the trick is to keep breathing

novel_machinist is trying to pull together some resources to help younger graduates feel better about finding jobs and more confident about the things that they do! This is a(n) small LOL RIGHT essay I've pulled together to help share my own experiences with interviewing and hiring. I hope it helps someone!

The information here is a lot about me and my experiences. I come across as a really grumpy asshole. But guess what! That's who is interviewing you. I don't come to work to make BFFs, I come to get shit done. I recruit in the same way. Lots of other people do too. Here's the list of ~secret~ things we're really looking for, and how you can make even a grumpy buttface like me want to bring you into my company. SPOILER: They're not so secret.

( Some Information On Interviewing From The Other Side Of The Table, or: What Too Much Of Sev's Job Has Become and How You Can Hopefully Make My Life Easier When I'm Hiring. )

All of this advice can be boiled down to the following: We want to hire someone who wants to be hired by us for this specific job. We are not looking for people who want "a job", "any job". We're a puzzle piece looking for a piece that fits well, that improves us, not just any piece that's close enough. Your job is to use the interview time to determine whether or not you are a good fit, and if you are, to show me why you're the best puzzle piece out there. Because there are a lot of other puzzle pieces very similar to you, and if I don't see that tiny two-pixel difference between you and the last person I spoke to, I may throw you both into the "meh" pile.

I win at analogies forever.

Enjoy. And good luck. And if you have questions, or you want to hear the horror stories, just ask.



...Also I pick on Taco Bell a lot in this and I want to make it perfectly clear that it's just an example and I love me some shameful 3:30am TBell just like every other engineer in the world.

So here's one of the few politically-relevant posts you'll get from me.

I hope, if you live in the US, that you head out to vote today. I also hope that you haven't gotten so psyched over the presidential election that you've ignored your local races and local issues. Often, it's the local stuff that can really be influenced by a few determined voters; also, often, it's the local issues that are really going to affect your life more. I understand that 2008 is a big year for the presidency, but I've spent just as much time (if not more) looking into what's on the plate for Ohio / Cleveland / Akron, because those are the things that are directly going to affect me.

I kind of want to say that if you actually can't name your Congressmen and your Senators, if you can't tell me what issues are on your ballot, then you have absolutely no right to be pretending you care about the presidential election. But that's probably the kind of statement that bothers me most about politics: "If you don't believe in / support X, you are an idiot and you do not deserve Y."

Judgements like that pretty much offend me uncategorically, whether they're about politics, or religion, or academia, or -- or about cars or shoes. This election all-around has been pretty disappointing to me, mainly because of the sheer amount of judgemental superiority I've been seeing from both sides. Not just from the campaigns -- from their supporters, people at work or in school or on LJ who feel like they have the moral high ground because of one choice or another. I'm really sick of the attitude that there is a right and a wrong on so many of the issues we're dealing with today; often, it isn't that clear-cut.

This is why I've been staying out of the political realm. Because even if I agree with you completely, if you try to present your beliefs as the One True Path, you're likely to offend me with that.

But that's neither here nor there.

We have a great chance to get out there and change things about our country today, guys, from small things to big things. Let's do it.

And on that note, I'll end it with this:

Bush: 'Can I Stop Being President Now?'

And a game: Caption This Icon With A Cock Joke Or An "In Your Pants" Joke Plz



Happy Election Day to all.