I said the F word during a job interview.

TEFLONSEAN said:
Perfect reason to start your own business......if you have the experience and the guts to make the leap.



I suspect applicant had minimal experience....otherwise why subject yourself to this torture.



If you have the "skills to pay the bills" not sure why you use your skills to pay an employers bills....when you can make more doing it yourself. There is that comfort zone that most like....totally understandable.
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Did you mean to quote my story or Bryan's? I'm not looking for a job. We're interviewing candidates for one. Haha.
 
Lindberg said:
Sounds like many start ups I interviewed at during the dot com boom. "Why don't you want to work 24 hours a day? We have foosball and pizza!" I don't think any of the places that scoffed at me for being unwilling to bust my ass for stock still exist.
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Amen to that. Equity is great if you're first in line with Founder's shares that weren't too diluted by Investor's shares. Regular options? Toilet paper if it self-destructs when the cash runs out.
 
Hahaha! If someone dropped an F bomb in context (under appropriate circumstances) during an interview, and if they were qualified I'd hire them on the spot... Good call passing on this one though. This is the kind of job where you would kill yourself to meet their unmoving deadline, then when you do it at great personal expense they will not necessarily reward you once that deadline is past. They may even let you go... No longer need you. I would have walked as well.
 
He doesn't need to relocate, he has access to a Cirrus! Heck, I did it for nine years in a 182. It'd be gravy for him in a Cirrus...what?...three...3.5 hours?
 
TEFLONSEAN said:
Bryan...you come off to me a as super creative person....reading your many entertaining posts.

Have you ever thought of creating your own business? Creating a niche....building on that?

Your a parachute guy now(cirrus humor).....strap on tight and take the plunge if it can be done. It will make you cringe at first...then you may find yourself asking...why didn't I do this sooner.
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I know about 20 people who've tried it over the last 15 years. Exactly one of them has managed to make enough money at it to support his family, and I'm not sure he's still in business. I do know some other software developers who are technically in business for themselves, but realistically their situations are no different from those of us who are employees, they are tasked full time to one client, they just pay their own employment taxes and buy their own insurance.

SixPapaCharlie said:
Sure. Great Question Mike.

It was taking psych clinics from paper to electronic.
on Oct 1 IDC10 codes come out and EMR (for Mental Health) need to meet certain requirements.

You know when you visit your doc, they have all those color coded folders? They are replacing that system w/ electronic methods. This is a good thing and I am all for it but they are backed into this deadline and they have angry customers because the company prior to them that had planned on doing this for all the clinics in Texas had spent millions of dollars over 5 years and still not completed it.

So these guys are unfairly being punished for their predecessor's crappy performance. Still, I don't think they can do what they want to do. I don't have the energy to try and be a part of it.
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I've been in that situation, having to come in and clean up someone else's mess. If you manage to pull it off, the managers will probably congratulate themselves on how great they are with a big bonus, and you with a token one. That's what I got, something that when you divided it by the number of additional hours I worked, came out to less than minimum wage.

TEFLONSEAN said:
Perfect reason to start your own business......if you have the experience and the guts to make the leap.

I suspect applicant had minimal experience....otherwise why subject yourself to this torture.

If you have the "skills to pay the bills" not sure why you use your skills to pay an employers bills....when you can make more doing it yourself. There is that comfort zone that most like....totally understandable.
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I think that must depend a lot on the industry you're in. I'm in IT, there used to be a lot of small shops around. It really started drying up around 20 years ago. Every company I know wants their professional services from a fairly good sized outfit, a one or two person shop is not what they want to deal with.

The other problem is that if you don't have much in the way of industry contacts, your chances of success are really pretty poor. My director has something in his phone message to the effect that if the caller is a salesperson, don't leave a message because he will never return it.

ollopa said:
The ultra-rich don't live in the same kind of reality that the rest of us do. It's not simply a matter of spending power and never having to worry about money but also not having to consider risk in the same way. I could quit my job this week and go 100% on a small business idea, but I have to consider what will happen to my assets and my family if that venture fails. A person from a rich family (or a wealthy person himself) is far more likely than I am to take a risk after sizing up an opportunity.

It's said that what makes successful people so is not the obvious -- that they're good at being successful -- but that they're really good at failing. The average entrepreneur fails about 4 times before finding success and that means that people who come from a wealthy background and are less risk-averse are more likely to be optimistic and keep plugging at it until it become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I don't think I'd say that they're delusional... They really do live in a different world with different rules.
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That's a very good point. If you have to succeed on your first attempt, you'll need some very good luck. Most of us need an income and don't have that much risk capital to where we can step out on our own, especially if we have a family.

