better ways for evaluating job seekers w/ josh cypher

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to Guidance Counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had Guidance Counselors in middle school. We had Guidance Counselors in high school, but we didn't really have Guidance Counselors in college and now as professionals, we don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. And so that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode. And if you need to reach me, Taylor at vaco, VACO.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email, social media at tdesintd E S S E Y N. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. Josh, let's do this again. Yeah, who are you? All right, hey everybody, thanks for joining this morning. I'm Josh Seifert. I live in Nashville, Tennessee currently, but I've been working remote for about six years. I currently work at Sonos as a senior DevOps engineer.

I work mostly as a liaison between the DevOps organization and the rest of the product engineering teams. as we build and configure platform tools that they build on top of. So I have two customers in a sense of, there's the greater DevOps org, and then there's the greater software org, and then there's also the end customer that so this uses like three-year speaker players that you're very confused to. Before that, I worked at a company called Webflow. Webflow is a big leader in the no-code space. It's a tool that allows you to design, build, and launch a website without coding. It does require a little bit of design background, or you can purchase the template.

But it's a great tool. It's a great space. I love working for a web hosting company. It was fantastic. And while I was there, I worked as both a hiring manager and as an IC. Right now, I'm back in an IC. Could be a hiring manager later. I do that more as a role that you play. And instead of it's like a, I don't know, an achievement, like management can be an achievement, don't get me wrong, but management is also a role on a team. And so I have a very fluid look at that. And so happy to be here and be back on the show.

It's been a minute. We're doing round two yesterday to work out so well due to connectivity, but I'm excited to be here and part some knowledge that I have. So ask your questions away and Taylor, I'll send it back to you. Yeah, absolutely. So Josh, I want to dive in. One of the things we chat about yesterday before we went live, that I really want to dig into, and we were starting to dive into it too, about coding tests, the job search, how you navigated it. What's some advice to job seekers, but also hiring managers with what you've seen with the last round of interviews that you just did?

Yeah, for sure. So my last friend and her views, now Brandon, I didn't know since urgency to find a job. Like I was in a situation where I'd been laid off or fired or anything like that. So take this with a grain of salt, because I did have that luxury. I started writing that before I needed one. But in that time period, I probably put out close to 100 applications. And that might have been either working through a critter like Taylor and Bigo, or something I did directly. So it just happened to be a direct apply. I applied to them directly. I've been following them as a company for a long time.

But all things that they are did a lot of reviews. And reviewed it probably, of those hundred applications I probably did maybe 30 or 40 company interviews. One thing I saw between a lot of them though, is some of them would put up like this code challenge that you just get sort of stonewalled with. And a lot of you I've heard from in the past, like they don't, you don't necessarily do well you get this very bland code challenge, there's not a lot of instruction. It might be a language or a framework you're not used to. You're constantly worried about, you're constantly worried, like, am I doing this right?

Am I overthinking it? Is this problematic? Well, frankly, I didn't have to do this. Now, it doesn't mean they don't exist. And they are out there, but there are plenty of other opportunities where I can be evaluated in a way that's more comfortable to me. I'm more of a forest than a tree person. So when I look at doing these types of interviews, it's like I really want to be able to talk to people. And in some cases, I was able to just ask, like they might be like, okay, well here's how our process works. You do this, you do this, you do this, and this.

Say, hey, I don't do really well with these code challenges. I would prefer to do a technical interview one-on-one with somebody. Now those I can do a little bit better in. I've got a lot of practice, a lot of experience, But that thing you said, it's just a conversation. It's a little different than trying to make sure that the robots happy with the code that you did. And so it doesn't mean that I didn't have to display technical skills, that I didn't have to do some sort of light whiteboard coding or talk about a concept, but it's much easier to read on people. So for hiring managers out there, I would say that this is still probably one of the best things that you can do as a hiring manager.

That initial technical screen is so important, because you get such a good impression of the candidate. and you can see what they can do. Now, in terms of, can I create a nested component in React, or can I build an API interface, or can I do a bubble sort, or write an algorithm to do things like that? I mean, some of these might be necessary in your job, but realistically, what hiring managers be looking for is just aptitude. Not necessarily, can they completely just check a box? And so I think we're a lot of hiring processes get a little out of caliber is that they don't know how to scale their process in a meaningful way early on.

