he wasn't a "company" but rather just a recruiter.
I guess if they just say "Hey, I'm a recruiter" up front, then most people will just ignore them? shrug
Admin
Admin
and of course, the wtf here is going from perl to php. :)
on the other hand, a capable perl coder with zero php experience should be able to grok out at least decent php code with a little learning...
Admin
Pretty much. Its anecdotal, but recruiters seem to have a very bad reputation amongst the more skilled developers for exactly the reason demonstrated in this WTF.
Admin
Apache is iis, in the sense that it is a service that provides information over the internet. The distinction is in the lower case letters.
Also,
FTFY.
Admin
Um, no. Two half pages. Two sheets of paper with approximately half a page of code on each.
Admin
FTFY (your "fix" was redundant)
Admin
Agree. Tales from the Interview, not Feature Article.
Or is TFTI the same as FA the same as Apache the same as IIS?
Admin
Why? They don't produce decent perl code. Nobody does.
Admin
grok = understand, not produce
go read some Heinlein, you'll like it.
Admin
Agreed, but I think this was the bit that did it:
It's one thing to have somebody criticize your code, it's another to have somebody think it's actually a joke.
Admin
Recruitment agencies are not working in the best interests of either the company they are hiring for or the candidate. They are working in their own best interests. They are businesses too.
I have dealt with many of them - often too painful really. They always claim to have a good working relationship with the line managers, and most of the time they are lying.
They also forget that today's candidate could be tomorrow's hiring manager. Once you have placed someone they will be an insider in the companies where you are trying to place. Give your candidates a proper service and have a good working relationship with them and if you place one, make sure you get feedback and insider information on new positions they are hiring for and their real requirements, and maybe some feedback as to what the work is actually like.
If developers were opened up to better "real" information as to what jobs are available and what they are really like, and if proper real feedback were given back on developer's actual ability, there would not be nearly so many WTF stories.
Admin
Still, I'd have laughed and said, "really? what's so bad about it?" instead of getting all moody. But I suppose every developer is different.
Admin
That's an overly simplistic definition of grok. It seems that you don't grok grokking, or you could grok it to someone else better than that. :)
If you grok something, you are it and it is you; the space it has in your head is an accurate picture of what it is, which is why you have also written it.
If you've read Neal Stephenson's Anathem, you might agree that it takes a stab at the same problem from another direction.
Admin
Still, I'd want to hear why he thought it was a joke. Is my code really a joke? Or maybe the guy who called my code a joke really doesn't get it or is an idiot (and if that were the case, it could make a great WTF story from the other side). Unless I swallow my pride and ask, I may never know.
Admin
I am a hypothetical recruiter, Nick (spit). I place Bob at Smallco Ltd. Bob is happy with my service, and so are Smallco, but that's their recruitment done for the next year or eighteen months.
I am another, unethical hypothetical recruiter, Mephistopheles (double spit). I see Smallco's requirements, and sell them Cedric, whom I know will not fit what they're looking for. I have now earned as much commission as Nick, but my clients are both looking for another spin on my magic merry-go-round -- because if I'm good, I've persuaded both of them that the mismatch was just an unfortunate clash of personalities, and not my fault. I send them Derek and Eric as the next two, neither of whom work out either. Meanwhile, Cedric is doing the job Derek just left, and so-on. Two or three iterations may pass before the companies in question wise up -- but by that time, I'm working for another recruitment co on a much higher salary, having made triple the placements Nick made.
Admin
Anyone who doesn't know what line noise looks like is too young to work in this profession.
You're not cool unless you've whistled into a modem and had it respond.
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
No, but I have written a print job that made the line printer do Beethoven's Fifth. :-)
Admin
I heard "Smoke on the Water" will get you more chicks.
Admin
Actually, Yahoo! is an ISP.
You can get Yahoo! BB service in Japan. http://bbpromo.yahoo.co.jp/
Admin
Admin
Admin
Why do you even bother justifying the cruiter's idiocy? IIS is a specific product, and the generic term is web server.
/i know, don't feed trolls...
Admin
What, did he say it just to rhyme?
Admin
. <--- The joke
Apache is an "IIS" because it is a server of information on the Internet, just like Google is an "ISP" because it is a provider of services on the Internet.
Admin
He was doing the short form of a "Not" joke. The long form would be:
"I have troubleshot IIS. Not! But I have maintained several Apache servers."
Admin
Admin
Admin
Admin
Interviewer: We're an ISP, just like Google or Yahoo! Me: I don't think that word means what you think it means.