I've been involved in three different new businesses, one of which was very successful that we sold to a competitor during a period of industry consolidation, one of which I was part owner of that failed, and one that a relative of mine was starting that wasn't mine, that failed. It's really hard to predict where the market for a product will be at any given time, and that has more to do with your success than anything you do. You can execute your business plan perfectly, but if the marketplace doesn't want enough of what you're selling or you have to go up against a more established or better financed competitor, your chances of success are low.

For years I've been trying to figure out how to start a business in my alleged free time. I've never been able to come up with anything that would ultimately have the potential to support my family with. Come to think of it, in all of the new businesses I've been involved in, for the first couple of years, there was never a time where I worked less than 50 hours a week, and that's the sort of commitment it takes to get a business going. Thing is, when I go looking for examples of people who have done so, success stories are few and far between, and practically none of them had families at the time. Somehow I don't think that's realistic for most of us, we're just too time constrained, and the marketplace isn't all that friendly to very small business organizations these days.
 
As the saying goes, if starting a business was easy, everyone would do it. Technically, starting a business IS easy, but actually running the business is often where the challenge appears.

I've seen quite a few techologists, contractors, mechanics, etc. fail at self-employment, almost always because they were passionate about their discipline but not about all of the other noise that goes along with running a successful business. It probably goes without saying that business skills and a willingness to devote time to the business part of self-employment is a requirement. I will opine that if you hate salespeople, you're starting off behind, because you will likely need to be one and network with other ones in order to grow your business.

While there are some companies who want the reduced risk of only hiring big firms, I haven't noticed that to be a pervasive problem in IT. The customers I work with on a daily basis seem to have a mix of large and small (sometimes very small) companies doing work for them, and some of those very small companies are from other parts of the country. How were they discovered? Networking with sales people from other, larger companies, who referred them.

Generally, high-level (executive) contacts are far more important to being hired than the fact that you're well-respected among your peers. At the end of the day, most mid- and low-level managers are lousy and will pick the cheap and easy candidate who does mediocre work over someone who costs a little more but will knock it out of the park. That may seem cynical and perhaps illogical, but it's been my general observation over the past 15 years.


JKG
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
...
attachment.php
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tell your daughter to stop monkeying around!


monkeying around.............sorry, that might be hungover humor.
 
Lindberg said:
Sounds like many start ups I interviewed at during the dot com boom. "Why don't you want to work 24 hours a day? We have foosball and pizza!" I don't think any of the places that scoffed at me for being unwilling to bust my ass for stock still exist.
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Honestly, that's the worst thing about working the tech business, competing with coworkers and managers that have no lives outside of work. I like what I do, and I'm good and it, but quality of life is very important to me.
 
My wife is in a management position and gets a steady flow of emails from job shoppers. There has been a dramatic rise in the habit of writing emails all lower case, no punctuation. She deletes them without reply. I understand the texting-connection here, but a suggestion for you younger job hunters - don't do it.
 
I had one a couple years ago, same type thing, only her email was "something"420@gmail. I did respond to her, as I know her parents, and told her to get a different email address for sending Resumes! Using a "pot" reference in her email is a pretty good way of being eliminated from ALL possible job positions! :mad2:

write-stuff said:
My wife is in a management position and gets a steady flow of emails from job shoppers. There has been a dramatic rise in the habit of writing emails all lower case, no punctuation. She deletes them without reply. I understand the texting-connection here, but a suggestion for you younger job hunters - don't do it.
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N747JB said:
I had one a couple years ago, same type thing, only her email was "something"420@gmail. I did respond to her, as I know her parents, and told her to get a different email address for sending Resumes! Using a "pot" reference in her email is a pretty good way of being eliminated from ALL possible job positions! :mad2:
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Hopefully she took your advice and wised up.
 
write-stuff said:
My wife is in a management position and gets a steady flow of emails from job shoppers. There has been a dramatic rise in the habit of writing emails all lower case, no punctuation. She deletes them without reply. I understand the texting-connection here, but a suggestion for you younger job hunters - don't do it.
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Good advice! :yes:
 
write-stuff said:
My wife is in a management position and gets a steady flow of emails from job shoppers. There has been a dramatic rise in the habit of writing emails all lower case, no punctuation. She deletes them without reply. I understand the texting-connection here, but a suggestion for you younger job hunters - don't do it.
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Completely agree. I'd trash a resume for being written in such a way, too.

I recently sent my own resume to a company for a new IT-related job and it was three pages, something I've NEVER done before. I knew from previous conversations with them they wanted in-depth knowledge of my Salesforce skills, so I covered all the major projects I've done in the last four years at my current job, which pushed everything to three pages, even after massive culling of old info.

In my cover letter, I apologized for the length and stated I wanted them to have everything they needed prior to the interviews. I talked later with the admin, and she said three pages wasn't a problem at all for somebody with my extensive background they were looking for.

I'm meeting one last person this week (initial guy building their sales team, whom I know, but have never worked directly with) that I hope will seal the deal and then they'll extend an offer.