And so they're using the technical, they're using like this technical exercise to weed out people, but you might be leading out the wrong people in doing that. And so I would really start to analyze like work with your recruiters, work with your, so hiring managers, speaking specifically, you work with recruiters, work with your recruiting staff or really think about what is it that you're looking for, lean into those attributes, about the gap that you're filling in your team and what you're really trying to do, because if you actually take the time to go look for that and go seek that out, you'll be surprised how much of that will jump right off a page from a resume or from a cover letter or just from an initial 15 minute conversation.

These screens don't have to be very long. You can get a lot of information out of somebody in a short amount of time. Now, yeah, go ahead, Taylor. No, I was going to say, I do feel like based off my experiences, I mean, I was talking into one engineering manager that went through eight rounds recently and did not get the job. Eight rounds. Whenever I hear that, it screams companies. I just don't know what we're looking for. So we're just going to keep talking to you until we as an internal team figure out what we need. And I feel like, I mean, Josh, I think you just said it so well.

I think these don't have to be long drawn out things. I think if you know exactly what you're looking for. Like, for example, I'm going to use my team. And again, the reason why I interview guys like Josh is I try to cheat off their paper and apply it to the staffing industry that I'm in. So like my team, we were looking, we were like, all right, we need this role field. We were like, what parts, why do we need? So why does it need to be filled? What are the characteristics we're looking for in this role? And let's screen against that. And literally, I sent, we weren't actively interviewing, we sent an individual over to us.

We knew exactly what we were looking for and this individual is flying in tomorrow for a final round and it's been a two-week process. So again, I'm not saying that's a braggle myself. What I'm saying is hiring majors, it doesn't have to be hard, it just has to be intentional. And Josh, I want to kick it back to you too, just any more thoughts on that and then any more key things for the job seekers too. Yeah, so let me get rid of the job seeker side. First off, you know Taylor told me from kind of go, at least I think he did. And so we're going to go with it.

But you're interviewing a company as much as they're interviewing you. And that was me. Yeah. And try really hard to remember that, because it is so important. If you start out and you're getting evaluated in a way that you don't think is necessarily a good representation of you, then how do you think that's going to scale? And do you think you're going to be evaluated in your career in the war? Yeah. So you might find yourself in a position. Maybe you still breeze through, you get the job. But then when it comes to a raise of a promotion, things like this might not exist because you're not being evaluated in a fair and meaningful way.

Because what it might come down to is like, well, can I check these boxes here? Not necessarily, am I a force multiplier on my team? Which I feel like as you ascend kind of in your software career, that's what you really move away from. Just being just a contributor that slums code of things to being a force multiplier that allows everyone to do that on your team. And so lean into the fact that you are interviewing them. Don't be afraid to ask them the hard questions. Don't be afraid to ask them the uncomfortable questions about I interviewed at a company. And I was like, hey, your salary and benefit package is really generous.

And this sounds really great, almost too good to be true. What's the catch? Like, I just said that. Yeah, I said, what's the catch? Like, what they said? They said, well, we work harder here than most places. And I'm like, OK, 80 hours a week. Exactly. You know, what does that mean to you? It was a matter of like, it was a very aggressive, very fast paced 80 hours a week kind of job. And it wasn't what I was looking for, not at the time. And that doesn't mean that that's necessarily a bad situation. It just wasn't what I was looking for. And so keep that in mind.

Don't be afraid to ask those hard questions. I've even bonded on asking trick questions sometimes, like where I'll try to extract that information. It's okay. You're trying to really get a feel for them, and that's all right. Yeah, I posted this yesterday to like with negotiations and stuff like, I talked to so many hiring majors, like they know negotiations are coming, like they expect questions to be asked. Like I just feel like it's this very top down mentality when it's right, it's the manager speaking down to the job seekers, but it's like, it's this. It's not this. Yeah. And I think that's just something to really get across here is that it's an even playing field.

