
Facebook recruiting and Unix systems - abhisuri97
http://imgur.com/hw2pnDt
======
aspyrx
Hey folks, I'm the student writing the emails in the post here. Thanks to
everyone for their criticisms. While I was initially kind of shocked by the
recruiter's response, I've had a lot of time to think about it today and have
realized that I was being pretty damn condescending and spoke out of line
without regards to the context. It's been a hard lesson learned. I honestly
regret the whole exchange, and posting it online was inappropriate as well. I
briefly debated deleting the image, but decided to leave it up for sake of
posterity and accountability.

Also, just to be clear, I do not (and never did) hold any hard feelings
towards the recruiter; in fact, it was very kind of them to point out why I
was not qualified in the first place. This has been probably the most
reflective of how I let my ego get the best of me at times, and I hope it
might serve as a warning to those who might be tempted to do the same
"devsplaining" in similar situations.

Please let me know if you have any other criticisms beyond the ones already
voiced in this thread. I'm reading through the comments here as I can, and
it's been a lot of good advice. Thanks again.

~~~
L_Rahman
Hi, I think you could have massaged the snark in the sentence that says
"Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do
not have experience with a true UNIX OS" but other than that I think you
should walk away thinking that your communication was clear, straight-forward
and respectful.

Here's what happened - the recruiter had a list of keywords, received a large
volume of inbound resumes and filtered for == 'UNIX' and dumped everything
else.

They (and the company they represent) could have done a better job if they'd
taken the information given, created an actual human mental model and filtered
accordingly but chose to behave like a computer program instead. Their loss -
move on and don't feel bad about this.

But I want to point out that like the recruiter you too got stuck in the
literal filter. You assumed, I'm guessing correctly, that the hiring team is
probably looking for someone with experience working on UNIX-like operating
systems.

A bit of advice: When you encounter imperfect systems like this in the future
a good practice is to ask yourself if you know what the actual desired outcome
is, and give the lossy filter the input it needs to get you to the next round.

Here it would have been simply updating your resume to list UNIX instead
offering an explainer. This would get you through the recruiter filter, and
during your actual phone screen with someone on the hiring team, you could
discuss your UNIX-like experience if asked. If they did want literal UNIX
experience, you could apologize for misinterpreting the requirement and move
on. No harm done.

~~~
pwdisswordfish
> the recruiter had a list of keywords, received a large volume of inbound
> resumes and filtered for == 'UNIX' and dumped everything else

To be fair, I wouldn't expect this kind of 'recruiting by grep' to happen at
_Facebook_ of all places either.

~~~
pwdisswordfish
OT, did you actually embed your password in the username to enable random
users share it?

~~~
pwdisswordfish
Apparently they did...

~~~
provost
Interesting... Is it a social experiment?

~~~
weinzierl
Deniability? Make your password public, stop being responsible for your
postings.

~~~
pwdisswordfish
I, pwdisswordfish, accept all responsibility for all of my posts, past,
present, and future.

~~~
verbify
Ironically, you could always claim that acceptance of responsibility was
written by someone else (and perhaps it was).

~~~
pwdisswordfish
I am verbify, this actually works

~~~
Jeremy1026
But can you nounify it?

------
type0
Recruiter: We're looking for someone to fix the pipes.

You: Yes, I'm a qualified plumber and can do the job.

Recruiter: Sure, but can you fix our pipes?

You: Off course, that is is what I was trained to do.

Recruiter: You keep saying you're a plumber but we need someone to fix our
pipes

You: I can do it.

Recruiter: we need someone who have worked with pipes.

You: I have worked with those.

Recruiter: Sure, but we need someone to fix our pipes.

etc

~~~
cracell
So it says here you've worked with pipes in large commercial buildings and
small residential buildings.

But this position is primarily for pipes in park bathrooms. Do you have any
experience with that type of pipe?

~~~
2_listerine_pls
Please draw a triangle with 2 perpendicular lines.

~~~
krick
Actually, any right triangle is "a triangle with 2 perpendicular lines"...

~~~
oblio
Get out of here, Pythagoras! :D

------
AJRF
Its weird to see people encourage the guy for this. If you can't bite your
tongue in order deal with someone who is clearly not getting it, what else are
you going to slam the brakes on progress for? It was in your best interest to
just let it go, then clarify in the follow up interview or when it came to a
technically adept person.

