plaxoed!

As promised from my previous post and to get started on the new interviewing category, here are some general tips I’ve collected over the years while interviewing or conducting interviews at a broad cut of companies for a variety of positions.

• Do your research – know the company, position, interviewers, industry. Research on the internet to see if anyone else has any info about the target company’s interview process.
  • Company: Recognize where the company fits into the competitive landscape. Figure out where the company is going and how you fit into the big picture. Read the latest news about the company and be prepared with your perspective on it.
  • Position: Read the job description. Read it again. Pick out the actual “meaty” skills required. Most of the time, a job description will be pretty long with a lot of fluff requirements (candidate must be a good communicator – duh; candidate must be familiar with MS Office – erm, my teenage sister is proficient). Know which ones are actually important and play to those (i.e. specific technical skills like client/server programming, familiarity with OS kernels, or web scripting).
  • Interviewers: If you can get a list of interviewers you’ll be meeting with, Google all of them. Peruse the company’s executive team profiles. Realize that oftentimes, only the first half of your interview schedule will be told to you. The heavy hitters are saved for the end of the day if you make it that far – usually these will be more senior people, ones you might be able to look up if you’re lucky.
  • Industry: If an interview candidate comes into an interview and says they are totally plugged into Web 2.0 but hasn’t heard of Flickr, del.icio.us, blogging, or anything beyond Google/Yahoo/MSN’s offerings, that’s an immediate red flag.
• Tell the interviewer what he/she wants to hear. Interviewing is an interactive sport. Listen to what the interviewer says throughout the interview to clue you in on what they are looking for.
  • If possible, use the “ice breaker” chit chat to get clues on what the interviewer is looking for. Try to ask the interviewer at the very beginning why they like working at the company. Have the interviewer tell you a short version of their career story.
  • During the interview, continuously listen to what the interviewer says in the dialogue and integrate that into your subsequent answers.
  • Pay attention to body language when you give your answers. While you’re talking, interviewers will often signal what they think is correct or wrong.
• Assess yourself beforehand. Know your strengths and don’t be afraid to play them up. Know your weaknesses and have a game plan for illustrating them in a positive/natural light. Don’t be afraid to mention your weaknesses if they come up; oftentimes, they are obvious. Everyone has them so hiding them will only raise suspicion. Talking about them in a candid and positive manner shows the interviewer that you are aware of your weaknesses and you’re working on them.
• Guide the interview to what you want to talk about. This goes with the previous point; if you have a strength that you want to highlight, answer your interviewer’s question(s) by leading into a story that plays to that strength. You can lead into any story you want from almost any interview question. The trick here is to control the interview without the interviewer noticing.
• Remember that you are qualified for the job (if you aren’t, then why are you wasting everyone’s time?). Since you know you are good for the job, the interview is actually about you figuring out if you want to work for the company.
• Mirror the interviewer. Pick up on the atmosphere the interviewer is trying to setup and follow suit. If the interviewer is laid back, be laid back. If the interviewer is grilling you, don’t be afraid to get aggressive. Also, studies have shown that if you mirror a person’s gestures, sitting position, etc., they will unconsciously connect to you better.
• Practice, practice, practice! Putting the above tips into practice is not trivial. Sign up for as many interviews as you can or have your friends/colleagues run mock interviews with you. As you get more experience, continuously refine your technique.

For each of these tips, be aware that an experienced interviewer might notice it and, depending on the person and the tactic used, may react to it positively or negatively. When I interview people, I consciously look for hints that a candidate is trying to game me with the above tactics. I’ll try to filter it out to figure out if the candidate has the raw skills I’m looking for and factor the use of the tactics into my hire/no-hire analysis.

Of course, in addition to the list above, the standard tips apply too. Be yourself, be passionate, be on time, and dress appropriately (this may mean suit, this may mean t-shirt and jeans; ask the person setting up the interview what’s appropriate). I have to assume that everyone already knows those 

Feel free to leave a comment if you have other tips I missed or any feedback about these. Of course, I’m also available by e-mail.

The last tip is to anticipate common interview questions and be prepared. There are common programming questions used in the software industry and some standard HR questions used everywhere; you should know your answers like the back of your hand. I’ll be going over how I construct my answers to these in the next few posts… stay tuned!

Terry pointed me to a NYT article today announcing the demise of Song Airlines. They said they are going to start refitting all of Delta’s planes with the seat-back entertainment that Song had, but I wonder if it’ll run the same software (with movies, games, music, and food ordering abilities), upgraded software (something tells me this is unlikely), or downgraded software (seems the most likely option ).

Oh well, back to Jet Blue!

At the beginning of November (11/7 - 11/10), Stuart (our HR guy) and I will be taking a trip to the Boston area to visit Harvard, MIT, and Brown. We’ll be doing a fun dinner event and then running interviews on campus.