It's not one is greater than the other. Yeah. Now, negotiations agree, so if you bring up. A lot of people are terrified of negotiation. And I would say I'm not even comfortable with it. But what you really need to understand is again, they're trying just as hard to hire you as you're trying to get hired. And so what I really like to do is to walk into the situations as early as possible with my intentions. I'll ask, what is your salary gain? Getting an exact target for salary and compensation, not always easy, necessarily. But ranges or bands are good. Getting a range is fine. And if they give you a super wide range, say it's like, you know, between $100,000 and $200,000, that's an extremely large range, you probably wouldn't see that.

But if you get something super wide like that, ask them, what are the key drivers in that range? Like what does the top of the band mean? What does the bottom of the band mean? Have them explain that to you? Have them understand that. If they can't explain that to you, maybe they need to go get some more information and that's great. That gives you time to do your research. It gives you time to compare it to look into other jobs. If they can't provide that information to you or won't provide that information to you, might be a red flag that they don't understand necessarily how their benefits work.

And if you're worried about that, it could be difficult. Look on GlassScore, look on, like talk to other people, network with other people that might work there, work in a company of a comparable size. A lot of times these companies will align themselves like 75% within companies of the similar size. And so that might mean that somebody with a similar revenue and company size and industry, like if you could talk to them, it might give you a better expectation of what salary might look like or what benefits might look like. And that's okay. And then, you know, always don't be afraid to ask for a little bit more than what is, you know, there's nothing worse than being like, you know what, I would like X amount of dollars and like, oh yeah, that sounds great.

Yeah. Yeah, you're like crap. We never could have done more. And that's hard to do, but it's okay to give them a range, too. You know, flip it back and it's like, I'm seeking between X and Y. And here's why I believe that that's useful. Like, stand behind that. Well, and I think too, so I used to be, this is actually for those of you who are, well, first off, I want to give a shout out to some folks and some comments that came in real quick. Christina, it's great to see you, Jasmos, Gracey, Trey, my guy. Hope you're doing well. Casey, Casey, you're in South Africa now?

That gum, dude. Traveling crazy. Barrett, what's going on? Andrew, open them, eh? What's going on? Hopefully I pronounced it relatively correctly. Josh, what's going on? Casey goes, nothing more on a scurgeon than getting a code question using a tool framework that you're not familiar with. I'm covering my ex what we were talking about. Totally agree. Erica, James, Christina comes in and goes, the worst is when they want to hire. Worst is when they want to hire that candidate. And then 30 days later, like, oh, this isn't what we wanted. That's a whole other conversation in and of itself. Obviously, Barrett comes in 80 hours. A week is guaranteed to be a bad situation.

Yeah, 100%. And then Casey comes back in, great advice. Josh, I've turned down offers because I did my due diligence in interviewing the company. And the same way they interviewed me and my experience, good companies actually enjoy answering the tough questions because it reflects well on you as a person. I love that. and it goes, I like to ask the top reason that I shouldn't work here. Wow, I like to ask what's the main reason, top reason that I shouldn't work here. It's exposed from toxic environments and let me, that's actually a fascinating question. Yeah, it really is. And I've asked similar questions that before.

So for a great point, Josh, that's a huge piece of research. If you wanna ask a little bit of a lighter question, you'd be like, you know, what's the biggest thing that gets in your way of being successful here? or you can really reach for that, but asking those kind of questions is fine, because any person you interview with is a person, they're gonna have perceptions, it's not all great. I've been at Sonos for two and a half weeks, and I can already tell you some of the things where I'm like, well, this is a company, it's got its issues. Sure. Well, and that's... But asking that upfront, none of it was a surprise to me walking into it.

And so when I put the job to now, I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. It's what this person said. And this is how it plays out. So getting those expectations set is really awesome. Do that in the end. Yeah, and that's one thing too. So my email newsletter this week is gonna be on some being mindful before you move to a new job. Some questions you need to ask yourself. One of the questions I tell people are one of the things to remind you if you move to an opportunity, no company is perfect. Right, so just because you leave one, like you really need to figure out why you're leaving your current company.