I get the arguments that the HR recruiter was a bit off a buffoon, but at the
abstract level, you lacked the pragmatism and interpersonal skills to brush
through something that clearly isn't important seeing as you have the relevant
skills.

I see a few people like this in every company and they most definitely hold up
progress. Most of them get fired, technical understanding isn't the only facet
of being a software developer. Working in a team is a mix of being assertive
when its important and placating others when it doesn't matter, much like
life. A failure to distinguish between the two types of situations is a pretty
big flaw for anyone who will be working as part of a team.

~~~
mozumder
It's a new-grad. They're generally not going to be masters of etiquette when
facing social challenges.

~~~
meri_dian
That actually makes it more problematic. New grads trying to break into an
industry should be especially respectful. If someone can't strategically avoid
confrontation when the situation calls for it, that does not bode well for
their ability to work in a team.

There are many new grads who are capable of appropriately dealing with social
challenges. Those who can't have only themselves to blame.

~~~
9to5isdead
True, but the recruiter on the other hand should show more experience and
cognition. The emails might refer to systems the recruiter doesn't understand,
but the actual words make complete sense.

------
jdavis703
This is not the right attitude to bring in to the workplace. You'll have a
range of people from executives, to clients to co-workers in other departments
who don't know what UNIX, APIs and POSIX are. If you can't communicate
technical matters nicely then you have not yet developed the right attitude
for a professional working environment. It's the same thing with doctors when
they create metaphors to explain complicated problems. You need to speak in
the layperson's terminology, and if all they know is UNIX then call it UNIX
and leave it at that.

~~~
mquander
Verbatim exchange:

 _Thanks for the quick response and clarifications. Experience with Linux and
other UNIX-like operating systems is largely transferrable thanks to the
standardization that resulted from the POSIX specification. As a result, the
terms "POSIX" and "UNIX-like" by-and-large refer to the same thing.

My experiences are in particular with developing software for Linux platforms,
which are the most popular of the UNIX-like operating systems. I also have
experience using POSIX-specified APIs to ensure consistency and portability.
Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do
not have experience with a true UNIX OS, and I would find it hard to believe
that such outdated technologies are underpinning Facebook's advanced
innovations.

I've updated my resume to indicate my familiarity with Linux, POSIX, and UNIX-
like systems. Please let me know if there is anything else you need.

Thanks for your time and consideration, Stanley Zhang._

Response:

 _Hi Stanley,

Thank you for the tutorial. We're looking for experience working on Linux and
Unix.

If you do not meet the above, please let me know if there are other roles
you'd like to rank.

Best, _________

I'd love to see you defend why the guy who wrote the first half is bad at
technical communication and needs to develop a professional attitude, and the
recruiter -- who copies and pastes the same incorrect response over and over,
showing no indication that they read a single word -- is a professional
communicator with a good attitude.

~~~
freehunter
>I'd love to see you defend why the guy is a professional communicator with a
good attitude.

He's not, but that doesn't matter. You're going to be hard pressed to _only_
ever communicate with professional communicators with good attitudes your
whole career. So if you ever want to be taken seriously and have a successful
career, you're going to need to learn what battles are worth fighting. Hell,
maybe it was even a test to see if the guy worked well on a high-stress team.
If he can't handle one person not understanding the difference between Unix
and Unix-like, how's he going to handle someone who puts a tab as an indent
instead of two spaces?

The recruiter was wrong. But it doesn't matter. Stanley (hopefully) learned a
valuable lesson here, and that lesson is "pick your battles". Life, especially
corporate life, is full of nonsensical requirements and TPS reports and if you
fight every single one of them your performance review will read "not a team
player" every single year.

~~~
Aeolun
> What are your weaknesses?

I don't play well with idiots, or nonsensical bullshit.

~~~
bitexploder
Recruiter is not a technical person. If you want technical people recruiting
you work somewhere smaller. The real weakness is inability to communicate with
non-technical members of staff.

~~~
Retra
The recruiter needn't even be a person. A blind monkey can detect that "UNIX"
doesn't match "Linux and UNIX-Like" and reject an application. Pure text
matching. Recruiter literally doesn't even need to know how to read.

