o2 - named and shamed!

[SallyAnne]

SallyAnne: nearly all telecoms is like that now. When I were a lad, telecoms was a proper engineering job with guys who had beards wore tanktops and sandals. Who knew how to joint a 1000 quad cable, smoke a pipe and listen to the cricket on radio 4 whilst discussing the finer points of todays page 3 girl, all at the same time. Now it is full of spotty hair gelled monkies who would find fitting a wall socket a challenge, if they knew what one was.

I always ask for a much higher rate on telecoms jobs, 'cause they invariably are an utter pain in the arris.

And I can I just say what an honour it is to have you reply Mr Threaded, you are a legend round these parts!

[xoggoth]

I am always really in awe of people on here whose expertise is so enormous and unusual that what they say during interview can point to a solution of all the company's technical problems. Yet they do not get the job? I cannot believe that, surely they should offered £1000 an hour as logically they could turn the entire system around in a week or two.

[DodgyAgent]

SallyAnne: nearly all telecoms is like that now. When I were a lad, telecoms was a proper engineering job with guys who had beards wore tanktops and sandals. Who knew how to joint a 1000 quad cable, smoke a pipe and listen to the cricket on radio 4 whilst discussing the finer points of todays page 3 girl, all at the same time. Now it is full of spotty hair gelled monkies who would find fitting a wall socket a challenge, if they knew what one was.

I always ask for a much higher rate on telecoms jobs, 'cause they invariably are an utter pain in the arris.

Typical "old person" diatribe threaded. Anyway you know perfectly well thet spotty "gel haired" oiks are agents. I have yet to meet a contractor who fits that description.

[AlfredJPruffock]

I've got asked a lot of info' hacking information too - you know, the usual, we're in deep tulip solve our problem here and now free of charge masquerading as 'here's a fake scenario let's see how well you know your stuff questions.'

The best way of handling these types of questions is to welcome them with relish - but answer them on your own terms. Don't ever answer the question directly and never look annoyed if you don't like what you are being asked and then give them the answers they are looking for in the hope they will take pity on you for boxing you into this free consultation and hire you - they won't.

Instead, assume that the interviewer is asking you for similar scenarios on other projects you've worked on. After all, they have your CV, so you assume for the interviewer that's what they are asking. Take control of the interview, ask them to refer to page 2 of your CV etc. and look very confident before doing this.

Of course, you know darned well that's not what they're after, but it works. When asked 'how would you go about....etc. questions, talk about your attitude and approach to working out specific scenario problems - your ones, that is, not their's - and then draw on past examples to give the interviewer the impression you're being specific.

If you're boxed into a corner, and it's bottom line time, then the best strategy to pull yourself out of that is to tell them that you would need to work with the team, work out the company culture, talk about costings, project timelines etc. to demonstrate that each project is unique to solving problems and that no company is the same. So what went down in one project wouldn't necessarily apply to this and it would be irresponsible to give a blanket view to problem solving. Give the interviewer the impression that you would do them a disservice by being specific and giving solutions to problems, based on such limited information (the type of information that can't be given at any interview). Make it clear to the interviewer that you would need a lot more information. Then finish on a positive by drawing on a fake or even real similar scenario of your own choice and nothing like the present interviewer's on another project you've worked on, drawing on some fake similarities to give the impression that your example is highly relevant to the interviewer.

This is a brilliant way of answering all their questions, without answering any of their questions.

I've bluffed my way into many roles using this approach- even though I could be more specific that I pretend - it works every single time and interviewers are left flabbagasted at my breadth and knowledge of my field without deriving one teeny weeny scrap of value-adding information they can poach and use on their own project free of charge before hiring me.

Interesting.

One thing I would add to that is simply tell the Client what they want to hear at an interview,whether that has any basis in reality is irrelevant - thats my tip to get any gig you like.

Nothing is real
And Nothing to get hung about ...