And if that's something that you could potentially even experience in your next opportunity. Because again, we're all people, we're all imperfect, we're all gonna make mistakes. So you're going to another organization run by people that's not gonna be perfect. And so I think that's where you really need to dig in and be like, all right, listen, here's the deal. This is a structural issue we're dealing with. But because then if it's just structurally an issue within your organization that could potentially change to another one That's things you should be mindful of Barrett comes in and goes definitely research the company and turn down a position because I know how the company treats its customers and quality of the product They made absolutely Alex Andrew comes in and goes I like to ask Based on our conversation what hesitations what hesitations do you have moving forward with me?

So this is an interesting question I think I've heard the pros and cons on both ways with this this does put the interviewer kind of on the spot. I don't have a major issue with it, but I do know some people can be put off by this question. Josh, do you have any thoughts on that? I think this depends. With a hiring manager, I wouldn't be afraid to ask them this question. Like, you know, where you might frame it in a bit of a, because like, he said, this kind of puts them on the spot. You might be afraid of a little differently being like, You know, what things about me haven't liked, are you still curious on or like, like that?

Or things you still mean? Or what is in your rubric that still brings you some concerns? It's like, you're just asking the same question. I would caution you asking this to other interviewers. I'm sorry, there's a train next door. It's like, that train is in your house. And you're asking your house. Yeah, that is like right. It was just, okay. There's always something to it. It's just, this is why I like this though. It's completely not scripted. Like what's so, like things just happen. So a lot of companies that you'll see, they'll use an interview panel. And so you might be meeting someone on the team.

And when you ask this question to, you know, just another software developer that might be your peer in the team, that putting them on the spot can be very off-putting. Cause like they may or may not be sure what they can and cannot say. Now I'm assuming that a hiring manager has been trained and knows what to do and knows what to say and do things. But be careful, because what you don't want to do is make them think that you're arrogant or that you're really gunning after them. Because this just sounds like a track in the glass. So I'd be careful asking this question to regular ICs that might be interviewed.

I like that. There's another one, Justin comes in and goes, do you think based on our conversation, what hesitations do you have moving forward with me could be seen negative. Yeah, I mean, yeah, again, this is just me. This is just me. I think that should be rephrased. And that's kind of what Josh just said. I think it's like, hey, do you have any more things? Do you have any questions, potentially about me, something I didn't talk about, you know, something that I may be lacking? Put it on yourself. That's what I would do. And this is like a communication style that I'm learning my marriage in general.

It's never speaking at the person. It's talking about how you feel or talking about you. So if Josh was hiring me, I'd go, hey Josh, thanks for hanging out with me. Listen, I didn't know if there's something maybe I didn't talk about, or maybe you have a question about my background that I didn't uncover, or maybe some hesitations that you may have with me. Are there anything you'd like to ask me more? And what that does is it puts it less on Josh about his decision, and more of, hey, it's on me, ask me more questions. That's a great point, Taylor. I like to appreciate that.

It's almost like I've done this for a bit. And so Josh, so 10 minutes left. I do want to talk about a little just when it comes. So I want to go back to your interviewing. So you said you interviewed about 30 to 40 companies. What percentage, approximately, of those 40 companies, or say 40, made you do some sort of in-depth coding test? I would say probably about a third of them. So 30%. Yeah. And that's about 15. Yeah, so 15 or so, that sounds about right. And usually the interaction would be, you know, I'd apply or like Recruiter would send my resume over whatever, there's some sort of application event.

And then I just get this, you know, being like, hey, go to this thing.com and like, qualified.io or X-R-C-S-I-O, another one. There's a whole bunch of different things out there. And do this challenge. It's like, no instructions, no conversations, nothing. And that, to me, was kind of a big deal breaker. I was just like, you know, it'd be one thing if I even had a conversation first, right? If it's able to frame it, if it's able to talk about it. But at this point, I'm dyslexic. So I usually need some sort of accommodation anyway, which to be fair, most companies would accommodate. But like, just setting you a code challenge without even asking about it.

