Interviewing Experience
One question that I always ask in a lunch interview is “What are you looking for in your next role?”. While most candidates strictly talk about factors that could make their next job happier, a few of them also talk about why they’re unhappy in their current role. This blog post is about one such incident that has changed the way I look at interviews.
I was having a really bad day at work and I wasn’t able to progress at a pace that I would have liked. A little frustrated, I checked my calendar to find that I’ve a lunch interview in a few minutes. I looked at the candidate’s resume and I thought she had a stellar profile — great school with a great GPA and a couple of years of work experience from a reputed company. After getting to know more about the candidate’s background, I got to the above question.
This time the candidate chose to answer the question by listing out the issues in her current job. She had spent most of her time in fixing bugs and also maintaining current projects with very little time spent on developing new features. She then talked about her expectations on her next job and then asked about my experience as a Software Engineer at LinkedIn. After listening to her, I imagined myself having to explain my issues at work to the candidate and it sounded so trivial! It was at this point that I realized that interviewing gives you a rare opportunity of talking to people who are seeking for the role and position that you’re currently working on. We’re used to taking so many things for granted that we sometimes forget how lucky or fortunate we’ve been so far in getting to the current position.
A great learning at an unexpected situation.
Kaushik Rangadurai
Code. Learn. Explore