That’s a perfectly fine position to have, but surely you are not surprised that given a candidate that shows some interest, and a candidate that doesn’t care, the company would prefer the former. You don’t need to be interested, that’s ok, but if someone else is, then they will probably be easier to work with.
IoT flower pots? I could say “I noticed you use MQTT for networking the pots, I used it before for a hobby project of a multiplayer Scrabble game, it’s pretty cool tech. And I saw in the posting you want to move from Atmega32 to an ARM chip? What are your plans for the compiler toolchain?”
At no point did I mention I like flower pots or that I think they are a good idea. And yet I’ve shown I have previous experience, a desire to learn new skills, and turned the conversation around by asking a question. And I didn’t lie or “play a game”.
surely you are not surprised that given a candidate that shows some interest, and a candidate that doesn’t care, the company would prefer the former.
Definitely. That’s why I lie.
if someone else is, then they will probably be easier to work with.
I actually really challenge this point. Specifically because I don’t care, I would say I’m very easy to work with. Example: Did the manager just order us to do something really stupid? Sounds good to me! I’m on it, boss! On the other hand, I’ve worked with tons of people who care way too much. Sometimes it seems like they think it’s their company. Those people are hard to work with.
The order doesn’t even have to be stupid, it can just be something the passionate employee disagrees with. At a previous company, we were told to make some app work because we had an important demo coming up. One super passionate dude on my team almost derailed us because he insisted that we fix the app the “correct” way. In theory, he was correct, however in practice he was dead wrong.
I didn’t care either way, so I just made the thing work.
I could say “I noticed you use MQTT for networking the pots…
Yeah, this is the same game I play. I avoid answering their question of “Why FlowerPot.ly?” and just give some generic answer that applies to any company, not specifically FlowerPot.ly. I would also throw in some lies like, “My brother owns an IoT flower pot. I think it’s so cool!”.
That’s a perfectly fine position to have, but surely you are not surprised that given a candidate that shows some interest, and a candidate that doesn’t care, the company would prefer the former. You don’t need to be interested, that’s ok, but if someone else is, then they will probably be easier to work with.
IoT flower pots? I could say “I noticed you use MQTT for networking the pots, I used it before for a hobby project of a multiplayer Scrabble game, it’s pretty cool tech. And I saw in the posting you want to move from Atmega32 to an ARM chip? What are your plans for the compiler toolchain?”
At no point did I mention I like flower pots or that I think they are a good idea. And yet I’ve shown I have previous experience, a desire to learn new skills, and turned the conversation around by asking a question. And I didn’t lie or “play a game”.
Definitely. That’s why I lie.
I actually really challenge this point. Specifically because I don’t care, I would say I’m very easy to work with. Example: Did the manager just order us to do something really stupid? Sounds good to me! I’m on it, boss! On the other hand, I’ve worked with tons of people who care way too much. Sometimes it seems like they think it’s their company. Those people are hard to work with.
The order doesn’t even have to be stupid, it can just be something the passionate employee disagrees with. At a previous company, we were told to make some app work because we had an important demo coming up. One super passionate dude on my team almost derailed us because he insisted that we fix the app the “correct” way. In theory, he was correct, however in practice he was dead wrong.
I didn’t care either way, so I just made the thing work.
Yeah, this is the same game I play. I avoid answering their question of “Why FlowerPot.ly?” and just give some generic answer that applies to any company, not specifically FlowerPot.ly. I would also throw in some lies like, “My brother owns an IoT flower pot. I think it’s so cool!”.