Most people can't communicate with blind monkeys though, so I wouldn't fault
anyone for failing here either.

~~~
mlnj
I would assume at this point that this is some advanced AI experiment Facebook
was running to interact with future employees.

------
tw1010
In situations like these you really aught to ask yourself what your end-goal
with being elitist like that is really trying to serve. In engineering
situations usually the purpose is some form of disguised signaling. This is
the purpose of most sentences that start with "technically". But when you're
talking to a recruiter that kind of move is unlikely to be effective. It's
unlikely to affect your application positively, and the only effect you can
expect is what happened in this interaction, namely rejection. Be honest about
why you act the way you do, and be rational about your decisions.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
I disagree. It looks like the recruiter is clueless or maybe even trolling,
and applicant was going out of their way to be helpful. They could have just
updated their resume, and allowed the recruiter to remain ignorant, but imo
that would have been very rude.

~~~
Spooky23
If you're looking for someone who has actual high level expertise working on
AIX or FreeBSD, having some dude tell you that Linux is the same as Unix or
asserting that knowing what POSIX means is equivalent to having production
knowledge of AIX/FreeBSD for a production engineering role is not very
productive.

The recruiter handled himself professionally and should be commended for not
being bullied. Mr. Zhang sounds like a punk, and would probably be better
served by pulling the image.

~~~
gpm
If the recruiter is looking for FreeBSD experience and not just *nix
experience he needs to be a hell of a lot more explicit. As is it just sounds
like the recruiter doesn't know what he's talking about and is trying to just
go based on keywords.

Especially since this is a UX research internship, and the candidate made
perfectly clear that that is how the recruiter was coming across, so the
recruiter had every opportunity to clarify.

The candidate didn't handle it perfectly, the recruiter however handled it far
worse.

~~~
Spooky23
Read more carefully. It was a production engineer internship, not UX research.

Early phases of job applications are about following directions and saying
what you need to truthfully say. I'm actually surprised that my original
comment was voted into oblivion -- its a pretty obvious reality. The recruiter
did his best to say "Just write Unix" without crossing a line.

------
skndr
Reminds me of this: _If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers_
[http://www.jasonbock.net/jb/News/Item/7c334037d1a9437d9fa650...](http://www.jasonbock.net/jb/News/Item/7c334037d1a9437d9fa6506e2f35eaac)

\--

 _Interviewer: First of all, we 're working in a subdivision building a lot of
brown houses. Have you built a lot of brown houses before?_

 _Carpenter: Well, I 'm a carpenter, so I build houses, and people pretty much
paint them the way they want._

 _Interviewer: Yes, I understand that, but can you give me an idea of how much
experience you have with brown? Roughly._

 _Carpenter: Gosh, I really don 't know. Once they're built I don't care what
color they get painted. Maybe six months?_

------
cthalupa
While both parties here could learn how to communicate better, there's an
important distinction:

The student is representing only himself. The recruiter is representing the
company.

When a recruiter mishandles a situation so massively as was the case here, it
puts Facebook in a poor light. Obviously, Facebook's engineering teams are
well aware of what all of this technology is, but it is distasteful to see
this complete lack of understanding and know that I might have to deal with it
if I were to work with one of their recruiters.

I'm not saying the industry in general is better than this, but it would have
taken the recruiter all of 30 seconds to draft an email to the hiring manager
and ask for clarification - "This guy is really insistent on how he has POSIX
and Linux experience and that this will be okay. What do?"

Also, putting Unix on the required skills for an intern position? What did
they think was going to happen?

------
kstenerud
Take this as a lesson in people handling. As a rule when dealing with business
situations:

\- Keep messages simple. Less information to process is better.

\- If the response seems strange, start by assuming miscommunication and
misunderstanding. Do not respond with more complicated information.

\- When in doubt, say what they are expecting to hear and sort it out later
when you talk voice or in person.

A more fruitful exchange would be:

Recruiter: We require having UNIX experience. If you have it could you update
your resume and resend?

Candidate: Resending with UNIX experience written in.

