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Career Advice

Career Advice

Interview Questions I Hate — Part I

“So, why do you want to work here?”

If you’ve worked a day in your life, chances are you’ve been asked this ques­tion dur­ing an inter­view.  And, if you’re like the rest of us, you’ve said some­thing about how much you love the com­pa­ny, it’s your dream job, you’re look­ing to real­ly make your mark some­where, or some oth­er hack­neyed tripe that you hope sounds good to the per­son ask­ing the ques­tion.

I’ve spent a lot of time inter­view­ing peo­ple for my teams over the years, and I can tell you that your like­ly first instinct is right: the ques­tion is just about as worth­less as any­thing you could be asked in an inter­view. Every­one answers it the same way–with vac­u­ous gusto–and every inter­view­er hap­pi­ly ticks of a box as if you’ve passed some mag­i­cal “qual­i­fied to work here” test. But it’s crap and almost all of us know it.

I’ve per­son­al­ly nev­er used this ques­tion in any of my inter­views, but I always get asked this when I’m inter­viewed. I hate to say it, but I real­ly lose respect for folks when they use this ques­tion in an inter­view. I under­stand the osten­si­ble goal is to get to the heart of why this can­di­date picked your job post­ing to respond to, why they jumped through the hoops to get the inter­view, etc., but the fact is that in most cas­es it’s because you have a job open­ing and pay in actu­al dol­lars and not Monop­oly bills.

If you’re look­ing to get clos­er to what I assume the goal of this ques­tion is, you can change it up a bit and ask ques­tions like: “What about our com­pa­ny intrigues you?” or “How do you see your­self con­tribut­ing to the com­pa­ny?” or some­thing along those lines. At the end of the day, you’re look­ing to get beyond the point where you’re get­ting the same rote answer from every can­di­date.

Peo­ple have dif­fer­ent moti­va­tions for apply­ing to posi­tions.  Often they’re look­ing to move on because they don’t see any addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties where they’re at, they’re in a neg­a­tive work envi­ron­ment, or they’ve just topped out as far as the con­tri­bu­tion and val­ue they feel they can bring to the com­pa­ny they’re cur­rent­ly at.  Oth­er times it’s out of des­per­a­tion: they’ve just lost their job or feel they’re about to, they need more mon­ey for a vari­ety of rea­sons, etc.

Moti­va­tion is impor­tant, and I do under­stand the need to deter­mine the moti­va­tion of the per­son sit­ting in front of you. How­ev­er, I’ve always found it bet­ter to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the per­son rather than ask­ing the same ques­tions they get every­where else.  Just talk to them a bit, get to know where they’re at in their career and what they’re look­ing to do.

Oh yeah, and don’t ask any of those ques­tions like “How much wood would a wood­chuck chuck if he was on a train going 50mph in 0-grav­i­ty, upside down?”  That moves you from hack­neyed to hack job.  Just say­ing.

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Career Advice

Coping with Difficult Bosses

Author Jan­ice Davies said, “dif­fi­cult peo­ple are your key to self empow­er­ment, you need to learn how to cope with them, not let them dom­i­nate and affect you.” But what if the dif­fi­cult per­son is your boss? What then?

In over 20 years of work­ing in my cho­sen career I have large­ly had what I can only sup­pose is the great­est luck in select­ing my boss­es. Most have been more than fair, have taught me along the way as true men­tors, and sev­er­al I still count as friends and advi­sors to this day. A cou­ple, how­ev­er, have tru­ly been night­mares.

Every­one has their own gauge for what makes a boss dif­fi­cult to work with, but mine comes down to more of a feel­ing than a set of con­crete habits. And when I say dif­fi­cult, I’m not refer­ring here to a demand­ing boss, or one who expects results and calls you out for not achiev­ing the results; that’s just the price of admis­sion in the cor­po­rate world. I’m talk­ing about when things reach a lev­el of dif­fi­cul­ty where you begin fear­ing for your job.

The prob­lems in deal­ing with dif­fi­cult peo­ple are, by nature, made even more dif­fi­cult when that per­son is large­ly in charge of your abil­i­ty to pro­vide for your fam­i­ly. Your stress lev­els can increase, you start tak­ing out your frus­tra­tions on the oth­er peo­ple in your life that you work with or care about, and your over­all health and out­look can become marked­ly more neg­a­tive, lead­ing to a decrease in pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

Below are some strate­gies I have found that have helped me, and I hope that some or all can help you should you find your­self in the posi­tion of hav­ing to deal with a dif­fi­cult boss.

