9th
Why Blog?
Contrary to the prevailing opinion of my peers, I wish interview processes were longer. I wish college application processes were more detailed, had more essays. I wish exams were multi-day affairs, complete with bed and breakfast. And ideally, relationships would be judged on past performance instead of a wink, nod, and quality (quantity?) of drunken sex.
I have a hard time conveying myself in a short time. How does one communicate everything they stand for in a thirty-minute conversation with a total stranger in an utterly forgettable blanched interview room? You can’t just tell someone, “I care so much about what I do, in one semester I pulled more all-nighters than nights with sleep.” To compress so many hours of life seems impossible as to be practically paralyzing.
Most people seem to be fearful that they won’t have enough to say: that the grilling will end and they will be left stammering questions memorized from some interview preparation website. For me, the words tumble out in streams, torrents of questions and answers both. Because fundamentally, I realize what both of us are looking for is fit.
I used to think of interviews as a brick wall to be overcome; the interviewer as a gatekeeper with unguessable metrics, notebook in hand scribbling evidence damning me to a life of menial labor. (And to be honest, I’ve worked in my fair share of restaurants.) In many cases, rules have been institutionalized and scores will be computed with little regard to exceptions or exceptional.
But in many other cases, it is shared perception that the interview process is holistic. That the brick wall is as much to keep you out as to serve as a general indicator of the quality of your future coworkers. That the important factors are how well you jive with the culture and would be happy working with them. Far, far more people have been fired because they weren’t passionate enough than because they weren’t smart enough.
So ideally, I would reach over the table and say, “Look, I get what you’re doing. Talk to me. Tell me about what you’re passionate about, what your coworkers are passionate about. Tell me about how you feel about working at XYZ, Inc. What are your hopes, dreams, and aspirations? And then I’ll tell you about whether I think I fit in. If that works for you, test me out for a week and I’ll show you what I can do.”
I’m sure you can already spot the holes in this proposal. The vast majority of people work for the paycheck, not for the work. For them, interviews are about signaling instead of substance: they are about getting past the gatekeeper. If word got out that a simple timeout chat worked, companies would be deluged by “passionate, just-searching-for-the-right-fit” candidates. And in my limited experience, others are better at faking passion than I am at showing it.
This is why I like the internet so much. There are two ways of conveying yourself to another person. The first is to genuinely connect with someone. It takes time and is very hit-or-miss. Investing so much of yourself into one person is a recipe for disappointment. (Admittedly, this depends on your standards.)
The second way is to play a numbers game. Instead of flirting with one gatekeeper, flirt with all of them at the same time. Anonymity is a blessing: it levels the playing field. You can’t stand out (as much) because of who you know. You have to stand out based on who you are and what you’ve done.
If you begin a startup online, the market will judge you more based on the quality of your product than on the quality of your sales team. In a traditional company, the bottlenecks are external: making sure suppliers are reliable, staying on good terms with distribution channels, sending salespeople to tradeshows and cold-calls to find potential customers.
The internet has made it so these functions are self-contained. There is a glut of hosting companies willing to sell you bandwidth and the marketplace for digital services and payment scales brilliantly (App Store, Steam, Paypal). Best of all, reaching customers is not an archaic and closed process: it is well-known how to attract initial customers and secure referrals. The barrier to entry is incredibly low.
Not incidentally, that is the reason this blog exists. I don’t have the time or patience to screen potential friends in real life. The internet makes it a self-selecting process. I post who I am and trust that the people who find it interesting will eventually come. As a bonus, friends who don’t know me well might find this via some social platform and get a better glimpse into my psyche and decide how quickly they want to flee for the hills.
And the ones that are too crippled to run — I’m tracking you via Google Analytics. :)
