I’m too uptight during the job interview…

…so writing about this is supposed to help me unravel the illusions causing me to suffer. What is strange to the lovely (and probably employed) people out there is that when I was younger I actually fared better on job interviews—far better than what has been happening over the last four months. This little detail is supposed to remove me from spending the time talking about “the basics” of interviewing.

So let’s talk about the basics. In the area of preparation, I have to be more prepared than I was eight years ago. My areas of “expertise” are a bit larger—but any junior imperialist should know that with more area to defend comes more possibilities of attack (and weaker defenses). I see some success in finding commonalities in different areas and I’m looking for more… In the area of practicing mock interviews, I have to be more selective. It appears most helpful to me to practice with a person who is knowledgeable in my field—and is an interviewer. I’ll continue to keep an eye out for such generous people.

So let’s talk about the ‘esoterics’:

My Reaction to the Expectation That I Can Write Code from Memory

Learning code by rote is not a priority to me. Like most professionals I tend to write libraries. This literally means that I write the important code once and then get lost in implementation details—what is worse is that I forget about this important code. This work habit seems to not fare well in too many of my job interviews. Too many times I end up looking like an idiot because I can’t remember shit. And what makes me crippled with anger is when I perceive they hear “I can’t remember” as “I never knew it in the first place.” What’s worse is when I know my generic solution is superior to this hard-coded shit they are trying to test me with…

What this state of affairs implies is that I have to know (by rote) how “the industry at large” implements things and I have to do my thing too. What this also implies is that I do not socialize my work enough. Sites like stackoverflow.com exist to help me with this… Based on what I’ve learned (the hard way) over the last four months, I’m updating my work habits to include more drilling and exercising with “popular” IT problems—even though I do not plan to move “up” into professional management or evangelism.

One solid solution that I propose to myself is to compile a portfolio of snippets that explores what I value as a developer. I see colorful set of prints with almost no descriptive text. I should assert myself and ask whether time can be reserved to see just a couple of these snippets. This assertion flies in the face of my pessimism but still inspires me to verify just how bleak this situation supposedly is.

My Reaction to the Obvious Lack of Preparation of the Interviewer

An interviewer can show disrespect in seconds before meeting by mentioning, as we walk into the interview room, that the hour-long meeting is suddenly shortened to fifteen minutes—and/or the resume has not been read at all. I notice how I call this ‘disrespect’ instead of an accident. I often find myself unable to recover from this situation—and in many cases “recovery” means canceling the meeting and attempting to reschedule.

What I really dislike about myself is my disgraceful passivity in these encounters—because this issue is not just a job-interview thing. A pretty young lady also gets hundreds of “resumes” as well. I feel like I drag myself through this change of plans without at least openly recognizing with the other person that the plans have changed. In some cases, this could reveal a level of desperation that should not be appropriate for a professional of my years of experience.

Clearly, my level of professionalism in the field of business communication is lacking. Say, for example, that I am interviewing for a senior position at Comedy Central—the network that has TeeVee shows about Christmas Poo—my “unprofessional” tendency is to look at their entire enterprise as a joke. I seem to fail to recognize just how many millions are flying around… and how strangely serious we have to be about this shit…

When the interviewer is unprepared, I have to come with a bag of tricks—like the portfolio of snippets mentioned earlier—not just a copy of my resume.

My Lack of Eye Contact, Handshake Significance and Adroit Stillness (the Byzantine Pose)

I am afraid to be aggressive with people. This is not because I am afraid of you (not one or two of you). This is because I am afraid of what I might do to you (one or two of you)—and the ultimate fear is when a large group of enemies made attack me at once (out of revenge for what I did to one or two of you). When you look into my eyes, you might actually see how I regard you—or more commonly you might actually see just how tough life has been for me. I know (approximately) just how much your American ass does not care—so why should I bother you?

The practice of shaking hands is an ethnic practice. It is by definition unsanitary (this should be the reason why Asian cultures have the bow). I have spent most of my pathetic adult life touching a computer keyboard and I resent having to lift my spirits out of my materialistic, left-brain-dominant introspection and extend my hand to a stranger in the artificial context of the job interview.

In the context of racism, I have learned to intensely dislike being a stranger. The very concept of the stranger comes out of imperial poverty—not rural dignity. When you reach this paragraph of reading with the idea that I am thinking “too much” about a “stupid” handshake I guess its best that I am not working with or for you. So clearly my fidgeting during some interviews is a sign that I would like to leave the room.

What disappoints me about myself is that I am unable find stillness in this situation—not because the situation is respectable by any civilized measure but because of my lack of sitting meditation discipline. All I have to do is take care of myself better and I should be able to stare serenely into the eyes of the devil. The next challenge is talking (intelligently) and staring at the same time. Whew!

What is most important is continuing to develop a healthy attitude toward aggression. My savage instinct (inherited from a relatively impoverished childhood) is to be prepared to fight to the death just because I disagree with you. This means I will conceal my disagreement with you to avoid having to try to kill you. My concealment makes me disgusted with me—and this further compounds my stuttering debilitation.

So the handshake—the firm handshake—is an act of aggression. No sane person should disagree with this. But what makes me a weirdo is that my fear of any aggression coming from me makes me not want to shake your hand. This is by definition a lack of grace and it seriously makes me a bumbling idiot.

My Large Answer Length and Drift into Generalities

The portfolio of snippets mentioned earlier might be the magic trick that should drive me away from the personal habit of taking too long to answer direct interview questions. One of the most common questions that take me too long to answer is, “I’m taking a look at your resume here—you seem to have a lot of experience—can you summarize your experience?” Without focus (or genuine concern for the interview process), I tend to drift here. In the IT field, generalities are a “good” thing—so I tend to speak with them as well.

My attraction to generalities is the “fatal interview sin.”

My Lack of Formal Restraint and “Excessive” Honesty

This is what makes many interviewers display what appears to be amused disgust on their faces. The job interview is (for those who take it seriously) the very symbol of your professionalism. Unilaterally disregarding any of the empty ceremonies of this process is symbolic of my disregard for professionalism. I cornered myself in some interview situations where I came close to attempting a stand-up comedy routine. Essentially, what I am trying to say is that this is all bullshit. You know it and I know it—so let’s ‘really’ talk.

I would have never fallen into this madness as a college graduate but it seems now I can be laughing my way to the poor house (by the way, I think Reagan closed the poor house in the 1980s). One very subtle and habitual form of this is my self deprecation. I hate the idea of being thought of as a self-aggrandizing liar so much that I tend to deprecate myself. I volunteer my weaknesses and expect my strengths to be ‘discovered.’ This is also a tactic to prevent accusations of egocentric arrogance.

So I need to direct the focus on just how great I am—and to calmly talk about how incredibly productive and helpful I can be. I can feel myself smiling defensively already—but there has to be some solemn seriousness about this because it is the truth. For some reason, I matured into this expectation that I will be punished for openly acknowledging any level of competency in anything. Hmm… now, how did that happen? I matured under the assumption that when I actually have to tell you how great I am, our relationship is actually over.

The job interview is all about quickly, succinctly and creatively expressing competency. It is a tragedy that I have been so uncreative about selling my creativity. My mother (or any woman playing some sad role of mother) has not been around for decades to do this selling for me… —oh, was that last sentence excessively honest?

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