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by singleshot_ 1169 days ago
Circa 2010 I got an email out of the blue from a Google recruiter. “We looked at your LinkedIn and you’re a good candidate for a ‘product manager’ role.”

Cool; let’s talk by phone, I replied.

The phone interview was insane. I asked the woman what about my work history made her suspect that I’d be a good PM and she was not able to respond. I asked her what product she anticipated that if work on and she said we would figure that out after I started, as if that was the most natural thing in the world. And I asked her how they handled remote employees, to which she replied that the person who took the role would be moving to Mountain View.

“So,” I said, “you do not know why you are hiring me, and you do not know what I would be hired for, but no matter what it is, the job is in Silicon Valley?

She said yes, already sensing where this was going. I asked her if she could make sure Google never contacted me again for any reason and she agreed that was probably for the best.

I did not get the job.

1 comments

>“So,” I said, “you do not know why you are hiring me, and you do not know what I would be hired for, but no matter what it is, the job is in Silicon Valley?

Cue that well-known [1] joke about an engineer and a manager/MBA and a hot air balloon.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25855303

I'm not against any of those roles, and have been in 2 out of 3 of them (not the MBA), just don't like stupidity (though have done a lot of that too :)