| I appreciate the devil's advocate and they're good points. The fact is, I was operating under an assumption that the "trap" wouldn't result in catching my two jobs; you are thinking the opposite. I can't argue with that :) I know for myself, I don't even have a good frame of reference: I have applied mostly for jobs that I have wanted but had a mental ranking in mind before-hand. Regardless, I have generally obsessed over the details. I am far from a perfectionist, I just hear the sound of my dad's voice in the back of my head directing me in exactly how these things are done. That said, you're completely right about not hiring me if you weren't in my top 3. However, in my case, the company I work for was on the very bottom of my list before I had my first phone screen. My resume got there in a strange manner -- passed to their hiring manager for the purpose of passing to other hiring managers, he gave me a phone call and asked if I'd be interested in interviewing there. I hadn't heard of the place, but went to their site. The site sold the values of the company in a manner that triggered the skeptic in me[1]; I assumed they were a code-mill at worst, but nothing near what I've found at best. I was also working at home for 12 years and was about to join a company that lacked desk phones/any voice communication outside of conference rooms -- and an open-office environment. The phone interview put them back toward the top; I liked the two guys I talked to a lot. I arrived and saw the amazing office, which was -- unfortunately -- an open-office floor, and they fell out of my top 3, again. After the interview, they were top on the list. I've been there two years and found the company to be everything they claim to be. It's not that things don't go wrong or that I haven't had a 90 hour week (thrice, however, rarely break 42), it's the people. I'm past 2 years there, now. [0] Which is kind of what this is: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brown-out/ [1] I'm accused more of being naive than cynical, but I worked 17 years at a large company and this place appeared to be bigger than it was. Identifying the company as a mid-large enterprise vs. an SMB is necessary context that was missing when I was reading their site. |