How to succeed on an interivew.

My company and many others like it are hiring.  In times past or for certain fields the realization that that there are five candidates for every job was an unfortunate reality.  In the present economy there is a parity for job and job seekers.  However for jobs in the technology and medical sector it's more like three jobs for every two candidates. 

My company is expanding and it is primarily based in America.  We are a medium sized country.  We are in need or many different type of engineers so we are interviewing.  The main drive of this article is how to succeed at the interview.  To get an interview you have to have the right experience, write a good resume and impress with a short cover letter as well as apply for the right job. All of the above is beyond the scope of this article and I entreat the reader to look online for a plethora of advice.  Here is the steps for success on the interview process. 

#1) Prepare yourself:  Most people assume this has to do with physical preparation.  Unless you are interviewing to be a model nobody cares how you dress.  That new suit jacket will not get you the job.  On the last two interview’s I didn’t even wear a jacket.  I wore a button-down shirt and an ordinary tie.  Be presentable and that’s it. It’s far more important to be intellectually prepared.  Every position has a written description.  Read it, then read the company bio.  Understand what they are looking for, do some research.  Then go back to your textbooks and do some studying. There are two types of interviews, personality and technical. Sometimes these two are separate but many times they are combined.  Another way to look at it is many companies will do a phone interview and then call you in. On the phone interview, they will review your experience and on the in person one they will grill you.  For the personality or phone interview you need to be able to explain your past experience in a nice, natural, but not too rehearsed 30 second explanation.  Get it?   Always be able to explain what you did in each job/role you put on your resume in a natural sounding 30second-1minute sound byte.  If you get past this stage you’ll be grilled technically and sometimes it’s brutal.  Just do the best you can but study for at least 2 hours on the basics of any job.  Wouldn’t you study for a test in school?

#2) Be Yourself: “To thy own self be true.”  Don’t really be yourself, just be the natural, smart, fun hearted, loving part of yourself.  Answer the questions openly and honestly, do the best you can.  I’ve had had interviews where I eventually got the interviewer to chuckle at some halfhearted joke.  It humanizes you which is not enough to get you the job but might help on edge cases to make you special/memorable.  My God Mother’s husband Eddie Hara once told me, “You can’t really lose what you don’t have.”  It’s an important concept.  You don’t have to be nervous on an interview because you don’t have the job so you don’t have anything to lose.  You are just trying to do better.  In spiritual terms remember that God is in control and you are simply petitioning to do something more. I always pray only to present myself the best I can so I know the job goes to the best candidate and if it’s not me, that’s fine. 

#3) Leave the past in the past:  A common question is why are you looking for a new job or why did you leave this or that job.  We all go through difficult situations.  Sometimes we quit, or get laid off or even get fired.  Try to always put the best face on things.  If you’re still working for a company and looking for a new job say something like you’re not growing in your current role and you want to do or experience more.  Sounds very good and its always party true?  Leave negativity behind, DON’T EVER COMPLAIN ABOUT A FORMER EMPLOYER.  That is so critically important.  If you’re already complaining about an employer on the interview what are you going to do to me when you’re working here.  I don’t need the drama, sorry.  Just remember the best revenge is living well. 

#4) Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth:  I guess the perfect job is winning the lottery and doing whatever you want.  Aside from that every job has positives and negatives. What’s important you?  Compensation(salary) Co Workers, Location, Manager, Work Requirements, Position, Office, Benefits, ect.  It’s different for everybody, you never get everything you want.   If you’re out of work is it at least two or three things you like and if you’re moving, is there at least two better benefits?  It’s up to you. 

#5) Take an advantage: In my department, we tend to ask concept questions and then give a technical test.  If you’re ever, ever given a test to take home you need to hit it out of the park.  Think about what a gift it is to get a take home test, you can take as much time as you want (usually 2-3 days), and look online and in the case of a program compile the code and run it.  Why not look amazing? Invest in a job interview and they probably will invest in you. 

If it’s not meant to be it won’t but why tempt fate? 

            

Addressing Fake Problems - Income Inequality

Addressing Fake Problems – Income Inequality

It’s inherently unfair that anyone should earn more than anyone else.  The average wage in America is $40 per hour.  Why doesn’t everyone just earn $40 an hour.  For those earning minimum wage this would be fantastic.  For those living in areas where the cost of living is low it would be a godsend. For those living in Old Westbury they wouldn’t know how to pay $15,000 in property taxes.  Those who had $4000 rents in Manhattan wouldn’t be able to afford their living space.  What would be the motivation for medical students to kill themselves for ten years?  People would just do the minimum they had to do.  This is obviously not the kind of economic model that most people would recognize as prosperous.  I had a co worker Alexander (Sasha) who came from Russia during the 1980’s.  He said that apartments were allotted by family size.  The apartments were free, they just didn’t have any.