Here’s the schedule:

• 11/7 afternoon - Arrive in Boston
• 11/7 at 7PM - Run a dinner and fun talk about interviewing and the new generation of internet startups. (The Kendall Hotel, 350 Main Street, Cambridge, MA)
• 11/8 - Interview candidates from MIT and Harvard
• 11/8 at 7PM - Drive to Brown and run another dinner and talk (The Tree House, Brown University, Career Center)
• 11/9 - Interview candidates from Brown
• 11/10 morning - Fly back to San Jose
• 11/9 morning - Fly back to San Jose

I’m going to be talking about two things: How to beat the interview and thoughts about working at internet startups nowadays. The first part, how to beat the interview, is an interviewer’s worst nightmare. I’ve been both an interviewee and an interviewer for many different companies; I’ll share with you formulas to answer all the normal interview questions you’ll face over and over… you know the ones: “Tell me about a team situation where there was conflict and it was resolved.” “What is your proudest accomplishment?” “What is your greatest weakness?” and the ever popular “If I asked your colleagues about you, what would they tell me?”

I can also share my Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Amazon interview experiences with you if there’s time

The second part is quite interesting too and it’s inspired by many of the e-mails I receive from people. Oftentimes, they’ll ask me about evaluating different job opportunities or people want to get my opinion on working for Google vs. Microsoft. I’ll be covering how I analyze different career opportunities and I’ll also do a quick run down of what I know about the workings of the internet startup world - stuff I wish I knew when I was graduating from college.

Anyways, after these talks, I’ll probably post my slide deck and notes online. If you’re a student at Harvard, MIT, or Brown, come out and join us (shoot me an e-mail so we can make sure to have enough food and drink). If you’re looking for a job bring your resume and if nothing else, we’ll have plenty of free food

UPDATE: These events are actually open to all who want to come. Just let me know ahead of time so we can be sure to have enough food

UPDATE 2: We’ve gotten 0 interest from people at Brown so we’re cancelling that part of our trip If you’re a student at Brown and you’re interested still, drop me a line.

As a follow on to my last post, last weekend I did a loop from SFO - NYC - SEA - SFO. The first leg was on Song Airlines from SFO - NYC (JFK). The second leg was on Jet Blue from NYC (JFK) - SEA. The last leg was on United from SEA - SFO.

Unfortunately for me, the first leg was the best experience. The second leg was pretty good (although the normal stellar Jet Blue experience was slightly diminished for me since I had just ridden on Song which had a bigger TV screen). The last leg on United was horrendous.

On United, the seat I had chosen when I booked the ticket was gone and I was given a middle seat in the back. To get a decent seat, they wanted me to shell out $29 for an Economy Plus “upgrade” - didn’t Economy Plus used to be free? I could’ve sworn the people at the gate have simply switched my seat to Economy Plus for free before…

Anyways, as usual, United has none of the nice perks that Song/Jet Blue has; makes me wish Song or Jet Blue would fly the SJC-SEA route

Flew out to NYC yesterday for a quick business trip and I the cheapest flight available from SFO - NYC (JFK) at a workable time was through Song Airlines, Delta’s new low cost airline. I wasn’t expecting too much, I figured it would be like Ted - United’s discount offering which, from what I can tell, is pretty much a normal United flight at a lower price. But when I got on the plane, it was a bit different

First, check out the cabin. They’ve really got a fun theme going on; everything is multi-colored, they play top 40s music during boarding/deplaning, and each seat has its own mini interactive TV screen.

Cool stuff… but wait, there’s more. Instead of playing the usual pre-flight safety info, they had an amusing audio track where they had a super deep smooth jazz voice telling you about the safety procedures and a few jokes thrown in too. The info was the same old stuff, but I thought it was a fun touch.During the flight, the screens are activated, and here’s where it gets really cool. They have a library of about 30 CDs in about 8 different genres that you can listen to during the flight. You just browse the CDs and build your own playlist. They’ve also got satellite TV, in-flight movies for $5 a pop, simple interactive games for $5 each, and a pretty comprehensive in-flight food menu. To pay for stuff, you simply use the credit card swiper built into the screen.

Dish network is getting a pretty good deal here; you can order Dish network through the interactive screen. I’m surprised I couldn’t order the CDs I was listening to and have them delivered home - or even better yet, get it digitally right on my iPod Ahh… but perhaps I’m getting a bit too optimistic.I’ve got a few more pictures I snagged during the flight up on my flickr if you’re interested in checking out more; I’m about to get on a Jet Blue flight from JFK to SEA, so I’ll be able to do a side by side comparison. Now that they aren’t the only ones doing in-flight satellite TV, will they still be the best cross country option?

