The Interview - My first 3 months at DMG MORI HEITEC Digital Kft.

Thanks Jorge Romero. I was also terrified of interviews for 2 reasons.

1. I have no experience in interviewing as I only had 2 interviews in my life. I guess the only solution for this is to go to interviews and practice. You should go to interviews even if you have a good job, not because to leave, but to get confidence. I am not good in this part as I did not go to any other interview yet.

2. I have a totally wrong interpretation about interviews. I thought the interview is about persuading the interviewer to employ you. This is totally wrong.

The goal of the interview is to learn as much as you can about each other to see if you are a good fit for each other or not. And it is equally true for you, not just for the company. In today's world, IT companies are competing with each other to hire talented professionals. In my opinion, the interview process is completely flawed.

It is simply not fair, especially in case you are an introvert like me or in case you have low self-esteem. Just because I stress on interviews I perform worse than others with the same skill set.

A few rounds of interviews are only enough to have a first impression but that's all. Large companies like Google have almost a dozen rounds of interviews just to find the perfect candidate. Personally, I would not go to a company where I have more than 3 rounds of interviews.

But I have a much better solution than interviewing.

I started blogging with which I can showcase my expertise and also my personality. I am not selling a pig in a poke. In case a recruiter takes the time to go through my blog or LinkedIn (I repost every article there), then they can have a complete picture of what I can offer. In case they do not take the time then we have nothing to talk about.

In the past I got ~1 job offer per week via LinkedIn, but since I started posting on LinkedIn a few weeks ago that has changed completely. In 1,5 weeks I got 16 job offers. 😊

In the past I always said thanks for contacting me and I told I am not interested, but since I got contacted by Hayes (who is releasing the yearly IT salary guide here in Hungary) I change my strategy. I say thanks for contacting me, I let them know I get a lot of offer, so to do not waste each other's time I ask about the salary immediately. Without that info there is no point to spend hours on the conversation. I am not asking it as I would like to change, but I am asking it to have a better understanding how much I worth currently on the job market.

Sometimes I get the salary info with the job post together, sometimes they send it to me after I ask, and sometimes they say they cannot tell a salary and I should tell, and sometimes they do not tell the salary despite of asking, well that is the group with which I have nothing to talk about.

Sometimes I get job offers via recruiters on LinkedIn for jobs that have no subset with my tech stack, but recently I also had a very positive experience. I recruiter from Cloudera contacted me on LinkedIn and she started her message with "I am a recent dog owner". You have to know that I have a very long bio which is equally personal and professional. I close my bio with: "Husband, father of a son and a soon to be happy dog owner".

With this one sentence she confirmed she read my bio so I decided she earned the right to have a 20-30 minute call.

It was a very great call, she was very kind told a lot about the company, which is awesome and I also told a few things about myself. I think both of us knew I won't take this opportunity now, but who knows what the future will bring for us. 😊

Wow, I just realized my comment almost as long as my article. 😱🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😊

Miki Szeles Wow! Thank you for the long comment. I'm taking notes. I'll figure out how linkedIn works. I really like the change of perspective about interviews.

The only experience in interviews I have is when I was applying for my Master's. It was extremely stressful, perhaps just because the academic context is more hostile. It is in fact a filter.

I'm really glad to hear that I don't have to go through that again!