The MM Network

[Senor_Taylor]

Well  I wasn't sure if I wanted to post this in here or in "Grind my Gears". 

I get an email from <technology company> recruiter about a Happy Hour they're having for potential job candidates. I applied with <TC> for a CONUS IA position hoping to use my shiney new Master's degree in the real world. I didn't get an interview (and didn't really expect one tbh, as I have no clearance) but I guess my email and shit were in their recruiting bank so I got this email for the happy hour. I thinks to myself, shit yeah, free drinks, talk to recruiter, done deal. I send email to recruiter, she sends me back a questionnaire so I can go to the happy hour. I fill out said little survey (basically my resume + salary requirements + no I don't mind working there) and email it to her. Important to note, one of the questions was:

"What position are you most interested in Software Engineer, Software Architect, Agile Release Train Engineer, or DevOps Engineer)? Feel free to provide a brief note why you might be a good match for this opportunity."

I'm really trying to get into Security (again, I applied for an IA position with <TC>) and I don't wanna be a programmer soooooooooooo, DevOps Engineer I guess? 

This was on 20JULY. Just so everyone's clear on the timeline. 

A week passes. Happy Hour has come and gone, no word. Another week passes, I get this email (8AUG):
 "I hope this message finds you well. If you are still interested and available, we would like to get you scheduled for a phone interview with our team. Please let me know your availability for this week and early next week."

I reply, next day, "Yep just let me know when!"

crickets.

More Crickets.

I do some shit.

I'm cleaning out my email and realize Hey! Dis bitch never emailed me back.

I emailed her last Thursday. (28 September)

 She goes, "My apologies for the delay in getting back to you. I have been at an offsite all-hands and training the last couple of weeks and just playing catch up. If you are still available and interested, I would like to schedule you next week for a technical phone interview." I give her my availability and she says "ok great how about thursday?" I say:

"Yes, that works for me! Sounds perfect. Is there anything in my resume that you'd like me to highlight in preparation? Or just a general technical knowledge."

Because at this point I'm thinking like, I'm gonna talk with like a hiring manager or something, they've seen my resume and think I could probably be an asset and they're going to assess whether I'm bullshitting or not.

She says, "Rex, The technical questions are more to see how you think, logic/reasoning, algorithms, data structures, etc."

Ok cool. So it's probably what I'm thinking then. I'm thinking encryption algorithms, best practices, etc etc.

No.

Nooooooooooooooope.

I get on the call. Jump right in. They want to know about my EC2 experience and would I consider myself a Jenkins expert? I do my best to answer their questions and show my ability to adapt and wrap my brain around a new idea. "I...um,  I've used Docker a bit, I've used BMC's cloud automation toolkit and VMWare labs, ah, I'm afraid I only have a passing familiarity with Jenkins and continuous integration, ummm..." Second round of questions starts with "So what led you to apply for a Senior DevOps position with a DBA background?"

Whoa. Hold Up. 
  
I... Never applied for a Senior DevOps engineer. FUUUUUUUCKKKKK  There's 7 people on this call, plus myself. It's a hiring committee for a Senior DevOps Engineer, they're looking for someone to transform their dev team into a Full DevOps automation programming house. AKA: Not fucking ME, at all. Fuck. I explain that I got this interview as a result of inquiring about a Happy Hour with a <TC> recruiter, didn't realize I'd be interviewing for a position, Terribly sorry I'll still try to answer your questions as best I can but please keep in mind that all of my dev experience has been in environment deployment and maintenance, I am not, and have no wish to be, a programmer.

Final question is "Fizzbuzz", fuck me, I dance around it a bit, completely flustered at this point and then finally I'm like "hold on lemme write this out on paper" and he's like Oh  yeah, i should have told you that! Taking it out of my head and onto paper. Four if/else loops, blah blah blah, i(mod(3/5) etc etc. This guy seems pleased enough I guess. Still don't wanna be a programmer.

I thank everyone and hang up and pour myself a glass of Jefferson's Reserve, utterly disheartened.  

I'm composing a draft to the recruiter now in an attempt to get all the committee member's emails, try and send them a thank you but JFC, I could actually have done ok with this interview had I 24 hours to prepare for a DevOps engineer interview. Instead I prepped for "technical questions are more to see how you think, logic/reasoning, algorithms, data structures, etc." Spent a whole half hour going back over public key exchange so that I could demonstrate it in layman's terms...you know, instead of googling "what the fuck is DevOps." which would have been infinitely more helpful. 

I know that recruiters aren't like, experts in the field in which they recruit or anything. But I think at the very least a little document of "Here's what your interview is about here is who you're talking to, and here's the position listing" would have been the very least courtesy to show, am I wrong here?

Dang, sorry to hear that man. I can vibe with this in two ways.

First off, technical recruiters don't know shit about the roles they are recruiting for. When I'm on campuses talking to students, any and all technical questions have to come to me, even for positions I have no experience in because I still know more about than the recruiters. For a senior role, I would expect the recruiter to know a bit a more, though.

Secondly, I interviewed at a large firm after having my resume pulled and we got to the technical part of the interview where they asked me "Why do you see yourself as a good fit for this role?"

To which I could only reply "Sir, I don't know what I'm interviewing for. I never applied and no one specificed what type of role I was here for". Granted, looking back, there could have been a better, more generic answer. However, that really soured the whole interview and I didn't get the role.

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