[LRUG] My experience of Rails job hunting in London (so far!!)

[Graham Ashton]

On 27 Nov 2012, at 12:48, Anthony Gardner <notantspants at gmail.com> wrote:

> Surely putting people at ease is an important aspect of interviews. 

Yes, but remember that not everybody has a lot of experience of actually doing interviews. The night before I interviewed my first candidate I reckon I was more nervous about it than the candidate would have been. I felt a lot of pressure to make a good job of it.

> But no, let's sandwich this guy on a computer and get him working. I don't want to work for a company that does that.

What I'm getting at is that it's not necessarily what they'd be like to work with on a day to day basis (but it does give you a useful feel for their management experience or social skills).

> So LRUGers, I have some questions for you. Firstly, is it normal for companies not to get back to you.

More normal than we'd like, I suspect. There are plenty of us who always follow up on this stuff though.

> What am I to do if companies insist on a pair programming exercise or just looking over my shoulder while I code.

I think you need to take that challenge head on.

Imagine you're an interviewer for a minute. They're looking for people with the right kind of background/skills who'll fit in with their team. 

Irrespective of whether or not they pair at work, chatting about code you're writing in an interview (as you're writing it) gives them plenty of opportunities to discover what you're like and how you think, without relying on the code that pops out at the end of 45 minutes of coding.

It's in your best interests for them to do this, as you want them to be able to discover how you think in this 45 minutes. They're not going to learn anything new if you just hand them some more code at the end of 45 minutes (you won't produce much). It's not (or shouldn't be) a test - it's about mutual discovery. You can chat to them about how they like to approach things too (once you've volunteered a couple of ideas yourself).

In fact, I'd recommend asking them questions while pairing about how they work or would approach things if it were a real scenario. They'll want to know how you think. How you approach testing. How open you are to other people's ideas. Don't give them the impression you wouldn't normally chat with them about how to do things. It's the conversation that matters in interview-style pairing sessions. They're not typical pair programming sessions.

> That really would not bring out the best of me as I would be a bag of nerves. Particularly after my first experience of doing that in an interview environment.
> 
> I think pair programming sounds like a good idea but for a test interview, it wouldn't suit me.

Then you should get yourself into a situation where you feel more confident about doing it. Read up on pairing. Find friends to pair with in Holland (a few evenings and weekends, if necessary). It's not hard to try it.

> What tips can you give me for finding the right job?

I'm a little surprised that nobody came back to you. As I understand it, Rails people are still in demand in London. Feel free to send me your CV (privately) and example code if you'd like a third party opinion. I'm not hiring, but I've been there/done it, and will give you honest feedback on why I might/might not hire you.

--
Graham Ashton
Founder, The Agile Planner
http://www.theagileplanner.com | @agileplanner | @grahamashton