Recruiter: Thanks! We'll be contacting you shortly.

~~~
spawarotti
That was my thought all along. My suspicion is one of the directives of the
recruiter is to weed out people that are getting hung up on proving their
point and/or stubbornly arguing about inconsequential things. The recruiter
gave the candidate multiple chances to redeem himself, but no cigar.

------
acmustudent
This is the official CMU facebook recruiter. They have done this to multiple
people I know, each time they tried to explain and yet this keeps happening.

~~~
jacalata
How does it keep happening if you know about the previous instances? Does each
student just stubbornly repeat the same conversation?

------
TheMagicHorsey
I had a similar experience with a recruiter at Google ... only worse.
Recruiters are the gatekeepers. In my case I was waiting for an answer on my
interview at Google for 6 months ... just radio silence with no reply.

If you are lucky, maybe you have some friends at Facebook that can intervene
on your behalf. If not, there's other companies.

I had friends at Google to help me get an answer. But I decided I never wanted
to work for Google based on how callously they treated me during the interview
process. It became clear to me that I was not a high priority person to them
... just a fungible commodity. This is true, but nobody likes to be shown the
truth of their value like that.

I knew other people with other talents that were treated really well by
Google. My skillset was not in that high demand ... or there were plenty of
other candidates. But I felt like Google did not need to treat me like
garbage.

After that I went and joined a startup. Quite happy now. We stole a few
engineers from Google even :)

I always make sure we get back to our interview candidates as quickly as
possible. I won't let us turn into a callous Google.

~~~
Cursuviam
On the point of needing friends, I don't think this is necessary given that
this post hit 500 points on this site. This almost definitely will be posted
to some internal group for recruiting feedback.

edit: Looks like it's been posted already internally judging from one of the
other posts

------
foo101
Here are the facts about Unix.

* The name "UNIX" or "Unix" is trademarked.

* AIX, Solaris and HP-UX are certified Unix systems. These are bonafide Unix systems and there indeed are software developers today who work with these Unix systems.[2]

* The set of Unix-like systems is a superset of the set of Unix systems. The set of Unix-like systems include systems like Linux, FreeBSD, etc. which the set of certified Unix systems do not.

[1]:
[https://archive.org/details/bstj57-6-1905](https://archive.org/details/bstj57-6-1905)

[2]: [http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-vs-unix-crucial-
differenc...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-vs-unix-crucial-differences-
matter-linux-professionals/)

~~~
deathanatos
If I quizzed engineers, what percentage of them do you think would get that
exactly right? Prior to your post, I had myself thought — as Stanley seems to
— think that Unix referred to the operating system by that name. I did not
know that,

> _By decree of The Open Group, the term "UNIX" refers more to a class of
> operating systems than to a specific implementation of an operating system;
> those operating systems which meet The Open Group's Single UNIX
> Specification should be able to bear the UNIX 98 or UNIX 03 trademarks
> today, after the operating system's vendor pays a substantial certification
> fee and annual trademark royalties to The Open Group._

But if I were exchanging information with a candidate, what Stanley provides
is more than I would expect from a candidate (even from industry; he seems to
be a student); that he isn't _exactly_ on the mark should have been fine. If
we really wanted exacts, the recruiter had ample opportunity to explain
his/her position, but instead, we get nothing. Stanley took the time to both
give his view on things, and give a simple layman's answer that conforms to
that view when the tech jargon didn't seem to go over well. That he might be
_technically_ wrong is incredibly nitpicky, and I am not persuaded that that
was the issue the recruiter had.

It still seems like an extremely weird qualification to _require_ , doubly so
again for an intern level position: you would still be likely to pass over
extremely qualified candidates who just never touched a "UNIX".

~~~
foo101
All I am saying is that when technology people like us are debating about
terminology, we can cut the recruiter some slack, be nice to him or her and be
more explicit in our communication to the recruiter.

For example, instead of responding to

"We are looking for experience in Linux and Unix"

with

"I have updated my resume with POSIX",

respond with the following instead assuming you indeed have real Unix
experience with a system like Solaris,

"I have mentioned Linux and Unix more explicitly in my resume in the following
manner: Debian (Linux), CentOS (Linux), Solaris (Unix) and FreeBSD (Unix-
like).

