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I enjoyed the post, and it reaffirmed a very interesting transition away from resumes and toward actual work. Now that blogs and github are so easy to start, why would I want to read that someone has extensive programming experience and good writing skills? If you do, it'll already be on display. That said... I actually generally get an interview with many of the startups I contact through a traditional resume and cover letter. I've been hired by some, rejected by others, but I believe it usually comes down to how well I handle a series of difficult technical interviews. They're usually around algorithms and data structures, and often test recursion. Threading is also a commonly tested subject. Are these tests highly rigorous? All I can say is they're pretty tough for me. I've run the questions by other programmers, some say it's tough, others say it's not so hard, many just get so interested in the problem that they start working on it. Anyway, I'd still say that the best way to get hired by every startup you contact is to be a pretty badass programmer, with a very strong grounding in algorithms and data structures, recursion, threading, and be ready to show you can apply that stuff in a very short amount of time under some pressure at the white board. It's just my opinion, but I believe I know very, very talented programmers who have been passed over because of their performance during these interviews. Here's something good to take from this blog post - if you are a good and productive programmer who has trouble with the tech grilling, definitely make an effort to put some work out there on blogs and github, it might make the difference. Maybe the threshold for the technical grilling is more forgiving when the hiring team has more to work with, better examples of a candidate's ability? |