RejectReality

I’m usually not a big fan of job interviews.

Most interviews that I’ve had for technical positions feel like a dog’n'pony show, where a bunch of psychological and personality based questions are asked in preference to technical questions. This sometimes occurs to the point where you are unable to obtain the opportunity to prove what you know and what you can do.

As an example, around 6 months ago I went though a bunch of interviews for a Systems Administrator / Engineer role, the mix was around 90% psychological, 10% technical - spread over three sessions, each over an hour long.

From what I’ve seen, this usually happens when people too high up interview for a position without someone already in that position being around to keep them close to what the job actually is.

Now, don’t get me wrong; the psych stuff is important - it’s the mix of the questions that needs to change based on what the interview is for.

To drag this theory back to a recent event, today I rocked up to an interview for a network support / administrator position - an interview where I was extremely surprised. I was in and out in just under three quarters of an hour. A good mix of questions where my technical knowledge and logical thought processes were able to be demonstrated reasonably effectively and any personality traits that they were looking for had been exposed. The interviewers were good at asking the questions, and good at interpreting the result.

Overall, I would have to say this was the smoothest interview I’ve been through in a loooooong time. Here’s hoping something comes out of it.