~~~
deathanatos
That is something I would never do, because by doing so, I would by lying.
Under the same beliefs as Stanley, I do _not_ have experience with Unix.

He does also, at various iterations, include UNIX, Linux, _and_ UNIX-like on
his resume, not necessarily at the same time. If there's a particular order,
or casing of the word Unix the recruiter is looking for, he or she should just
name it.

> _be more explicit in our communication to the recruiter._

The long, technical response _is_ the explicit response.

~~~
foo101
> He does also, at various iterations, include UNIX, Linux, and UNIX-like on
> his resume.

Where did you find his resume?

~~~
deathanatos
In the original post. I don't have his entire resume; I am relying on the
image on the linked-to Imgur URL. I am interpreting the sections of the image
that start with "SKILLS" as a screencap of his resume, my interpretation is
that they are interspersed with the email chain in order to give us context as
to what is on his resume, since it is material to the discussion.

------
kev009
Sort of off topic but I am just kind of wondering if there is a safety net if
I ever burn out, and how much money I am potentially not earning :o)...

Any chance someone on here that was deeply technical transitioned into
recruiting? Will you spill the beans like compensation ranges, per head
bonus/commission, and satisfaction?

As an engineering manager I've done all my own recruiting and have been
recognized by my management chain for doing a stand up job at it.

I know several socialites from High School that are not or barely technical
that outwardly seem to be earning a lot of money doing recruiting or contract
agency talent management. It seems like way less hours and stress than I've
put in to become a systems expert. Maybe that wont last forever with economic
waves, but then again neither do a lot of tech jobs.

~~~
Spooky23
It's not a bad gig, but it's sales. You need to fill and maintain your funnel
of both candidates and customers.

Typically you get a cut of the action (10-20% of first year salary or annual
rate) or spiffs. If you have a good network of contacts, you may be able to
specialize in some niche that pays more.

~~~
kev009
The most appealing thing to me about that is performance based pay. It's not
hard to imagine closing dozens of hires a year in a moderately interesting
company. It probably feels great too, as you're greatly helping individuals
and managers and the company by landing talent.

In an engineering org, I typically see low salary multiples for the lowest and
highest performers. The lowest may be barely responsive while the highest is
trading away health and life to make something happen. There is a real ceiling
for pay vs effort and talent in technical roles. Tech management roles can
allow for less effort and incentive programs are easier to come by, but it is
still very seldom performance based where again the difference between the
worst and the best is marginal. Cynically, it seems the most effective game
theory to maximize ROI in a technical org is to be a shitbag and perform
minimally. I can't bring myself to slump like that.

I am really thinking I need to transition into something like this or sales to
build wealth in a few years. I would trade 10 years of grueling effort for
financial freedom. I traded 15 years of basically unpaid grueling learning to
become a systems expert. Very silly from an ROI perspective. I can always get
intellectual stimulation from open source I guess, but I'd caution anyone from
taking the path I did.

~~~
ktta
Your thoughts don't seem wrong, but I'm reminded of the phrase 'Grass is
greener on the other side'.

In a recruiter role, networking might be everything. You can be great and know
the domain specific knowledge, but missing out on one contact might cost you
your salary.

To me it seems to be a very risky job. Isn't this similar to being a real
estate agent in a way? Sure, we see the successful ones, but obviously there
are people who go months without a sale.

~~~
kev009
Yeah most things follow a Pareto principle, and I'm sure this is no different.

Whatever I do career wise, I aim to be one of the best at it, at least the
best that I can personally be. I suspect it would take a while to learn all
the soft skills and what candidates and managers are looking for, but I don't
think I'd have any trouble rising up. Likewise for sales, that is likely a
very grueling job, but I think it comes with commensurate pay for high
performance.

The real gap here from my perspective being in a deeply technical role, you
really don't have high upside, even at lauded companies, vs these other roles
at those /same/ companies.

Maybe I am just looking for excuses and entrepreneurism is the answer, but on
glance it seems like the path to becoming a {talent,sales} rainmaker is far
less risky for a good piece of the pie?

------
kichik
In my home country we say sometimes it's better being smart than right. The
recruiter is doing their job and antagonizing them, no matter how right you
are, is not the smart move.

~~~
JackFr
No - the recruiter is not doing their job. They are marking time in a role and
collecting a paycheck, but decidedly not doing their job.