The fact that this article appeared on Slashdot was already bad enough, showing that the moderators over there aren’t paying enough attention. But the fact that there’s a large discussion where people are whining about how the IM networks aren’t working together while in fact MSN and Y! have just announced a federated system is priceless. Out of all over 100 comments, only a very small handful of people noted that the article was out of date. Meanwhile, everyone else simply launches on a tirade about how IRC rules or how we should band together a netizens coalition to pressure the IM networks to federate.

So I have to ask: Why did this article get modded up to the top level of Slashdot? Why has the author of this article not published an update? And what is up with the community at Slashdot not knowing what’s going on considering that the news of MSN+Y! was even mentioned on Slashdot?

Ah finally, MSN and Y! have decided to throw down the gauntlet and join IM networks. Man, has this been a long time in the coming or what?

Why does this excite me? Because to me, the fact that the IM networks were never connected has always been a major annoyance. Think about it this way, when you send an e-mail, do you have to think about what domain the recipient is on and switch to the appropriate client? Heck no, you just send it off and SMTP does its magic! Now there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel for the IM world - maybe we’ll get completely interoperable IM one day.

What does this mean? Users win. Imagine if the IM network itself was commoditized. At this point, the competition in IM clients really starts to heat up - after all, why would I use MSN Messenger if it didn’t have the coolest features? I could simply download Y! Messenger and IM all my MSN friends.

And lastly, I’m excited because I think Plaxo has the potential to enhance the user experience as well. For the next version of AIM, we’ve already built really cool address book features which differentiate AIM from the other IM clients. What’s up next? Sorry, can’t blog about it. You’ll just have to wait and see

So I, along with everyone else in the world it seems, tuned in for the latest announcement by Apple on Wednesday. At first, I was confused… iPod w/ Video? iMac with a remote? what?

But then as I started to grok their latest move, their genius dawned on me. People already use iPods for portable media devices. People will buy the latest incarnation of iPod just as much as they’ve been buying the previous incarnations. People will start to buy video content through iTunes. People will want a home media hub. People will want a Mac with tight iTunes and Front Row integration. Case closed.

To me, it seems like a pretty good play for Apple. After all, how else do you get yourself into the wildly lucrative home entertainment space?

The iMac sucks though you say… or does it? What about those people dropping $1000 for a LCD TV at Best Buy? Will they pay $1300 for a LCD TV + iTunes + Front Row + video chat + a full fledged computer? And of course, let’s not forget, Apple products have unseated Sony products as being the sexiest consumer electronics on the block. If I was Best Buy, I’d put the new iMac in the TV section, not the computer section.

Along with everyone else, I’m also thinking that Apple will be releasing a Mac Mini with DVI/component video out, Front Row pre-loaded, and a remote. Goodbye Media Center/Tivo/Portable Windows Media Player. Hello Apple.

On the content front, they are revolutionizing things as well. Check out this analysis from Mark Cuban - selling video programming for $2 a pop might just fundamentally change the way network television shows are produced.

Sure this announcement was as drool inducing as the iPod Nano a few weeks ago, but in the grand scheme of things, I think it’s way more interesting. Why is it that some people are saying ho-hum, who cares about a video iPod/Front Row? Beats me… are these the same people that said ho-hum who cares about TiVo? ho-hum who cares about Netflix?

Ripping through the blogosphere tonight is news that Weblogs Inc. just got bought by AOL. Congratulations Jason, that’s quite a sum to walk away with

For AOL, I bet the $20-35 million was a bargain. Think about how much content, how many channels, and most importantly how many consistent eyeballs they are getting. From AOL’s perspective, that money is pocket change anyways and it might turn out to be a brilliant strategic move.

Oh, and if anyone wants to buy my blog, just name your price

I just got my DSL installed and here are my speed test results:

I’m currently subscribed to the “express” 1.5Mbps/384Kbps SBC Yahoo! DSL service for $14.95 / mo. with a 1 year contract. The surprising thing to me is that I’m actually getting the advertised speeds; I thought for sure I’d be seeing something more along the lines of 768Kbps/128Kbps.

But wait, it’s actually $38 / mo. You see, to get DSL for $14.95, you also have to sign up for a SBC bundle, the cheapest one being $23 / mo. Totally weak in my opinion, but then again, Comcast wants $24.95 / mo. for the first 3 months and then a whopping $56 / mo. after that. Wow, that’s pretty much highway robbery. To top it off, they want $54 / mo. for Digital Cable (with pretty much no channels) and another $5 / mo. for HDTV…

I said no thanks and ordered satellite service (120 channels + HD for “only” $42 / mo.), but then I realized that I won’t be getting my local channels in HD. I have an OTA HD receiver in my Media Center (the ATI HDTV Wonder) so maybe if I can get reception, it won’t be so bad

So anyways, back to the broadband speed, SBC claims that they have a faster “pro” service offering at 3.0Mbps / 512Kbps for $24.95 / mo., but I think I’ll stick with “express” unless I notice it being way too slow over the next few days. Man, I wish I could get Verizon Fios in my area!