Any economic model that creates a peasants dillema is inherently an unfair system.

                That’s not what people hear when they hear the nefarious term Income Inequality or the equally euphemistic terms, ‘Social Justice.’  They think the system is unacceptably unfair and something must change.  Any economic model that creates a peasants dilemma is inherently an unfair system.  During the feudal times in Europe peasants worked the farms owned by the ‘Lords.’  They paid taxes in food and had barely enough left over to eat.  They could never acquire any wealth, property or improve their situation.  During the industrial revolution the owners of the factories had all the power and the workers were paid very little and had to endure miserable working conditions.  This didn’t change until unions were formed.  A hundred years ago unions were critical to changing the economic model of concentrated economic power to one of a balance of power.  Unions in their purest form are inherently a good thing though I believe they have become corrupted in modern day society.  A union provides a balance of power between management/owners and workers via mutually assured destruction.  If the workers are not treated fairly and given the appropriate benefits they collectively strike and everyone loses. The company can’t produce and therefore can’t make profit and the workers don’t get paid. If the unions get benefits that are in excess of what the company can afford the company goes out of business and everybody loses.  We’ll save what really happens today for another article.

                Working so long as an engineer has one negative side effect. When I hear that there’s a problem I require demonstrable proof that the ‘problem’ has definable negative side effects.  I then require a plan of action to correct it and a way to quantify the success.  Therein lies the problem with fake problems.  Income inequality measures that much of the wealth is concentrated in a small group of people.  Perhaps 80% of the wealth of the country is held by 1% of the people.  On the face of it, that sound horribly unfair.  They ‘re just counting dollars, physical dollars, representation of dollars, stock market dollars, and virtual dollars. Is 80% of the food, clothes, machines, houses, land held by 1% of the people, no.  If your neighbor has more money than you, how does that really harm you?  If they have a million dollars it doesn’t affect your job, purchasing power or family.  If a very rich man or group of people have a billion dollars that doesn’t change my life.  If they have a hundred billion it doesn’t matter.  But it’s not fair!  It’s not fair that I have to work so hard and those people have so much.  That’s what it really comes down to doesn’t it?  They have and I don’t.  Then I stomp my foot and come up with fake solutions.  This is just one of the many solutions offered.

Living Wage: Let’s give everyone a salary they can live on regardless of the work they do.  In NY it used to be $10.  If we could just pay people $10 then they could live and take care of themselves.  Well guess what, the minimum wage is almost $10 and most people get at least that much. The cost of living went up and they still didn’t have enough money.  In a few short years it will be $15.  Then $20, ect.  Money has no intrinsic value.  There are some adults, seniors, and single parents that are trying to live off of minimum wage but the vast number of people are high school and college people, immigrants, and people working for extra money.  The higher the cost of labor the more companies will look to use automation or make due with less.  My high school nephew works in a movie theater. During the summer and winter break he’d like to work as much as possible but they can only allow him to work 29 hours or else they must provide him all kinds of extra benefits they can’t afford and he doesn’t need.

Make the rich pay their fair share!   They do.  The top 10% of wage earners pay 80% of the taxes.  There’s an anecdote of ten guys who go to the bar every week. Their bill always come to $100.  They decide to split it based on income.  So the guy with the highest salary pays $50.  The second pays $20, the third $15, the fourth $8, the fifth $3, the sixth and seventh each pay $2. The last three guys pay nothing.  This arrangement works quite well for a while.  One day the bartender cuts the bill in half.  Now it’s only $50.  The guy who was paying $50 says this is great now we can each pay half of what we used to pay.  Well the five poorest are quite unhappy because they are only receiving a benefit of $1 or nothing and the richest guys is getting a $25 break.  They decide to do it more fairly.  They say $50 should be divided evenly between ten people. So the highest wage earner should pay $45, the next $15, the next $10, the next $3, the rest of the guys are actually earning money off the deal.  Well the next week the top three wage earners don’t show up.  The super rich can always relocate but the semi rich can’t. 

So there are no problems then are there?  