Adjust — As much as pos­si­ble, try to adjust to the new real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. Some­times, as peo­ple are put in new posi­tions they can feel over­whelmed, under pres­sure, and are them­selves deal­ing with dif­fi­cult rela­tion­ships upstream. With any luck, this peri­od of dif­fi­cul­ty will pass and you’ll find that you’re able to cul­ti­vate a strong, trust­ed rela­tion­ship with your new boss.

Be Proac­tive — Try to antic­i­pate your boss­es needs before he or she knows they have a need. If they’re under pres­sure, and you can be the go-to-per­son that hands them reports, deliv­er­ables, etc., ahead of them ask­ing, you’ll have gone a long way towards eas­ing the rela­tion­ship into a bet­ter place.

A lot of times this comes from under­stand­ing your boss’s role in the com­pa­ny. For instance, I report to the CFO at my company–a role which is large­ly con­cerned with bud­get­ing, fore­cast­ing, and gen­er­al­ly deal­ing with the finan­cial health of the com­pa­ny. Every­thing that I do in the tech­ni­cal sphere is couched in terms of impact to the bot­tom line of the com­pa­ny. That’s a gross over-sim­pli­fi­ca­tion, of course, but the point is that you need to under­stand your boss, what their role in the com­pa­ny is, and how you can help to make them look good to their boss.

Don’t React Emo­tion­al­ly — I can’t tell you how many times after read­ing an email I’ve want­ed to walk down the hall to my boss’s office, storm in, and start loud­ly expound­ing on my view of the world and my boss’s place in it. I have seen that hap­pen, and while I some­times get a lit­tle joy in the vic­ar­i­ous­ness of the thing, I nev­er indulge myself in the same behav­ior. I respond even­tu­al­ly, but not quick­ly or emo­tion­al­ly.

I’m not sug­gest­ing you ignore emails, phone calls, mem­os, or ran­dom edicts at all. In fact, I have a gen­er­al rule of try­ing to respond to any­thing that comes my way by the close of busi­ness the same day. If it comes from my boss, I respond with­in two hours even after-hours. That said, you can acknowl­edge some­thing sim­ply, direct­ly, and with­out emo­tion. If, a few hours lat­er you still feel the need to have a con­ver­sa­tion, you’ll have giv­en the heat-of-the-moment emo­tions a chance to sim­mer down.

I have sent some seri­ous flame-throw­er emails in my day–some to ven­dors, some to co-work­ers, and even some to peo­ple I’ve worked for. Do you know the one thing every one of those emails in the last 20 years has had in com­mon? With­in min­utes or hours I regret­ted send­ing them–each and every one. A lit­tle bit of time would go by and I’d increas­ing­ly start feel­ing like the petu­lant child I was act­ing like. Almost inevitably I’d trudge off some­where to make an apology–not because I had to, but because I felt I need­ed to.

Learn from the Expe­ri­ence — Many of us either lead teams today, or will lead teams in the future. Even if lead­er­ship roles aren’t what you per­son­al­ly aspire to, the time will prob­a­bly come where you will find your­self lead­ing a team of some size. The expe­ri­ences you have with your boss­es should be sug­ges­tive of the type of leader you want to be. We all love the good ones, but some­times it’s the bad boss­es that teach us more in the end.

Know When to Walk Away — The rela­tion­ship you have with your boss should nev­er feel per­son­al­ly neg­a­tive. By that I mean that you should nev­er feel as if your boss **hates** you, or wants you to fail, or has no con­fi­dence in you as a per­son. Good boss­es will let you know if you’re not meet­ing expec­ta­tions long before it becomes an issue. If your boss is mak­ing your life mis­er­able with­out any sort of use­ful feed­back, then it’s like­ly one of two things is going on:

  1. They’re a mis­er­able prick, and want every­one who works for them to feel the same way.
  2. They don’t have the self-con­fi­dence to sit down with you and tell you that they have no con­fi­dence in you. So, they walk around with a mas­sive grudge, hop­ing that you’ll leave and they won’t have to deal with the prob­lem any longer.

