Hello everyone,
As someone with a background and deep passion for security, I’ve navigated the labyrinthine world of not only tech recruitment, but others as well, more than a few times. I’ve encountered a myriad of challenges that I believe many of us face but seldom discuss openly.
Generic Job Descriptions: Has anyone else noticed how many job descriptions in tech seem like they were written from a template? It’s frustrating to sift through dozens of job descriptions only to find they all seem eerily similar, making it challenging to understand what a company is truly looking for.
The Never-Ending Interview Process: Multiple rounds of interviews, technical assessments, and then maybe a ‘cultural fit’ interview. The process can be draining and time-consuming.
I’m keen to open a discussion and hear your thoughts and experiences.
- Have you faced similar challenges in tech recruitment?
- How do you navigate the complexities?
- Any tips for job seekers in tech, especially those interested in security?
Let’s discuss!
I’ve been a technical interviewer. The process sucks from our side as well. I’m in a medium sized tech company.
The generic job description thing is due to HR. The job description is something like two pages, and we get to contribute two sentences in the middle. We’re trying to build a more diverse team, so we’ve been able to convince HR to remove some of the “candidate must have 20 years of Rust experience” crap.
I’m not sure if we’re offenders in the never ending interview process. We typically have two interview sessions. In a few cases we’ve asked seniors to come back for a tie-breaker.
One of the problems interviewers face is that it’s really hard to detect competence in an interview. In a couple of cases we’ve had people flub coding questions, but they seem good otherwise. In other cases we’ve hired juniors that did well on coding questions that aren’t great employees - they suffer confidence/motivation issues.
It’s frustrating because I haven’t been trained to interview people. I don’t think our process is particularly good (or bad), but I don’t know how to make it better. Most of what I read about it online is contradictory. We’ve hired some amazing developers, but we’ve also hired some people who don’t contribute very well.
I applied for any job that mentioned anything I have experience in. Multiple interviews are stressful but it does make sense to keep each interview focused, rather than having one super long interview. My tips are apply to a lot of jobs and ask questions in the interview about the job\company. Good luck!
Asking questions about the company, tools, processes, and other aspects is the right direction to find out if you want to work at a company.
If your only question is “when do/can I start?”, you have utterly failed the purpose of an interview. Also, before you have finished asking that “question “, it is likely the interviewer has already mentally thrown your resume in the trash.