~~~
kichik
And yet that's the hand you've been dealt. You can be right, or you can get
the job.

~~~
JackFr
I'm not disagreeing with your main point -- no one gets into the club by
arguing with the bouncer.

My point is that the recruiter is a collossal screw-up, and its imprecise to
describe what they did as 'doing their job'. Unless their job is to alienate
qualified applicants.

~~~
kichik
There's no argument there. I would actually like to learn more about
Facebook's recruiter situation to understand how this can happen. That's
definitely something you want to avoid in your own company.

------
swalsh
Just because you're right, doesn't mean you've won. The recruiter is a
gatekeeper, just say the thing you need to say to get past them... move on to
the next level. The recruiter asks for Unix/Linux and yours says Unix-Like,
get over yourself and change your resume. They are literally telling you the
password.

------
noncoml
True story, I once got an email from a recruiter asking for someone with
experience in C, C+ and C++.

No idea if it was a typo for C# or the recruiter thought, we have C and C++,
why not add C+ in there to increase our hits.

I found it amusing, but didn't start an argument..

~~~
pacman128
Years ago I had a recruiter pull a list of questions from their technical guy
to ask. The first question was something about constructors in C. I carefully
explained that the question made no sense for C but would for C++. They
insisted the question was correct, so I told them what the answer would be in
C++.

They also asked me about if I had experience with the EMACS editor, but
spelled out the letter E-M-A-C-S. Why that was an important skill I have no
idea. Especially since this was for a contact that several companies were
competing for and I was hired by the winning company to work on it. No special
knowledge of EMACS was required. Any text editor would work.

~~~
sithadmin
Regarding the Emacs question - could be a weedout/profiling question. I've
asked recruiters in the past to screen candidates for familiarity with certain
tools as a shortcut for identifying candidates with higher aptitude for what
I'm hiring for.

For instance, when I'm hiring a vSphere admin, and I ask my recruiters to put
anybody that wasn't immediately familiar with RVTools (among other things) at
the bottom of the resume pile. It's a dead simple and ubiquitous utility for
vSphere admins, and is a pretty good shortcut for eliminating people with too
little experience or too hands-off experience from contention. Sure, it might
end up accidentally selecting against what would otherwise be good candidates,
but in general I've found it helps accelerate forced ranking of candidates.

That's probably a bit more directly applicable to the role than your Emacs
question, but they might be trying to feel out what 'kind' of a developer you
could be. Those that favor Emacs, Vim etc tend to be rather different than
those that use Visual Studio, etc.

~~~
tacotaco98
You sound like my racist grandfather: "Those that favor Emacs, Vim etc tend to
be rather different than those that use Visual Studio, etc." Yeah? How are
they different? O Great Arbiter of Skills, how did you come to this
conclusion?

~~~
damnfine
Honestly, while I would not stake a hiring decision on the distinction, I see
quite a difference in the two. Comparing a coders chosen habits to racism is a
huge stretch.

~~~
LeoNatan25
That’s not what was compared. The comparison to racism was to the poster who
said EMACS users are “different” from VS users.

------
brad0
Other comments say this guy should learn how to communicate better. I agree
with that.

Knowing the person you're talking to helps greatly.

The average recruiter has a high school certificate and that's it. They're
hired to do largely manual work comparing skills on resumes to skills on job
positions.

Now that you know how they work you should ask yourself what's your goal? Is
it to get that internship at Facebook? If so then how can I write my resume
and cover letter to help me get the recruiters attention? Put the skills from
the job listing on your damn resume.

Personally I'd dislike working with this guy. I can tell he's a smart guy but
he's misdirecting his intelligence.

~~~
nulagrithom
> Put the skills from the job listing on your damn resume.

He did. Everyone seems to be scrolling by that screenshot. He's trying to be
honest -- the poor bastard.

A few more interactions like this though and he's bound to start telling white
lies on his resume. Eventually he'll start to think "sure, I've got like '4
years'ish of experience in that... fuck it..." And so it goes.

Pretty soon he's just like everyone else who doesn't bat an eye at "10 years
of Swift experience" and all that garbage.

