[Jemaclus]

> In no other common situation does a tech worker find themselves interrogated by a panel of strangers whose implicit goal is to knock them out of contention.

I take the opposite approach. I want you to succeed. I want you to be the best candidate I've seen so far. I want you to be awesome. In fact, I want to hire you right now and never have to do another interview again. I'm in your corner, and I'm rooting for you every step of the way. There's no need to be nervous -- just be yourself.

My explicit goal is to hire someone -- not reject a candidate. I have a high bar, yes, but I start off with the assumption that you can pass it, or I wouldn't have brought you into my office to begin with.

It may be semantics, though. Your implicit understanding is that the glass is half empty, and mine is that the glass is half-full. We're both measuring the glass to see how much is actually there, and if it's not half-full, then that's not good enough. But at the end of the day, I'm on your side.

Having said that, I come from an acting background. I understand how casting works. I'm a tall, dark, lean male that can appear anywhere between 25 and 45 years of age. When I go audition for a role, I'm competing against other tall, dark, lean males that can appear anywhere between 25 and 45 years of age. Depending on the number of other actors auditioning, it may simply be a crap shoot. It may simply be that we were all good in our own way, and they just went with THAT guy because he was the last one in the room, or because he wore that one funny shirt that made him stand out just a bit more.

When you come in for an interview, you're one of dozens of people we've phone screened, and you're one of a half-dozen people that we bring into the office. You've already made it past the first round. Now you're competing with the best of the best that we've talked to. If you don't get the job, it doesn't mean you suck, it simply means that we went with someone else. And if you do get the job, it may not necessarily mean that you're the best -- just that you're one of the best.

Kind of something to keep in mind here.

But again, at the end of the day, I'm rooting for you. I want you on my team, or I wouldn't have brought you into my office. Try to relax a bit, be yourself, and show me that I'm right. After all, I love being right. :)

[tptacek]

If rejection wasn't such a powerfully negative psychological force, if loss aversion wasn't such a fundamental part of our psyche, we'd all be successful startup CEOs, because sales would be no problem. But in reality, very few of us have the stomach for sales.

[vonmoltke]

This is why it saddens me that the majority of the advice given in places like /r/cscareerquestions boils down to, "Get good at sales"

[hawkice]

I'm not sure why it makes you sad. On a germane-to-the-parent-comment sense, that's pretty much exactly what tptacek said. But on a wider scale, if you are trying to help someone, wouldn't you want to give them advice that truly helps them in a big and cross-task way? Much better than "get good at Rails", which is useful only for a subset of engineering roles (albeit a subset I may enjoy). In terms of time investment... you can get pretty okay at sales in the time it takes you to be as expert as is potentially relevant in Rails. So why not choose sales?

[vonmoltke]

Yes, for the current state of the industry it is good advice. That is the part that saddens me, that "get good at sales" in order to get a job that has nothing to do with sales is sound, even the best, advice.

[bcbrown]

Software development is still sales. To successfully roll out a new internal product you need to sell your colleagues on it. To overhaul an existing architecture you need to sell your manager on its necessity. To prevent your coworker from making what you feel to be a poor choice, you need to sell her on your point of view.

[hawkice]

Agreed. There is a sense in which almost all meaningful and social tasks are "sales". Scare quotes are used there, not because the same skill sets don't apply, but because you typically aren't actually transacting over the results of the conversation.

[Jemaclus]

True. Just words of encouragement. Even with all my experience, I'm still terrified of rejection. :)