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Hooookay then... So I just decided that I would *finally* apply for a
job with HMGCC. I've been talking about it for long enough!
However, one does not simply email a CV to them. This is HMG, after all!
You must fill in a long, complex online application form. And some of
the fields really aren't very clearly labelled.
"If you are British or naturalised, please state the certificate number:"
Er... what?
Anyway, they want to know some pretty serious stuff - where were you
born, have you been outside the country in the last 10 years, do you
have a girlfriend, what is your national insurance number, etc. It's
taken ages just to fill out all the information.
After all that, it seems I can't actually apply anyway!
An application is not processed until ALL fields have been completed.
This causes a problem for me on two counts.
First, I don't have any references - and they want two of 'em. I *would*
have put my boss, but he recently left the company. I would have put our
site manager, but he recently left too. The new management team can't
even remember my name. No point having them for references! I might also
have said my uni lecturers - you know, if the uni hadn't shut down as
soon as I graduated...
Second, they have a selection of questions of the form "describe a time
when you did X". Mostly for values of X where the set of suitable
examples is empty. o_O
Actually, I'd just like to walk through this set, because it seems to be
a popular sort of thing for employers to ask...
1. Describe a time when you worked with others to solve a complex problem.
Um... OK. What do you say to this one? I mean, if you happen to work for
a company that designs complex products and you're on the design team,
this should be a cakewalk. But otherwise? I mean, when was the last time
YOU solved a complex problem? (Never mind with other people.)
Suffice it to say, I can't think of a single example for this. I've
never *met* anybody (apart from me) who knows the difference between a
Fourier transform and a Laplace transform. Any remotely complex problems
I might have solved have been solved by me and me alone.
2. Please describe an example of when you delivered a high quality piece
of work that you were proud of.
Hmm, this is hard. Usually when I deliver something, all I can think
about is how badly it sucks and how I should have done much better...
but maybe I can find something for this one.
3. Give an example of when you tacked an unfamiliar problem or task, and
how you learned something new.
Do I tell them about the time I spent 2 days writing out the binomial
expansions of powers up to 9 by longhand algebra and thereby derived a
special case of the binomial theorum from first principles? Or should I
write something about the time when I tried to build a parser for my
computer-aided algebra system, and ended up inventing Dijkstra's
shunting algorithm? Either way, I highly doubt anybody will be
impressed. After all, reinventing obscure mathematics hardly counts as
"solving" a "problem"...
4. Please describe a time when you took on a task that illustrates your
active interest in this area of work and allowed you to develop new skills.
Uuuhhhh... Well I can tell you all mannar of things I've learned out of
pure curiosity. But things I learned because of attempting to perform a
specific "task"?
...nope, I'm comming up blank here...
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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> 3. Give an example of when you tacked an unfamiliar problem or task, and
> how you learned something new.
Hey, I got one:
"Filling out this application form was a new and unusual task for me. I
don't often sit back and review my accomplishments from a high level. By
doing this, I have learned something new: I am actually wildly
under-qualified for this role. Sorry to have wasted your time."
I hypothesize that this will NOT increase my changes of employment. ;-)
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Second, they have a selection of questions of the form "describe a time
> when you did X". Mostly for values of X where the set of suitable
> examples is empty. o_O
You do know that 99% of applicants lie through their teeth with questions
like this?
--
- Warp
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"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message
news:487f6e0c@news.povray.org...
> Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> > Second, they have a selection of questions of the form "describe a time
> > when you did X". Mostly for values of X where the set of suitable
> > examples is empty. o_O
>
> You do know that 99% of applicants lie through their teeth with
questions
> like this?
>
And probably half or so lie on the rest as well.
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Warp wrote:
> You do know that 99% of applicants lie through their teeth with questions
> like this?
...ah. Suddenly a whole bunch of things make sense. Like that "SQL test"
that nobody who had completed chapter 1 of a basic SQL introduction
could possibly have failed.
Myself, being a honest and truthful person, I always strive to ensure I
don't in any way exaggerate my actual capabilities or mislead people in
any way. I guess it never occurred to me that other applicants are not
nearly so ethical.
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Myself, being a honest and truthful person, I always strive to ensure I
> don't in any way exaggerate my actual capabilities or mislead people in
> any way. I guess it never occurred to me that other applicants are not
> nearly so ethical.