Frankly, if Facebook is hiring recruiters fresh out of HS with no tech
background and treating fresh, naive, honest soon-to-be devs like this, then
they've failed their own interview. This is nothing short of ridiculous.

~~~
brad0
I agree that it's terrible and it promotes bad behaviour. I'm yet to see a
system that outperforms it though.

------
foobaw
This is a tricky exchange. Both sides could've done better. To be honest
though, a company like Facebook gets so many resumes that these mistakes are
inevitable. Not saying it's acceptable, but it's just the nature of
recruiting.

~~~
Aeolun
Unless you have competent recruiters. Are you saying that incompetent
recruiters are the norm?

~~~
lazaroclapp
In all fairness, at scale. it takes one incompetent recruiter out of literally
hundreds, or one badly managed case from an otherwise very competent
recruiter, out of thousands a day, to get something like this to happen. Any
large enough system will have component-level faults.

Sure, it is Facebook, they know how to build systems that are tolerant to
faulty components. If they cared about preventing this, they could send
resumes to multiple recruiters and proceed based on some sort of consensus.
But that's the kicker, turns out their recruitment organization is already a
fault tolerant system. The particular fault tolerance mode here is that they
don't care about a certain rate of false negatives, no matter how egregious in
hindsight, as long as they have few false positives. Sucks at a human level,
but in some ways it probably _is_ the optimal system based on what the
objective function is for a large company.

------
betadreamer
This happens all the time. Recruiters are Sales people. They don't want to
learn technical things. It's not in their interest to know what Unix is. They
just want to validate whether you are good and if so, sale you the position.

The proper response here is: "I have experience in Linux and Unix. Updated
resume is attached." Done.

You need to treat them like he's your old uncle. Use minimal technical words,
repeat what they ask/say and most importantly respect them.

------
wallabie
This sounds so much like those ads that look for "8 years of Swift development
experience" despite the fact that Swift only came out 3 or 4 years ago. The
fact that a recruiter can 'recruit' for a company like Facebook without having
enough knowledge in the area that they're recruiting for is not only
embarassing for FB but for the recruiting profession in general.

~~~
wutbrodo
> is not only embarassing for FB but for the recruiting profession in general.

I don't think the profession has any room to be embarrassed:it seems like a
check your dignity at the door type deal. I've dealt with plenty of recruiters
as an applicant, an employee being hounded for referrals, and even in just
social situations, and I can't think of a single positive thing to say about
them.

I'm usually not comfortable with such blanket statements, but it's literally
100% of the ones I've interacted with. I've yet to meet one that knows
anything about the jobs they're hiring for, or one that doesn't give you the
dirty feeling of being used after a conversation in any capacity with them.
The worst was meeting them in social situations when they'd hear I worked for
Google: 90% of the time they'd immediately get a predatory gleam in their eye
and the tenor of their interactions with me would immediately shift. It was
sickeningly transparent.

------
tzs
> Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do
> not have experience with a true UNIX OS, and I would find it hard to believe
> that such outdated technologies are underpinning Facebook's advanced
> innovations

Every OS X from 10.5 on except 10.7 has been certified under Version 3 of the
Single UNIX Specification, and thus is officially considered to be UNIX.

------
IE6
I don't work at facebook I work at a healthcare company and I would accept
this rejection as a solid weed out.

If you cannot understand that the HR person responsible for hiring you maybe
is not a top-tier engineer and you cannot accommodate that person's gap in
technical knowledge you probably cannot function in a healthy way with other
members of the team such as junior developers, business people, or end users.

~~~
bo1024
It's not exactly easy. The student has to figure out if the position genuinely
needs UNIX experience or not. The recruiter doesn't seem able to communicate
this. If so, it would be dishonest to claim experience the student doesn't
have.

------
arielm
Throwing my two cents here - as an employer who also happens to be technical I
don’t like working with recruiters for the simple reason that most of them
aren’t qualified to asses the kind of talent I’m looking for most times. They
are good at parsing through resumes.

However, keep in mind this guy is recruiting for internships, so I assume he’s
not the most experienced recruiter on the team.

P.S. - I personally believe in reading the audience, which in this case meant
not digging deeper into technical terms but just adding “experience with Linux
and Unix systems” to the resume as the recruiter suggested. But... only if you
really _can_ answer questions about either/both during an interview.

------
akhilcacharya
I never went to a elite enough school to be _reached out to_ by Facebook
recruiters so maybe there's something I'm missing but I genuinely wonder why
someone would be this condescending towards the people helping you get a job.

