First Job Interviews

I didn't pursue any internships in college and found achieving my first position to be harder-than-expected.

I'm a pretty smart guy, and I've earned my degree, so why wouldn't people actively want to hire me? Oh, how naive. (A 2.7 GPA scares off a lot of potential employers.)

I went to an interview with a battery manufacturing company. The first interview was with a geeky individual similar to myself. I thought I did pretty well, and he must have also. I went to the on-site interview that required a short flight.

The interview lasted ~6 hours with ~6 different people. I was doing fine, but was a bit exhausted as the 6th interview of the day approached. The 6th interview did not go so well. The interviewer was an attractive female. I have never been entirely comfortable around attractive women, and this was an interview situation, making it even less comfortable for me.

Somehow, the topic of ethics came up. And my mouth just kept going off without my brain. I said things like "It's a shame that we have to teach ethics in college these days. So many people lie, cheat, and steal. Hundreds of people got caught cheating on Biology exams at my school. Half of marriages end in divorce." But I didn't stop there. "I keep notes on my calculator on how to solve complicated problems. But I erase them right before the test so that I won't be tempted to use them."

I no longer remember exactly how the conversation went. But I'm sure I left her thinking that I was a very unethical individual that thought 'everybody' was unethical. While I do actually think that nearly everybody is unethical in some behavior or another, I try to be very ethical in my own behavior. I do realize that I am not perfectly ethical, but I keep the frequency of my unethical behavior quite low and I regret it when my behavior goes out of bounds. (I personally do my best not to tell lies, but that is the only aspect of my behavior that sometimes ...)

Wait. Ok, now I see what happened in that conversation. I kept on trying to say "No wait, I really am ethical except for these minor exceptions..." I view that as being quite honest. But the person you are talking with will not be likely to share your opinion. You may view it as being forthright and giving full honest disclosure. They may view it as "He just admitted to being a liar in a job interview."

I've lied a half dozen times in the last 10 years or so. This is my unethical behavior that I regret.

Anyway, I'm sure you've heard that it is best to remain overwhelmingly positive during an interview? This is good advice. Focusing on all that's wrong in the world may be a good topic for an informal Wednesday evening church service, but it's entirely the wrong tone for a job interview.

My rejection letter beat me home.


That particular job interview was a unique experience for me, and I don't believe I've ever had one go that way since. All of my following interviews seem to have gone one of two ways.

Most interviews go well for me. After all, I'm interviewing because they saw something in my resume that indicated I might be a good fit working with them. I'm usually a bit more sociable than a lot of engineers, so I don't have problems finding rapport with interviewers on most occasions. (And it is truly rare that you are interviewed by an attractive woman in engineering, so the nerves that were involved in that interview 10 years ago were an exception.) That's the kind of interview that occurs when I am comfortable.

Perhaps around a third of interviews go another way entirely for me. These are the interviews where I am decidedly not comfortable. They typically begin with a (very) short social setup. The interviewer will ask one question like "So, did you enjoy the trip up?" and one follow-up social nicety, such as "Well, that's good." And then it's on!

He'll start asking technical questions and wanting me to do prepared written questions, etc. If I've prepared for what he's asking, I do fine even with this interview method. But If I'm going to an interview where I'm expecting a programming position and they give me time-variant analog circuit analysis problems? I don't do so well.

And it's not that the questions in these interviews are ever hard. More than 99% of the time, I know the correct answers before I make it back to my car. But the fight-or-flight part of my brain does not accept stressful challenges well. The problem-solving portion of my brain doesn't engage well when I'm asked to produce an answer right-now and I know I'm being judged by the person or people sitting there across from me waiting on my answer.

I seem to do much better on such written skills tests when I've been given 20-30 minutes to chat with the interviewers, get a drink of water, and get used to the new environment. (I've never been to this company, building, or room before. I've never met or spoken with these people before.) I would ace them every time if they would mention during the phone interview what they would like to give an exam on during the on-site interview. I've never received explicit mention of this. But usually they will at least divulge the focus of the work, and I'll prepare for that. Unfortunately it's when you arrive for the software position that they'll surprise you with "You'll be designing analog and digital circuits as a primary part of your job, please take this test while the five of us stare at you."


I remember an electronics lab in college where the teaching assistant had friends going to job interviews. He would put the 'stumpers' from the job interviews on the board. And I was always thinking to myself, "How could someone get that wrong?! It's so easy!" I didn't understand the stress and pressure to perform in an interview. Your brain can go right out the window, along with your chance of getting that 'simple' problem right.

I think this mental state is similar to 'tilt' in magic or poker. The game is going along according to your opponent's plan, and then you wreck their plan. Sometimes they recover fine. Sometimes they go on tilt. Their play suffers immensely and you will have a hard time losing until they come out of it.

When you're on tilt in an interview, you've lost that job. Not because you aren't a smart guy or can't do the job. It's because tilt turns you into a total idiot in an interview.


I recognized an opposite problem while I was still in college. Some total-idiots are very good at not ever going on tilt. They have a ready answer for anything, and they sound good. Unfortunately, following the advice of a total idiot in most situations is not a good idea. The sad thing is, these people interview extremely well. From what I can tell, this kind of person easily ends up in management and has no problems keeping their job.


Later in life, I accidentally hired one of these guys as an engineer. During the interview he answered any question about his capabilities with the facts that he had a lot of experience in this field already (18 years!) and that he would have no problem. He's done it in the past, it's easy, etc.

Well, he kept the same attitude when he got the job. But somehow he couldn't fix anything. When I would go to troubleshoot broken equipment with "Bob", it would go something like this.

Me:"Bob, we see failure condition X. We've rebooted the machine and still see failure condition X. I suspect a problem with hardware or connectivity in the area of P."

Bob:"That's not it!"

Me:"? What leads you to that conclusion?"

Bob:"That's just not it!"

Me:"Well...what do you think the problem could be?"

Bob:"I don't know, but that's not it! Maybe the boards are bad."

Me:"Well...it's only this machine that's failing. These same boards pass when tested on the other machines. What would you do to troubleshoot further?"

Bob:"I don't know, but that's not it!"

Me:"Well, let's swap module P with the module next to it and see if the failure changes."


I digress. I ended up taking a job as a contractor with the phone company. It was quite Dilbert-esque, but that is another story.