It's a little frustrating. I don't understand companies, if you're watching this, 23 minutes in, first off, thank you. Second off, don't send, the companies are like, ah, that's a great resume, send them the code test. I'm like, there's no report build at all. Yeah, at least take the time to sit down. Even a 10 minute conversation could be a game changer, even if you're just trying to lay it out. One thing also, hiring managers, telling your candidates how to be successful, when you meet with them that first time, That is something I would always do. I'd be like, here's how you're going to be successful here.

Here's what we're looking for. And I'm going to tell you every ways in which to succeed. If you're studying up something specific, full disclosure, at Webflow, we used code challenges. We didn't necessarily do the first thing first, but we did use them. But I would always be like, here's what's going to be in the code challenge. Here's what we're looking for. And do you have any questions about that? Or do you have any issues about that? And then I would generally listen. It's like, hey, I've been writing Python for years, and I don't know that I can do this in JavaScript. It's like, great. Well, can you come up with a solution in Python?

That's fine. Like, let's go with that. Let's come in here for a quick dialogue. Yeah. Or can we have a technical conversation right now that might give me the discretion to wave that all together? Now, that depends on your hiring process. You want to make sure that it's fair. You want to put everybody for the same process. Don't get me wrong. but you can make it a reasonable accommodation. And so, but you just, you lose so much potential by skipping that conversation. And that might not scale to your hiring managers, but it can scale to your recruiting team. Your recruiters can do that. You just have to work with them.

You have to work with them closely to make sure that they understand that and they know that. So please use your recruiters. This is something I see hiring managers fail at so many times. Your recruiters are there to help you. these use them, whether they're being sorted and have your student or outsource, like have that relationship because they are your first line of defense and like they are your first impression and what carries everything through it. So develop that rapport with recruiters so they can develop that rapport with your candidates, especially if you're not the first contact point. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so I want to, yeah, and Josh comes in here about inclusion, diversity needs to be more than a PR campaign.

Yeah, I mean, like I'm thinking about my next conference talk about kind of a manifesto of how is your job description written? Are there things you put in there that would potentially discourage individuals that come from a different background than you? All that's incredibly, incredibly important. I think another thing to Josh, I want to ask you, what was your interview? Did you feel like you did well at Webflow in terms of your interview process? So can you expound on that interview process over the next just two or three minutes? Yeah, for sure. I think our new process did well. It would always start with a hiring manager screen.

So I would sort through applications. I would do that with my recruiter. They would help me try to scale through those and sort that. When you get really good using an ATS, you lean on people who are afraid of using an ATS, an applicant tracking director, sure. that is like greenhouse or workday. So having everything set up there to pull it all into information is great. So we'd start with that initial screen. I would get a feel for who you are, tell you how to be successful. And then you would get some sort of challenge, whether that was a code challenge. It was a, we used to do a take home test before we did a code challenge.

It was a little bit different. It was like a real GitHub issue that you would get invited to the org and you would call call of you park around. I actually like that experience because you were almost required to ask questions. Then we noticed that having a string of interviews, like you know, doing those seven, eight interviews was exhausting, time consuming. It could take a long time. So we refactored our hiring process into something that we called the big day. And so you would do the initial hiring manager screen and then some sort of challenge, right? And if you you get past that, you move on to the big day.

And in that case, we had already seen that you were told how to be successful. You demonstrated that you have the aptitude to be successful. Whether or not you finished the challenge or completed it, didn't matter. And I would even tell people that. It's like, it doesn't matter if you finished this or complete this. I'm just trying to see how you think. So please document your code. Please comment. Please show me what you're thinking, even if you can't come up with an answer. Because sometimes in coding, if you're like, oh, there it is. And sometimes you're like, I'm going to beat my head this wall until it doesn't work.

So big day we would condense all of those interviews. So like you would get to pair up with somebody. Pairing exercises are a great way to evaluate people. You can see how they work better to see how they ask questions. And you have somebody who's an expert in the room sitting there walking in through it because no one's going to take in brand new employee and just throw them into the deep end and expect them to be perfect, right? You're going to pair up with somebody. You're going to work with them and they're going to impart that knowledge on you. So do that as a real exercise and develop a rubric around that around those collaboration skills and around like their how inquisitive they are and like what they do.