It's a sad world. Employers can't appreciate honesty because they have
no means of knowing who is lying and who is being honest, especially when
there may be hundreds of applications. Usually only two types of people
get hired: The ones who are most competent, and the ones who can lie most
convincingly about their own competence. The situation is aggravated if
the person making the interview doesn't know the subject matter very well
himself (which is often the case with bosses, as you might know).
Thus people who are fairly competent but not brilliant, and who are
honest by principle, get discriminated precisely because of their honesty.
Getting a job is a competition, and it can get pretty ugly, and honest
naive people are usually going to lose.
The usual recommendation for job interviews is to try to smartly hide
your weaknesses and concentrate on your strong points, while trying to
avoid outright lying. (After all, if you get caught lying, that may
backfire badly.) It can be an art.
--
- Warp
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On Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:38:57 +0100, Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>Second, they have a selection of questions of the form "describe a time
>when you did X". Mostly for values of X where the set of suitable
>examples is empty. o_O
If you weren't seriously applying, it'd be fun to come up with some totally outlandish
stories as answers to each question, just to see if you get a response.
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On 17-Jul-08 17:38, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Hooookay then... So I just decided that I would *finally* apply for a
> job with HMGCC. I've been talking about it for long enough!
>
> However, one does not simply email a CV to them. This is HMG, after all!
> You must fill in a long, complex online application form. And some of
> the fields really aren't very clearly labelled.
>
> "If you are British or naturalised, please state the certificate number:"
>
> Er... what?
>
> Anyway, they want to know some pretty serious stuff - where were you
> born, have you been outside the country in the last 10 years, do you
> have a girlfriend,
And what if you are gay or, worse, a girl?
> what is your national insurance number, etc. It's
> taken ages just to fill out all the information.
>
> After all that, it seems I can't actually apply anyway!
>
> An application is not processed until ALL fields have been completed.
> This causes a problem for me on two counts.
>
> First, I don't have any references - and they want two of 'em. I *would*
> have put my boss, but he recently left the company. I would have put our
> site manager, but he recently left too. The new management team can't
> even remember my name. No point having them for references! I might also
> have said my uni lecturers - you know, if the uni hadn't shut down as
> soon as I graduated...
Unless your boss and the site manager have been fired for gross
incompetence or are dead they could still serve as a reference, I would
think.
>
> Second, they have a selection of questions of the form "describe a time
> when you did X". Mostly for values of X where the set of suitable
> examples is empty. o_O
>
> Actually, I'd just like to walk through this set, because it seems to be
> a popular sort of thing for employers to ask...
>
>
>
> 1. Describe a time when you worked with others to solve a complex problem.
>
> Um... OK. What do you say to this one? I mean, if you happen to work for
> a company that designs complex products and you're on the design team,
> this should be a cakewalk. But otherwise? I mean, when was the last time
> YOU solved a complex problem? (Never mind with other people.)
>
> Suffice it to say, I can't think of a single example for this. I've
> never *met* anybody (apart from me) who knows the difference between a
> Fourier transform and a Laplace transform. Any remotely complex problems
> I might have solved have been solved by me and me alone.
There must be examples of you and your boss or the IT in the US trying
to solve the internet problems. Even designing the network in your new
building may be an example. E-mailing counts as 'working together' in
this context
>
>
> 2. Please describe an example of when you delivered a high quality piece
> of work that you were proud of.
>
> Hmm, this is hard. Usually when I deliver something, all I can think
> about is how badly it sucks and how I should have done much better...
> but maybe I can find something for this one.
What about the procedures document you had written? Even if you are
psychologically unable to be proud on something you did, this is the
sort of things they want to hear.
>
> 3. Give an example of when you tacked an unfamiliar problem or task, and
> how you learned something new.
>
> Do I tell them about the time I spent 2 days writing out the binomial
> expansions of powers up to 9 by longhand algebra and thereby derived a
> special case of the binomial theorem from first principles? Or should I
> write something about the time when I tried to build a parser for my
> computer-aided algebra system, and ended up inventing Dijkstra's
> shunting algorithm? Either way, I highly doubt anybody will be
> impressed. After all, reinventing obscure mathematics hardly counts as
> "solving" a "problem"...