If everything works out, I'll be shoving my resignation letter in my boss' face soon. I'm the only one on the team marked as "key talent" so I expect they'll panic and throw a counteroffer my way, but unless it's the proverbial offer I can't refuse, I'm going to tell them it's too little, too late. They had their chance to increase my compensation package when my 4-year vesting completed a few weeks ago, and they didn't, even after I told my three immediate managers in 1-on-1's that I considered the golden handcuffs had dropped off, so they blew it.
 
HouTxPilot82 said:
Hopefully she took your advice and wised up.
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I doubt it, she never responded thanking me or telling me to go to hell. :dunno: I guess young folk think anyone over 30 wouldn't understand the significance of "420"! :rofl:
 
write-stuff said:
My wife is in a management position and gets a steady flow of emails from job shoppers. There has been a dramatic rise in the habit of writing emails all lower case, no punctuation. She deletes them without reply. I understand the texting-connection here, but a suggestion for you younger job hunters - don't do it.
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i agree this is excellent advice i will remember this thank you very much
 
write-stuff said:
My wife is in a management position and gets a steady flow of emails from job shoppers. There has been a dramatic rise in the habit of writing emails all lower case, no punctuation. She deletes them without reply. I understand the texting-connection here, but a suggestion for you younger job hunters - don't do it.
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I received a resume a couple years ago for a position at my agency as one of my licensed counselors. This woman had her Master's degree, and yet the email on top of her resume started off as "partygirl." Delete!

I didn't even bother giving her a helpful hint on creating a professional one. If she wasn't smart enough to figure that out, I didn't think there would be anything I could help her with.
 
LoneAspen said:
Completely agree. I'd trash a resume for being written in such a way, too.

I recently sent my own resume to a company for a new IT-related job and it was three pages, something I've NEVER done before. I knew from previous conversations with them they wanted in-depth knowledge of my Salesforce skills, so I covered all the major projects I've done in the last four years at my current job, which pushed everything to three pages, even after massive culling of old info.

In my cover letter, I apologized for the length and stated I wanted them to have everything they needed prior to the interviews. I talked later with the admin, and she said three pages wasn't a problem at all for somebody with my extensive background they were looking for.

I'm meeting one last person this week (initial guy building their sales team, whom I know, but have never worked directly with) that I hope will seal the deal and then they'll extend an offer.

If everything works out, I'll be shoving my resignation letter in my boss' face soon. I'm the only one on the team marked as "key talent" so I expect they'll panic and throw a counteroffer my way, but unless it's the proverbial offer I can't refuse, I'm going to tell them it's too little, too late. They had their chance to increase my compensation package when my 4-year vesting completed a few weeks ago, and they didn't, even after I told my three immediate managers in 1-on-1's that I considered the golden handcuffs had dropped off, so they blew it.
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Don't ever take a counter offer. Unless you're directly leaving over money, money cannot compensate for what's wrong. And if it IS about money, what makes you think they'll change the way they provide promotions, raises and bonuses if you stay?

Don't burn your bridges. You never know.

I don't consider 3 pages to be huge for a resume, it depends on what you've got. I find it impossible to fit mine on a single page the way I'd like to, there's just too much in there.
 
Shoot, as long as we're trash-talking "kids today"... My brother and I are in the same industry but work for different companies. We were talking Saturday morning about some of the people we see at work now. When we first joined the real workforce it was back when everyone still wore a suit and tie. And I couldn't even get an interview because of my name. I changed it to something much simpler, and American sounding, and was hired just a few weeks later. For the last 15 years weve had kids (anyone under 35 is a kid) coming in with pony tails, piercings, ink, etc. It used to be cool to have a few days worth of stubble, but now it's a few years worth of growth. Casual day every day, and to some that means PJs.

You'll watch them stumble in blurry-eyed half an hour late, spend the morning talking, take an extra hour for lunch, and slide out fifteen minutes early. Email in all lowercase with texting shorthand.

It's a different world now. I miss the days when a person dressed up and looked respectable to come into the office to goof around online all day.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
blah blah blah
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What kind of positions are you looking for? From what I see, we have a number of openings in our Richardson office, but they're more engineering and systems architecture at the moment (and I have nothing to do with that office).
 
bflynn said:
I don't consider 3 pages to be huge for a resume, it depends on what you've got. I find it impossible to fit mine on a single page the way I'd like to, there's just too much in there.
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For most people, three pages is too long. It sounds like it was warranted in this instance though. But most of the resumes I look at are more than one page and there's a lot of filler. For most people in the workforce less than 10 years, if you can't summarize your education and experience in one page then you're probably not the best person for the job. A pet peeve of mine is when resumes have:

1. HS education info.
2. College activities that aren't related to education.
3. PT jobs at fast-food, retail, etc. that don't pertain to the professional job applied for, when they have had at least one professional job. If you've worked for ABC Computing you can leave Homer's Grocery Store off your resume.
4. References available upon request. Either include copies of your letters of rec., or don't. But get rid of this line. It's a filler and time-waster.
5. Get a decent email address. *see 420 note above*
6. Have someone check for typos, typos and typos.
 
