From Xanga to 360
I work at Yahoo now so I suppose I should ditch Xanga in favor of 360. Here goes nothing.
« October 2005 | Main | December 2005 »
November 29, 2005
November 7, 2005
FSM on eBay
Now you too can feel the noodily touch of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Isn't he cute? now bid dammit!
http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6011889705
Please check out this auction and let others know about it. We're trying to raise some money for the National Center for Science Education. This group is fighting the teaching of intelligent design in the classroom which is disturbingly becoming more common in parts of the united states and can use all the help we can muster. If we work hard we might just be able to surpass Madagascar in science education in 2006!
Yar!
November 6, 2005
The Google Interview
I've been at Yahoo a week now and I've begun to reflect on my job search process. I've never had a job search be so successful before. I only spent one day searching. I responded to only two ads. I was planning to take a slow and gradual approach to my job search, but both of my applications produced interviews. One interview was with Yahoo and resulted in the job I accepted and the other interview was with Google, Yahoo's biggest competitor. The Google interview was... interesting. Luckily I have no NDA with them so I can discuss my interview experience here.
It all started when I applied directly through their website. The advertisement had little content above the title of 'Sales Engineer'. I applied anyway. The company's reputation was enough to spark my interest.
I heard back a week later from their HR department. They sent me a questionnaire to fill out. I've uploaded this questionnaire to my website. It appeared to have been hastily created with little quality control. Many of the sections did not make sense given the headings applied. It had many 'questions' that are not questions at all! It requested answers for such questions such as 'Perl' and 'Customer Communications'.
I asked for clarification on these questions and received an ambiguous email. I answered the listed statements as best I could. It truly was a 'Make Your Own Adventure' interview process.
I submitted the questionnaire and did not hear back from Google for over a week even though the questionnaire clearly said they would respond to me within 48 hours. After asking a few times they finally told me that they would like to conduct a phone interview. After some schedule shuffling I waited for their call on the phone. The gentleman from Google called ten minutes late. The interview was nothing unusual but I was surprised by how inept my interviewer seemed. He'd ask questions that seemed very open ended like 'how would you do this' and would give me several attempts to give input. When I exhausted my supply of answers, all of which I felt were valid, he'd respond 'I was looking for blah' where blah was one very specific answer. He seemed to be completely overlooking the logic process I was using, which is a critical part of an engineer interview. The oddest part was at the end. I asked him how he felt the interview went, and he stated in his monotone voice that he felt it went quite well. Shocking!
How did the interview end up? I'm not sure. The next work day Yahoo called me with an offer, which I accepted. I stopped bothering Google and I never heard from them again.
November 2, 2005
Yahoo!
Hello All,
I've been at Yahoo for a few days now. It's about time for an update.
My new employer is about as different from my old one as possible. Where my old employer cut the tea, coffee, and water budget just before I left, leaving only tap water available for consumption, my new employer offers any drink you can think of free and subsidized food.
My stress level is also much lower, even though I now have a 1 hour commute each way. I suppose that any place will be low stress after having been at I-many, though.
So who wants the hookup for a job at Yahoo? :)