Ask HN: Returning to an office environment after a 2 year hiatus?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15066801

by ccdev • 9 years ago

1 2 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm a software developer who's been through a couple jobs. The most recent one was 100% remote work. Aside from semi-yearly informal meetings with my boss, there was no on-site interaction.

Due to circumstances out of my control I wasn't able to keep the job after 2 years with them, and that was followed by an unplanned 2 year hiatus from any regular jobs. I want to get back to a normal office job, which is where I'm trying to figure things out.

Most places reject me after a phone interview, so it may be that my interviewing skills have decayed. I usually know how I screwed up on the technical parts, but I'm not really good at figuring out what I did wrong on the soft skills. How do I get back into the groove and make it shown that I can work with others in an office setting again?

muzuq• 9 years ago

It's hard to make any recommendations without a bit more information.

1) Where do you find your view of the phone interview going from optimistic to feeling it's gone awry?

2) Are the positions you are applying for well within your skillset, related to last positions? Are they a level above or below your past experience? Lateral?

3) How much research do you put into your interviews?

4) Do you have a set of questions prepared for the interviewer? I have found (both interviewing, and being interviewed) that a single unique and well thought question can be a game changer in the interview process and can lead to better conversation with the interviewer.

5) Do you practice interviews / questions with yourself or a friend?

I also would suggest really putting yourself in the interviewers shoes, for each position. What do you think they are looking for? If you were interviewing, how would you want certain questions answered?

ccdev• 9 years ago

Most of the time I work a solo dev at the companies I've been in. Which to be more specific means, maybe I'm not always the only dev in the company but more often than not, the only dev in a project. The big exception was my remote job of over a year, where all the devs worked on the same project.

A lot of my correspondence involves talking to non-technical people such as project managers, so I have gotten to figure out how to communicate many things to non-tech people.

1) I usually don't. Unless I really bombed on a problem and am stuck on solving a problem for so long, I really can't tell true negatives from false negatives by the tone of someone's voice, or what they say to me.

2) I apply to mid-level jobs. I used to apply to senior positions (have held 5 jobs) but as I'm getting so many rejections, I've lowered the bar since.

Going by the phrase, "walk before you run" I consider myself still in the walking phase for many skillsets, yet even if I apply to jobs that are less challenging to get into, many people assume I have enough experience to run and say I cover lots of ground but not a lot of depth to have an exceptional strong point. And this is coming from someone with a lot of experience in small companies, where "running" is the norm. I thought years of experience is just a number? Many people learn at different rates, and have a diverse set of work histories.

3) I do some research in questions I should ask, and what I should know about the company beforehand. Typically would be able to find some work they're doing and bring it up.

4) My go-to questions to ask interviewers is "how long have you been working at this company and how have things changed since then?", "What is a typical team size for engineering/development?" and "What is the onboarding process like for new hires?"

5) Interview practices are almost impossible with a friend because I don't know any close friends in the industry, or with any experience interviewing people in general. More of a homebody so I don't talk to many of them. Because of that, I don't believe a mock interview with a random friend is a good substitute for a real interview, because they will not have actual experience in hiring developers.

Ask HN: Returning to an office environment after a 2 year hiatus?

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