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So, I've been invited up to Boston for in-person interviews next week. I'd really like the job. I am, however, suffering from a bout of underconfidence.
I don't have a lot of work experience with Java, C#, or Perl. I used each of them exactly as much as I have had to and then put them down. I am confident that I can pick each of them up and use them well, but I'm not in any of their paradigms, you know? I'm worried that they're going to try to get me to demonstrate adeptness where there is merely capacity.
The things I have going for me:
(0) I am extremely talented at rapid learning of virtually anything. (Instant dilletante; just add water.)
(1) I have trained with their product.
(2) I have worked with and impressed the people on the team that I would be on enough that they recommended me for the position.
(3) I have previously interacted with the person I'd be working for and it went well.
(4) They're interested enough that they're flying me up for the interview.
(5) The recruiter actually is trying to get me to add a day to my interview time in Boston so I can see the city, because it would be a good idea to get shown around and see where to live, etc.
(6) The fact that I'm a dilletante should be valuable, as this is a position with random varied requirements.
So, now I'm freaking out. I'm tempted to study up for this, but I believe that any studying I do won't make up for the sheer lack of immersion in any of their useful fields. I also am tempted to purchase new clothes to interview in. (I think I'm actually going to do that; I have a tie that would go well with a light blue solid shirt and some khakis. I just need the shirt.)
Everyone around me seems to think that I'm needlessly freaking out. *sigh*
August 26 2005, 06:14:30 UTC 6 years ago
Cool! Next time we're hanging out at the stoned cows, you are sooooo getting pushed in the fountain.
August 26 2005, 17:13:36 UTC 6 years ago
I'll push MYSELF in.
August 26 2005, 11:25:32 UTC 6 years ago
Purchase the clothes! You can feel the shopping gene calling you! Purchase the clothes!
And hell, go see the city....if they want you to add an extra day, I'm not sure it matters what you know -- sounds like they might have already made up most of their minds.
August 26 2005, 15:27:30 UTC 6 years ago
Most *good* tech interviews don't rely so much on whether or not you know how to do x with any particular language (and if they do, run) - they rely more on general theory. You'd be better off boning up on design patterns than memorizing the standard java api.
If they ask you to write code in, say, c#, go ahead and try to fake it. C# is almost exactly like java (syntatically speaking). One major difference is that the #import keyword should be replaced with #using namespace. There! You're now a C# programmer.
If anyone there gets picky about where you put the semi-colon, just say, "Oh, you're right! I apologize - I've been working with $OTHER_LANGUAGE lately so my mental parser is still set for that." They should let you slide.
August 26 2005, 17:10:40 UTC 6 years ago
The project I worked on with these people
Seriously, I had never touched C# before in my life and I had to significantly alter the code that they delivered me. That was actually one of the things that impressed the people on their team; basically, _every last thing they handed me_ got modified at some point because our marketing department was the usual client and didn't know what they wanted beforehand.Anyway, yeah, I've met C#. I don't know the paradigm (it has some interesting equivalent to JSP for embedding things in pages) but I can certainly create and use the classes.