In either case, this is prob­a­bly the point where you have to con­sid­er that things may not get bet­ter, and per­haps walk away. Work rela­tion­ships should nev­er be per­son­al­ly neg­a­tive, but we’re all human beings and some­times things just don’t work out. It’s irri­tat­ing, often feels unfair, but it’s the way things some­times are and we just have to deal with it as best we can.

What­ev­er you do, don’t fol­low your first instinct, and freak out. Don’t write up a nasty let­ter, or tell the per­son what you real­ly think. Just fol­low the process pro­fes­sion­al­ly, and if you real­ly need to vent a bit, that’s what your Human Resources depart­ment is for. Even then, how­ev­er, nobody likes a whin­er so try to keep your crit­i­cism as con­struc­tive, pro­fes­sion­al, and imper­son­al as pos­si­ble.

Then, do what I do: go home, kick off your shoes, pour a nice drink, and cel­e­brate your unbe­liev­able good for­tune to not have to deal with that boss ever again. Just don’t make a habit of it… after a string of bad boss­es, you might have to con­sid­er that the prob­lem wasn’t with them.

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Career Advice

How to Not Get Fired

“Very thin line between arro­gance and confidence…Being hum­ble is that line. No one has ever said that hum­ble guy is real­ly an ass­hole.” -Unknown

In busi­ness peo­ple quit, get fired, or oth­er­wise leave a place of employ­ment through attri­tion every day, and for any num­ber of rea­sons. Most of the time it’s an occa­sion­al event, and while we’re often sad to see them go (or not, as the case may be) we don’t have the type of vis­cer­al, empa­thet­ic reac­tion to these one­sie-twosie sit­u­a­tions as we do when a large lay­off hap­pens.

Lay­offs, staff reduc­tions, work­force reduc­tions, right-siz­ing, and oth­er terms-du-jour are all words for the same thing: we’re tak­ing a per­cent­age of the business’s employ­ees and telling them that they are no longer need­ed. While the rea­sons and terms used may vary, the real­i­ty does not; it is an unpleas­ant expe­ri­ence for every­one involved. Some­one has to decide to neg­a­tive­ly affect some­one else’s life–to hurt their family–in order to keep the busi­ness, and by exten­sion every­one else still work­ing for it, healthy and mak­ing mon­ey.

In 20-plus years of work­ing in the Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy field, I have been through a fair num­ber of lay­off cycles. Many were the result of merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, and many the result of a bad out­look for the busi­ness in terms of cap­i­tal, growth, back­log, or fore­cast. In all cas­es I have been lucky enough to sur­vive, though that is always far from a given–no mat­ter who you are.

As the head of an IT depart­ment at a mul­ti-nation­al cor­po­ra­tion, I have respon­si­bil­i­ty for staffing my depart­ment accord­ing to the needs of the busi­ness, and this often includes the unpleas­ant­ness inher­ent in let­ting peo­ple go. How that process hap­pens, and what can change the odds in your favor, are some­times a mys­tery to peo­ple. Some­times you can do things to help your­self, and some­times you draw the short straw. That is the unfor­tu­nate real­i­ty. There are some things you can do to help keep the odds in your favor, how­ev­er, and to the extent that any of these obser­va­tions are use­ful to any­one look­ing to mit­i­gate their own per­son­al risk, here are the things I have observed in my own career:

Don’t be an ass. I know this would seem to be self-evi­dent, but I’m con­stant­ly sur­prised at how often it is not. I think peo­ple get com­fort­able, begin feel­ing like they are indis­pens­able to the com­pa­ny some­how, and let their inner rude­ness come out. It comes out in snip­py mem­os, in meet­ings, in terse respons­es to requests, and in phone calls. This per­son becomes the Nick Burns of your com­pa­ny, no mat­ter the depart­ment they work in. When lay­off time is com­ing around, you’ll be at the top of everyone’s list to go if there is any pos­si­ble way to make it hap­pen. You might sur­vive a round or two, but even­tu­al­ly your time will come up because the pain of keep­ing you around is greater than the pain of clean­ing up your mess. I don’t like fir­ing peo­ple in gen­er­al, for any rea­son, but if you’re an ass it real­ly makes the job eas­i­er.

