Joel Koltner said:
What a tool... anyone who'd ask someone else for constructive criticism on
their design when in acutality they're just looking for kudos on how great it
is shouldn't be doing technical interviews in the first place.
I beg to differ. The interviewer wasn't looking for approval. He had
a design that he was intimately familiar with. He probably knew all
the problems that it had in production. It's highly likely that most
of my criticism were already known or at least had been suggested by
others. He could easily tell if I was taking a systems approach to
the design, or whether I was taking pot shots at parts and pieces that
didn't follow my favorite methodology. Were the circumstances
reversed, I probably would have done something similar. (Actually, I
have done something similar when hiring techs, but was told to cease
by the personnel dept. See below).
Friends working for Plantronics at the time eventually leaked that the
interviewer was not very happy with me after the interview. Apparently
(my guess) I had hit upon too many of the low points of his design for
him to be comfortable having me around. The emperors new clothes were
not invisible, but they certainly had some big holes.
When I still was in the job market, I interviewed with a few assorted
companies. The ones with smaller engineering departments were a
disaster. My problems interviewing at Plantronics were about the
worst. However, I had plenty of other problems dealing with managers
and other engineers. The managers tended to look for how well I would
"get along" with the rest of his team. The engineers tended to hand
me their problem of the day to solve. One interviewer spent the
entire interview negotiating where I would fit into his wall size
organizational chart. If there were any real competence tests, they
were well hidden.
As usual, I prefer to be part of the problem instead of the solution.
I was in the position of having to hire engineering techs for perhaps
8 years. After some bad decisions, I decided that I would study the
matter and improve my interrogation skills. Lacking the time to take
the necessary courses, I resorted to trickery.
The prospective tech would be shown one of our current RF boards and
asked to identify as many components as possible. This was presented
as a test of experience. Afterwards, I would give the tech a tour of
the circuit board, explain the functions involved, detail some of the
components, and reference the associated schematic.
Then, I would give them a tour of the plant and facilities or perhaps
go to lunch. Afterwards, we would end up back at my messy office,
where I would drag out the same identical board, and ask the same
identical question. If they had been paying attention when I gave
them a tour of the board, and absorbed even some of my technobabble,
they were a likely candidate. If they could do no better than the
initial analysis, they were history.
Depends on the company...
True. I didn't do well at large companies. Probably my lack of
diplomacy, tact, humility, etc.