It does. The problem to solve is how to implement it. Many of the things
you did in Haskell will neatly fit in this category.
>
> 4. Please describe a time when you took on a task that illustrates your
> active interest in this area of work and allowed you to develop new skills.
>
> Uuuhhhh... Well I can tell you all manner of things I've learned out of
> pure curiosity. But things I learned because of attempting to perform a
> specific "task"?
>
> ...nope, I'm coming up blank here...
More Haskell here. Or your non-linear equations, point to Zazzle as proof.
Are there no simple to answer questions like: 'are you the mascot of an
internet society' or 'are you the subject of a webcomic'?
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>> Anyway, they want to know some pretty serious stuff - where were you
>> born, have you been outside the country in the last 10 years, do you
>> have a girlfriend,
>
> And what if you are gay or, worse, a girl?
Ooo, that would probably *incrase* your changes of being hired - they
have to hire a certain percentage of "minority groups" to prove that
they are in fact an "equal opportunities employer". (I'm not making this
up. Several questions are explicitly marked as being for this purpose.)
> Unless your boss and the site manager have been fired for gross
> incompetence or are dead they could still serve as a reference, I would
> think.
Not if you can't contact them, no.
> There must be examples of you and your boss or the IT in the US trying
> to solve the internet problems. Even designing the network in your new
> building may be an example. E-mailing counts as 'working together' in
> this context
There probably *should* be examples of us working together, but sadly
there isn't. They tend to regard me as just being the tea boy. The
network in the new building is *not* the design I came up with. I had a
plan written and everything, and then they showed up and just did
something completely different, and I had to reverse engineer to find
out exactly what they did. I'm still not 100% sure.
Similarly, fault finding usually consists of them saying "have you done
X?" [when I already told them I have], and then they say "OK, hold on,
we'll look at it". And maybe at some point they come back with an
answer. Not much "working together" actually happens.
I could possibly mention the change-over of our firewall. That's about
the most "interactive" thing we ever did. But replacing one box with
another one hardly counts as a "complex problem", which is what the
question demands.
The notes say it doesn't have to be a work-related example, but you know
what *my* social life looks like...!
>> 2. Please describe an example of when you delivered a high quality
>> piece of work that you were proud of.
>
> What about the procedures document you had written? Even if you are
> psychologically unable to be proud on something you did, this is the
> sort of things they want to hear.
Good point. Several external auditors have reputedly "liked" these. And
I was quite pleased at having replaced an ad hoc, weakly structured
document with something that has a precise structure and is convinient
to read for the target audience [external auditors].
>> After all, reinventing obscure mathematics hardly counts as
>> "solving" a "problem"...
>
> It does. The problem to solve is how to implement it. Many of the things
> you did in Haskell will neatly fit in this category.
Most of my Haskell stuff I did from reading books. But perhaps "I
learned Haskell" would count as an "unusual task" where I "learned
something new" (i.e., a radically different way of seeing computer
programs). That seems like stretching things a little though...
>> 4. Please describe a time when you took on a task that illustrates
>> your active interest in this area of work and allowed you to develop
>> new skills.
>>
>> Uuuhhhh... Well I can tell you all manner of things I've learned out
>> of pure curiosity. But things I learned because of attempting to
>> perform a specific "task"?
>
> More Haskell here. Or your non-linear equations, point to Zazzle as proof.
Or that time I learned PostScript in my lunch break just because I was
so bored that day.
However, when you write "I once learned to program in PostScript in my
lunch break because I was really bored that day", it doesn't sound all
that good.
Again, it asks for a specific *task* where you learned something new.
Doing something to stave off boredom isn't a "task".
> Are there no simple to answer questions like: 'are you the mascot of an
> internet society' or 'are you the subject of a webcomic'?
LMAO! Damn, if only *those* could be job requirements...
[Actually, they probably are. But what the hell is the job??]
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Kyle wrote:
> If you weren't seriously applying, it'd be fun to come up with some totally
outlandish stories as answers to each question, just to see if you get a response.
Mmm, I like your thinking. ;-)
Of course, since I'm applying to work for Her Majesty's Government, this
is probably a Very Bad Idea. But hey, if you guys would like to try
posting some potential answers here, maybe we could all have a giggle?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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