
Ask HN: Returning to an office environment after a 2 year hiatus? - ccdev
I&#x27;m a software developer who&#x27;s been through a couple jobs. The most recent one was 100% remote work. Aside from semi-yearly informal meetings with my boss, there was no on-site interaction.<p>Due to circumstances out of my control I wasn&#x27;t able to keep the job after 2 years with them, and that was followed by an unplanned 2 year hiatus from any regular jobs. I want to get back to a normal office job, which is where I&#x27;m trying to figure things out.<p>Most places reject me after a phone interview, so it may be that my interviewing skills have decayed. I usually know how I screwed up on the technical parts, but I&#x27;m not really good at figuring out what I did wrong on the soft skills. How do I get back into the groove and make it shown that I can work with others in an office setting again?
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muzuq
It's hard to make any recommendations without a bit more information.

1) Where do you find your view of the phone interview going from optimistic to
feeling it's gone awry?

2) Are the positions you are applying for well within your skillset, related
to last positions? Are they a level above or below your past experience?
Lateral?

3) How much research do you put into your interviews?

4) Do you have a set of questions prepared for the interviewer? I have found
(both interviewing, and being interviewed) that a single unique and well
thought question can be a game changer in the interview process and can lead
to better conversation with the interviewer.

5) Do you practice interviews / questions with yourself or a friend?

I also would suggest really putting yourself in the interviewers shoes, for
each position. What do you think they are looking for? If you were
interviewing, how would you want certain questions answered?

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ccdev
Most of the time I work a solo dev at the companies I've been in. Which to be
more specific means, maybe I'm not always the only dev in the company but more
often than not, the only dev in a project. The big exception was my remote job
of over a year, where all the devs worked on the same project.

A lot of my correspondence involves talking to non-technical people such as
project managers, so I have gotten to figure out how to communicate many
things to non-tech people.

1) I usually don't. Unless I really bombed on a problem and am stuck on
solving a problem for so long, I really can't tell true negatives from false
negatives by the tone of someone's voice, or what they say to me.

2) I apply to mid-level jobs. I used to apply to senior positions (have held 5
jobs) but as I'm getting so many rejections, I've lowered the bar since.

Going by the phrase, "walk before you run" I consider myself still in the
walking phase for many skillsets, yet even if I apply to jobs that are less
challenging to get into, many people assume I have enough experience to run
and say I cover lots of ground but not a lot of depth to have an exceptional
strong point. And this is coming from someone with a lot of experience in
small companies, where "running" is the norm. I thought years of experience is
just a number? Many people learn at different rates, and have a diverse set of
work histories.

3) I do some research in questions I should ask, and what I should know about
the company beforehand. Typically would be able to find some work they're
doing and bring it up.

4) My go-to questions to ask interviewers is "how long have you been working
at this company and how have things changed since then?", "What is a typical
team size for engineering/development?" and "What is the onboarding process
like for new hires?"

5) Interview practices are almost impossible with a friend because I don't
know any close friends in the industry, or with any experience interviewing
people in general. More of a homebody so I don't talk to many of them. Because
of that, I don't believe a mock interview with a random friend is a good
substitute for a real interview, because they will not have actual experience
in hiring developers.