Henning said:
Most billionaires are delusional, that's why they are billionairss, they don't hold themselves back with self doubt; they understand they can create any reality they want, and do.
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That may describe billionaires, but it also describes many more spectacular failures. Its just that no one ever hears about the people who "don't hold themselves back with self doubt" but should have, because any self doubt would have been quite accurate.
 
bflynn said:
Don't ever take a counter offer. Unless you're directly leaving over money, money cannot compensate for what's wrong. And if it IS about money, what makes you think they'll change the way they provide promotions, raises and bonuses if you stay?
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That's always the way I've felt, too. A few years after I started my career and I figured out how the "real world" worked, I made myself a promise that if I were a manager, I'd never extend a counter, and as an employee leaving, I'd never accept one. For the exact reason you mentioned - it doesn't solve the real issue of why somebody is leaving.

Even though people say they're leaving for more money, it's not really more money. It's because they weren't recognized and rewarded at the appropriate time, and a counter isn't going to fix that.

That's also true in my case. They had their chance to bump my compensation package, and they haven't. Instead, they've blown smoke up my ass talking about trying to justify moving me into a higher salary bracket, taking on more responsibilities, blah blah blah. Typical manager and HR bullsh*t.

Nah, I'm done with the place. I've even been printing out my resignation letter each day (with that date on it) just in case the BS bucket overflows one day and I want to give notice. I've come close a couple times.
 
N747JB said:
I doubt it, she never responded thanking me or telling me to go to hell. :dunno: I guess young folk think anyone over 30 wouldn't understand the significance of "420"! :rofl:
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Maybe her birthday is April 20.
 
paflyer said:
Go back to sleep.

Forward!
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Spin Zone not big enough for ya? How about let this thread get back on topic?

Bryan: good on you for recognizing what you'd be walking into if you pursued this position.
 
Just got a text from my recruiter "Have great news call me!"
It is for a position very in line with what I want to be doing.

Checked the glassdoor reviews and the reviews about environment are very positive.
Lots of room for personal and career growth as well. And the pay increase will buy the 172 that Mrs. 6PC wants but we will probably just spend it on shoes since we are getting the wings of hope raffle plane.

Hopefully it works out
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Just got a text from my recruiter "Have great news call me!"
It is for a position very in line with what I want to be doing.

Checked the glassdoor reviews and the reviews about environment are very positive.
Lots of room for personal and career growth as well. And the pay increase will buy the 172 that Mrs. 6PC wants but we will probably just spend it on shoes since we are getting the wings of hope raffle plane.

Hopefully it works out
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Congrats! All the best!
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Checked the glassdoor reviews and the reviews about environment are very positive.
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Is that site worth signing up for? I'd be curious to read the quotes about where I am, and see if there are any for the place I'm interviewing at (although I doubt it, they're probably still way too small)
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Just got a text from my recruiter "Have great news call me!"
It is for a position very in line with what I want to be doing.

Checked the glassdoor reviews and the reviews about environment are very positive.
Lots of room for personal and career growth as well. And the pay increase will buy the 172 that Mrs. 6PC wants but we will probably just spend it on shoes since we are getting the wings of hope raffle plane.

Hopefully it works out
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Good luck!

Red spike shoes will look good on you. ;)
 
just google your company name and glassdoor
You can read the reviews and salaries of employees that self report, also interview process.

It is an anonymous way for employees to say "Stay away" or "This place is awesome"
 
Brian, keep us posted on the news. This is exciting.

I enjoy reading glassdoor reviews for entertainment. Especially some of the ones written about the company I work for. Just by their attitude I could tell you who wrote a select few reviews.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Lots of room for personal and career growth as well. And the pay increase will buy the 172 that Mrs. 6PC wants but we will probably just spend it on shoes since we are getting the wings of hope raffle plane.

Hopefully it works out
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You can't have my second airplane. My retirement plan depends on winning a raffle airplane annually.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Thanks!

My kids are my world.
Work was killing me Wed so I told my current boss you hold down the fort, I have a date.

I took my daughter to a museum and I didn't waste a single second thinking about my work.

Today is her 6th birthday.

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That is exactly the way your priorities should be WRT work. I work to live, not live to work. Good job.

N747JB said:
I doubt it, she never responded thanking me or telling me to go to hell. :dunno: I guess young folk think anyone over 30 wouldn't understand the significance of "420"! :rofl:
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OK, given that I'm over 30 x 2 years old, someone want to explain this? :D
 
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