My Bad HR Trip

‘Tis the season to be hiring. And because I supposedly have whatever magical ability it takes to conduct interviews, I keep getting thrown into human resources. The weird thing is, some candidates are even worse at answering questions than I am at coming up with them. So I thought I’d help out my fellow techies with some tips on what not to do during the hiring process. I can’t write my customary top ten, because more likely than not I will be pulled into another interview right about…now. But here’s what I have so far:

9. Don’t be female. Even if you’re hired, you’ll earn a third less than what dudes make. Sorry!

8. You know when Homer Simpson said he’d sell his soul for a donut? He got his donut, but he also sold his soul. Similarly, don’t say you like refactoring, QA’ing, or writing unit tests against bad legacy code. While you will be hired, you will also be asked to do all those things.

7. When asked about your greatest shortcoming, don’t say “Too detail oriented.” I said ’shortcoming’. That means ‘flaw’.

6. If the ad says, “Must live in the tri-state area,” that usually means you should move to New York from Russia, India, or Colorado before applying for this job.

5. If you’re hired as a contractor, please don’t disappear a week later due to family circumstances, a stolen phone or broken laptop. I am starting to believe I’m cursed, causing death, theft and technical difficulties.

4. In your cover letter, don’t admit to being the “best of the best”. Either you’re a liar, or I can’t afford to hire you.

3. Do not claim the following on your resume (sic): I Posses a strong ability to solve or bypass any software related problem that may arise (including those “unsolvable” problems). I will ask you to solve Turing’s halting problem. If I were fudging my resume, I might go as far as claiming a proof for “P = NP,” but claiming to solve the unsolvable is just stupid.

2. When asked about your biggest career mistake, don’t say “Going into computer science.” I’m not even kidding. Neither was the applicant.

1. When asked about PHP, MySQL or Linux, do not respond, “Huh?”