So we have kind of like that one-on-one collaboration and then we would also do more of an executive type meeting where we're just talking about like you know what is it what is it about it that you like about being here like what questions you have about the company like really just give that as a time for them to ask questions. Like there's not necessarily as much of a intention there of evaluation, which is more of a chance. Like, hey, I'm a director, I'm a senior manager, I'm a somebody here, and I want to, and as an agent of the company, I want to answer whatever questions you have, like give them that out here.

But we would condense all of that down into like a four hour period. And so we're asking you to take like a half a day, get it done, and then boom, we move on to it a decision. So an hour initial phone call the hiring manager. Yeah, maybe an hour of your time for some sort of challenge. And then a holiday kind of marathon event to give you a feel what it's like to work with people at the company. That works more or less the intention. We want to make sure people understand what it would feel like to work there and make it as genuine as possible.

So we would usually have an MBA. We'd pull like a real issue. That's like we could We kept a bug around or we'd keep a feature around that in a state of almost completion and be like, hey, let's take a look at this. This is a real thing that you might see. And then scale that out. And what's great is that you can train interviewers on that. It's the same exact thing and you can walk through the same process. I found it to be really useful and something that Webflow is still doing today. And so I think that it is a good process. We've hired well over 100 people using that process.

And it's worked out really well. So last question, and we'll wrap it up here. And again, thanks to you all for tuning in. And Josh, I'm glad the internet didn't go out again. So Josh, guidance counselor 2.0 asked us to call my guests. Like, we had guidance counselors in middle school. We had guidance counselors in high school. But now we don't really have guidance counselors. They're just therapists now. But if you could give your younger self an advice, getting into software, or even your younger self three years ago, what is a good piece of a tangible advice that you could share? Lean into everything that's unique about you that doesn't have to do with software.

Whether that's in your professional or your personal background, lean into that. It is an asset that I see people overlook so many times. Like maybe you have a background in customer service or food service or retail. Maybe you've got, you know, maybe you're in some dungeons and dragons and you're really good at storytelling. You know, there's so many different dynamics about your personality and about your experience and your collective experience. That's what really makes you an interesting person on the team. And now I'm not saying like coming to an interview and be like, hey, I'm Josh, I like play Dungeons & Dragons every Thursday and I'm really good at mechanical things, which has nothing to do with this job.

I want you to know that. But don't be afraid to tie, like when you're talking about these things, or they'll be like, tell me about a time that you did this. Don't be afraid to reach into those personal experiences. Don't be afraid to prop up those other skills that you've learned, because at the end of the day, there's a handful of ways to solve a coding problem, right? But there's a whole lot more that's interesting about your collective experience and how you bring that to the team. that I feel like is going to fill in those gaps that hiring interest is looking for. So lean into that experience.

It's not a black mark on your resume that you worked in food service. Like it's, you know, if anything, it shows that you probably used to something that's fast-paced and you know how to deal with customer service and hopefully you like to keep things clean, right? You know, there's so many things you can infer from that. So lean into all of that other, it's not irrelevant experiences, what I'm trying to say. I love that, I love that. Awesome. Well, y'all, thanks again, Josh. Thanks again for guys counselor 2.0 part two this morning. I'm hanging out with Josh. I hope you all enjoyed this. Go connect with Josh on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

He's a wealth of information. Tomorrow morning, unicorn finders going live with a fishing app. I am not a fisherman, but it is fish brains. And they have 14 million anglers on their app. So we're going to dive into that tomorrow morning And then Friday I'll have a COO in town in Nashville. It's gonna be a sports theme, so it's gonna be great. So you all have a great one, Josh, thank you again, friend. And I'll have everybody. Okay, peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode, and I am very grateful, because you know why? There's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes, and I myself rarely finished an entire episode.

So I appreciate you so, so much for listening. Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the App Store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please, like, right now. Unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me, Taylor at Vaco.com or at T. Destin on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.