Yes there are economic problems and here are the real problems that you’re not focusing on

• The top international companies are not paying corporate tax.  This is not only unfair it hurts American businesses.  I heard one CEO say that if his company was not paying corporate tax they are still paying salaries which pays for local and federal taxes.  If you are a medium size business you are doing probably 100% of your business and hiring in this country and are paying 35% corporate tax.  How can you compete with the monolithic companies who are not paying that tax on top of paying for taxes embedded in salaries.  We need to end corporate tax loopholes.
• Golden Parachutes:  If a certain person built a business out of his garage into a multi billion dollar business employing tens of thousands of people who am I to begrudge all his wealth.  He created something where there was nothing.  On the other hand if a CEO comes into a company and the company performs poorly requiring the layoff of many people and they walk away with their overly generous severance package that is inherently unfair and it shouldn’t be tolerated. 
• Corporate Tax Rate:  As a software engineer my top tax rate is 26%. Obviously I don’t pay that on all my earnings but each and every dollar I earn from here gets hit with 26% federal and 7% state.  If someone earns the majority  of their money from stock options then they used to only pay 15%.  I think it’s close to 20% now. 
• Stagnant growth in local areas. Sometimes these are referred to the inner cities but there are so many residential area where crime, drugs, and poverty are so rampant.  It’s a never ending cycle of poverty and violence and this is a very disastrous situation for many Americans.  Increasing taxes on the wealthy will not help.  I don’t have all the answers but it starts with decimating the gangs, providing educational opportunities to young people and working with civic leaders to have a peaceful atmosphere.  In other words, actual hard work! 

The Emotion Train

A prominent Senator was giving a press conference about a controversial subject and he started to choke up and cry.  Others blamed him for ‘faking’ it.  Politicians, especially well known ones must have raw hide for skin otherwise they wouldn’t have made it this far.  As my co worker once said, ‘A politician is someone who lacks the gene for shame.’   I wondered whether he was genuine, dishonest and how could one tell. 

                There are two kinds of truly genuine emotion.  The first is direct cause and effect emotion.  You yell at a child and they cry or someone loses a loved one and they react with anger, shock, or sadness.  The second kind of emotion is one that’s based off of real events but is spontaneous in nature.  It might happen at a random or inopportune time.  It catches people off guard, especially those who experience it.  My grandfather went through a long physical and mental decline towards the end of his life. My mother was burdened with making many of the preparations for him.  Eventually he died, we went to two separate wakes including one with a priest.  Then we headed out to the burial.  He fought in WWII so he was buried at a national cemetery.  The two young marines marched in front of the casket, said a few words, did a salute and carefully folded a flag.  It wasn’t until we were leaving, my mother and I, that the funeral director came up with a comment about the flowers that didn’t arrive.  I was annoyed at his poor timing but was holding back saying anything out of not wanting to upset my mother.  She then said, ‘I miss him so much,’ and started crying.  It was a perfectly justifiable reaction but only at the end after everything was done. 

                There are a number of disingenuous emotions, I will attempt to go from somewhat understandable to completely outrageous.  When someone suspects another of faking a good cry they might say they put onions in their eyes but it’s more devious than that.  People work themselves up to a strong emotion.  A husband comes home late from work.  The wife’s first question is perfectly reasonable, “Why are you late?”  Before he can even answer or maybe he does answer and she doesn’t listen comes the following.  “You’re always late.”  “I’m always alone.”  “Then you’re tired and you don’t want to talk.”  “You sleep on the couch.”  “I have to eat dinner alone.”  “Last night…”  Then come the water works.  In defense, this scenario which plays out very often is probably subconscious.  She worked herself up like a train slow at first and then gaining momentum until she was at full steam.  It’s a real problem but the pattern is predictable and repeatable.  Or a man who is angry about something.  He catches another (smaller) guy looking in his direction.  “Are you looking at something?”  “You want to take a picture?”  “Are you checking out my girl?”  “You think she’s hot?”  “Huh?”  “What’s Up?”  Bam!  Fight.  It was totally unnecessary.  Even if these events happen at a subconscious level they can be avoided if the person was willing to be aware of it. 

                The next step down the road is a person who purposely works themselves up. People don’t fight with logic.  Logic is completely useless in a debate or argument.  They use emotion but the emotion has to have a logical start and climax, like a movie.  I find that women have more tools in their emotional toolbox. They can be charming, they can be angry, they can cry, they can pout (aka silent treatment) or they can be elusive.  Men can be charming and they can be angry.  Men that cry are usually like that Senator where no one believes them except in perhaps very limited circumstances. 

                Actors also bring on emotion but they use a technique known as channeling.  They don’t work themselves up in a situation with real consequence.  They think about a time in their life when they felt the emotion they want to employ while they act out another scene.  This is why actors who have some brains make excellent politicians. 

                Finally, there are those chosen few that can literally turn the emotion on in a blink.  It’s like they take the train but instead of a train it’s a rocket that just fires off or they channel in a flash.  They use it like a weapon. 

                So, how to tell if someone is faking it?  For one the emotion is convenient.  It’s at an opportune time.  Or it’s repeated, again and again.  It’s directed only at one person in one situation.  These are the calling cards of a faked emotion.  The more calling cards, the more accurate the prediction.  You can’t call someone out for it though, that might bring real anger.  The first thing you have to do is not do the dance.  They get angry, you get angry, then you walk away or make up.  Don’t play the game unless you want to.