Another Tale of Two Interviews

In response to last months column, I spoke with a well-known IT columnist that has contacts within Google, who found my column "very interesting". According to him, Google believes its hiring practices are based on university hiring techniques, the way professors are chosen. Unless I just got a "lemon" interview team, as far as I can tell, that can't be further from the truth. When I was interviewed by VMWare, I was giving a grueling 3 hour interview covering all aspects of Linux system administration. In contrast, Google only asked 5 or 6 poorly-chosen questions over a couple of short interviews. When I asked for a tougher interview with more questions, they flatly refused. If universities test professors the way that Google tests applicants, it's a sad statement for the quality of education.

Continuing the discussion on IT hiring practices, a couple of years ago I pulled into parking lot of Christie Digital in Waterloo. I was slightly delayed due to an accident on the bridge coming into the city off Highway 401. A sat down with a group of technical people for my interview. Christie was starting a new C++ and Java development team. I showed them "Linux Shell Scripting with Basic", discussed some of the high quality work that I did and said I looked forward to working in the multimedia business. I was told that my interview went very well.

Weeks later, there was still no contact from Christie.

Around the same time, I had an interview with the Toronto Toronto International Film festival. I was turned down because they were looking for someone with more Active Server Pages (ASP) experience. In truth, ASP is just PHP written in BASIC, and I knew PHP and BASIC, but I conceptually I understood the reason for their decision. The interviewer was polite and was courteous enough to call back, let me know that I wasn't hired and why, and encouraged me to apply again in the future.

Two companies with two different approaches to the post-interview experience. Which is better?

I don't have any great arguments this month to justify politeness, respect and professionalism. I will say this: if I have a future choice between the Film Festival and Christie Digital, the film festival would win hands down--no matter what salaries were offered. And if I had to recommend these two organizations, I would only recommend the film festival.

Sometimes people make short-cuts, and politeness and respect are often the first things to be cut in the name of time and money. But there are long-term costs: getting a bad reputation in the developer community, people not wanting to partner with you on projects, and, of course, people failing to return politeness and respect in return. Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.

One of my favourite book series is "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever", by Stephen R. Donaldson, about a suffering, bitter and cynical man who is transported to a wonderous world of magic and beauty but who believes it is all a dream because the real world is an ugly place. In once scene, Covenant has a discussion with one of the wizard-like rulers of that place, Lord Mhoram, about the real world. Going from memory:

Covenant says, "In my world, we have scenery."

"Scenery," says Mhoram. "I do not like the sound of that word."

Covenant, with his cynical spin, puts the word in its ugliest light. "It means that beauty is optional. We can live without it."

Mhoram is horrified. "How can you bear to live in such a world?!"

Yet Covenant is not wholly wrong. Scenery is treated by people as an optional extra, in the same way that many companies treat politeness as something that is nice but that "we can live without it."

At work, I've been waiting for nearly three weeks for a fellow employee to take 5 minutes and email me 4 or 5 files. He makes profuse apologies every couple of days and offers to buy me coffee. But the files still aren't here. It's not the lack of files that bothers me. It's the insincerely and lack of respect for a fellow employee.

Sometimes short cuts come with long-term costs. To genuinely value candidates and coworkers can go a long way toward business success.

October 22, 2007