As I delivered a talk today on 'Lessons Learned from Landing a Job Offer with GenAI', someone from the audience wrote a comment on an impressive learning journey a serendipitous chain of events started for me. The comment was dwelling in the back of my mind, bringing out realization that I have quite a collection of stories of what job interviews can be like for a senior. Some of the jobs I ended up taking and others not, as interviews are two-sided explorations of needs and aspirations. I wanted to draft together a view into some of these.
The interview when GitHub Copilot was new
I had gone through a few rounds of conversations, and the last step of the process was a pair programming interview. It was my first pair programming interview, and I approached the interview with concerns:
- Testing ME on programming skill? I'm a tester, and while I write code and pair on all kinds of tasks, writing code is not where I shine. Layering feedback on top of code as it's been written or as it has been written, that's my ballpark.
- Pairing in an interview? Watching me do without working with me is not pairing. That alone was enough to feel wary.
Showing up to the interview, I found it a little funny how the exercise I was expected to work on was not Roman numerals (1 --> I) but numbers to text (1 --> One). These are very similar problems.
While I recognized the idea of my pair was to get me to write examples TDD style and grow the application, we did only a little bit of that. We ended up writing a line of comment, selecting our chosen implementation from GitHub Copilot 10 options list, and focusing on writing example tests and approval tests, and talking about my choices of those.
I let the company know I would not be joining fairly soon after. Being the only tester and the only woman, and expecting my life to include bringing that perspective in did not feel like the right personal choice. They would not have understood extra load that places on me.
The interview where we tested together for the whole day
I had again gone through multiple layers of conversations, and even a full day psychological evaluation to quality me as a possible leader for the organization. I had given them an option of seeing me in action. I was training a course concept of exploratory testing where we could teach my future colleagues (and I could meet them), with us testing their application. We set that up.
The course is really fairly standard, and I have run that for a lot of different companies and knew what I was up against. The experience was also fairly standard: we found, with my facilitation, significant bugs in their latest version of software that they considered important and had not found without my facilitation. I learned my future colleagues would have been lovely, and they would have welcomed me to the organization.
I ended up not accepting the position after I felt they should have offered to compensate me for the day I taught them, and I did not like the way one of the hiring managers was challenging testing when they should have shown support.
The interview that was a workshop on creating my own job description
This interview was for a company that I knew already I wanted to work at. That is a lovely starting point, and the whole interview experience was really built around allowing me a good start at the right place of the company.
The two interview sessions set up for me were with colleagues I interviewed for what they'd like from someone like me to incorporate that into my job description. I wrote my own job description that then became a part of the offer I accepted. It was a great way of landing me with support into a fairly big and complicated, even siloed organization.
Exceptional, and I worked there for multiple years.
The interview that was psych evaluation telling me I am not fit for my career
This one was me applying for a position with a standard approach. I went through interviews that I don't remember in particular, but the half-day testing at an evaluation center, that one I remember. This was my first experience of those, and I had significantly more than 10 years of tester career behind me by then. Unlike the other psych evaluation that was assessing my strengths and weaknesses as a manager, this one was testing my intellectual abilities and creating a profile of my preferences with a questionnaire of some sort.
I will always remember how hilarious I found it that I got a paper telling me I am not likely to be successful in a tester career. Not only I was it then, but continued to be after it, but at least know I have it on paper that no one should let me test. Apparently I am not cut out for it. Or, they don't know why would be cut out to do a good job on testing. That is more likely.
The organization said they have a principle decision on not hiring without this service provider's recommendation. I did not get the job, and I am not convinced I would have taken it even if it was given to me.
The interview where we went through an improvement plan where texts were written by me (CC licensed)
On this one, the recruiting manager came in with a TPI (test process improvement) assessment report, to discuss my approach to helping them improve testing while doing it. The conversation was lovely, but the report made it memorable. I had written most of the texts in that report. Not that the recruiting manager knew that before.
It became soon clear that I knew the structure of the report, the likely conclusions, could enhance them in the moment. And correct some of the mistakes I had in my public creative commons -available materials that had been helping write that report.
I took the job, and loved my time there.
The interview where they made me test a text field
This one was a fun one. It was my second time joining the same organization, and a result of people I had worked with before inviting me to interview with them. While I had been gone, things had changed. In the interview I had an architect who wanted me to show I know how to test because that is apparently how you test testers.
They asked me to test a text field. And I told them I was around when that assessment exercise was created and had talked about the exercise on conference stages since, enhancing the context of the exercise to actually having a text field we could test - with real context to it.
They asked me to test a chair then, or tell me how. I refused to play along, politely. I did not consider that something that was a worthwhile test for my skills, but more of a humorous conversation.
I got the job, took the job and absolutely loved my time there. More than anywhere else, even if I have loved working where ever I have been.
The interview where they made me test notepad
This one was my foundational interview, for 1st ever job I had in testing. I had no clue what testing is. They invited me to a classroom setup with many other people, sat me in front of a computer and told me to report discrepancies between English and Finnish versions of Notepad. Some bugs had been seeded into the Finnish version, and I was expected to systematically report them.
This is how I became a tester.
The interview where we talked about meaningful work
To conclude this, I need to talk about my last job interview that landed me this position I am in now. It was pleasant experience of meeting people twice, to talk about my aspirations, my search for meaningful work and meaningful systems, and their organization.
It felt painless, collaborative and appreciative. Then again, the people interviewing me were aware of me and my work, even if they did not know me.
I'm very happy I accepted the position, and I am even more happy that they made the position something I could not have known to ask. Carving the right shape for me is what I appreciate the most
Others I don't remember specifically
I'm sure there are others. After all, I have been around a while. I have been loyal to my employer for the time I am there, and open about my ideas of what I want to spend my limited time on next. Knowing I will commit a minimum of two years and work to leave my places of work in a better state than they were has generally been helpful.
Are your stories as varied as mine?