Diver­si­fy. Too many peo­ple define who they are by a job-title or a set of cri­te­ria and refuse to ever step out of that role. “I am a net­work engi­neer, or a sys­tems admin­is­tra­tor, or a DBA, etc.” These are fine and good macro-lev­el def­i­n­i­tions and help to indi­cate your area of expertise–where you’re most comfortable–or what you con­sid­er your areas of major strength. I get that. Here’s what I don’t get: some­one from account­ing has a prob­lem with their com­put­er and you can’t–or won’t–help them because “that’s not your job”. I don’t get the per­son who refus­es to touch Win­dows machines because “they’re a net­work engi­neer” or “they only use Macs”. Learn some new things, cross-train with peo­ple out­side of your spe­cial­ty, and you will become more valu­able. The more you know, the more weight you can shoul­der if need­ed, which increas­es your val­ue to the com­pa­ny.

Don’t be a pri­ma don­na. This goes back to my point above. I have met peo­ple who are so enam­ored with a piece of tech­nol­o­gy, or a method of doing things, that they either refuse to change or they change but become the dis­rup­tive force in the depart­ment. These peo­ple “only use” Cis­co, or Juniper, or Macs, or a cer­tain type of cable, or wire­less radio, etc. I have enough prob­lems run­ning a world-wide net­work and try­ing to avoid ven­dor lock-in, I don’t need anoth­er ass-hole on my staff who has their own ven­dor lock-in. I also don’t care if you’re a Mac or a PC. You’ll have the same options as the oth­er mem­bers of the team.

Do the unpleas­ant jobs. This has been writ­ten down in many forms, so I’ll just say this: they’re all cor­rect. Do the jobs nobody else wants to do and you’ll do well for your­self. This applies to both depart­men­tal, project-lev­el, and macro-lev­el com­pa­ny goals. Read Creel Price’s take, enti­tled The Best Career Advice You Won’t Want to Hear and Mike Bushong’s advice on Out­per­form­ing Your Peers by Man­ag­ing Expec­ta­tions. Actu­al­ly, read all of Mike Bushong’s career advice over at the Plexxi site as it’s all dead-on.

Align your goals to the com­pa­ny. You should always align your career goals, and the small­er year-over-year goals, to your company’s goals if you want to get ahead and become tru­ly indis­pens­able. If your goals are aligned with the company’s, then you are a part of the process mov­ing the com­pa­ny for­ward, help­ing it to earn mon­ey, and help­ing your­self in the process. If you are try­ing to move your career in a direc­tion fun­da­men­tal­ly at odds with the com­pa­ny you work for, then I’d sug­gest you should be look­ing for anoth­er place to hang your hat. It’s not a ten­able posi­tion to be fight­ing your own com­pa­ny on career goals and devel­op­ment.

Don’t be a one-trick pony. This kind of dove­tails with a few of the pre­vi­ous points, but it bears repeat­ing more suc­cinct­ly: every­one can be replaced. You might think that your stack of cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, and your deep expe­ri­ence in an area of exper­tise make you invalu­able to the com­pa­ny, but it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the case. In fact, if I am forced to down­size my staff, the first peo­ple on my short-list are the one-trick-ponies. The peo­ple who do one or two things at such a deep lev­el that they can re-write a rout­ing pro­to­col from scratch might be great for con­sult­ing, but are not always great for in-house staff. In fact, the deep­er and more spe­cif­ic your knowl­edge becomes, the more like­ly I am to replace you with more of a gen­er­al­ist who can adapt and do a lot more things at an accept­ably high lev­el. I’ll hire a con­sul­tant to do what you do. That’s not an argu­ment against excep­tion­al­ism. Just make cer­tain it is aligned to the needs of your com­pa­ny.

Look, at the end of the day I absolute­ly hate being in a posi­tion to have to let any­one go. I hate see­ing oth­er peo­ple lose their jobs, and I real­ly hate what it does to the moral of those still at the com­pa­ny. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, almost nobody wants to go around lay­ing off staff. But if the time comes, and I’m told I have to get rid of one per­son in my depart­ment, traits like the ones I’ve list­ed above play a big fac­tor in my deci­sion.

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