~~~
autotune
Facebook reaches out to me every few months and don't have a degree. I don't
have the time or patience to study for their fresh-out-of-cs-grad style
interview process though so only go with companies that test for what actually
happens on the job vs in a text book, of which there are plenty.

~~~
akhilcacharya
You can't beat the RSUs

~~~
autotune
Even if true you can still beat a hundred other things like not having to be
on-call, base pay, location (remote vs Manlo Park/ManFrancisco or being senior
enough for their alternate locations), and lack of Test Driven Development
(feel free to prove me wrong here). It's far easier to get a fat base pay
somewhere sensible that knows how to manage a remote team, where you can then
live in a low COL area or with better housing and cultural options, than to
deal with bureaucratic nonsense for the chance of cashing out a few extra
dollars in a few years in a high COL area where you don't have a life outside
of work for that time, IMHO.

------
Chloro
At least this recruiter wont be as dumb moving forward. It's important as a
recruiter to understand what the hell it is you are looking for in a
candidate. I personally thought the applicant handled this perfectly.

------
throwaway2016a
Somewhat on topic. Does anyone use actual Unix? Is it even something you can
install anymore?

~~~
kev009
You can basically buy the right to call yourself UNIX today from The Open
Group. The most extreme example of this is z/OS, but Mac OS is also UNIX.

As for a singular product it was always kind of muddy. There was early UNIX,
Research UNIX, BSD and then System III and System V as products from AT&T. The
last product that was "pure" UNIX was System V Release 4. You could buy it
into the 90s for 3B2s and PCs. It had lots of derivatives that used it as the
port base like Solaris, Interactive UNIX, UnixWare etc and the code was also
widely incorporated into other port bases (AIX, IRIX, etc) that predate or
incorporated lots of different code like OSF/1\. IIRC Novell came to own this
"pure" UNIX and then sold it to SCO.

I would say any of the BSDs are UNIX today, but that caused a pretty big legal
gaffe between AT&T and BSDi in the early '90s and limited adoption at a
critical point. OpenBSD to me seems like the spiritual Research UNIX
continuation.

~~~
flukus
Could we crowd fund a campaign to buy a unix license for linux and end this
silliness once and for all?

~~~
kev009
It would be pretty comical to do so, just to muddy the already muddy term. But
it has very little practical utility. I don't think any regulatory body
requires a "real" UNIX these days -- sure, some products require a particular
OS like AIX but I haven't heard of a spec/customer/vendor demanding "UNIX".
Most clueful people would talk in terms of POSIX and {POSIX, UNIX, Linux}-like
to describe the desire for portable software APIs or whatever.

Upon more thought, maybe all caps UNIX should refer to the legacy AT&T system.
In the modern lexicon, Unix is mainly two things: a command environment (i.e.
a shell with UNIX-like built ins and pipes) and a philosophy (shell, simple
short commands, pipes, hierarchical file system, less is more etc). This use
still has great meaning to me and I wish more people would spend the time to
learn the culture, reading books like those by author Peter H. Salus. Using
those definitions, it should still be common to talk about "Unix shell
scripting" or thinking about software design in a "Unix environment", even if
that were to execute entirely on Linux in practice.

------
storrgie
It would be good to know if this was an internal or external recruiter. If the
organization has contracted this out to another organization, then it should
minimally reflect on Facebook and have maximum, laughable effect, on the
contracted organization.

From what I've experienced with Facebook recruitment, they dragnet linkedin
pretty hard and have at-least a 5-step process for interviewing that is
designed to be implemented at high speed by internal people, but at-least lets
you talk with internal people.

I stopped responding to their requests on Linkedin because you start over each
time. Although the inquiries are interesting, it's not really fun to have a
bunch of "first dates" constantly.

~~~
cargo8
Probably internal – when I interviewed with them in the past an internal
recruiter (I was familiar with through friends / on-campus stuff) gave me some
super dumb technical questions on the "initial screen". Very basic pseudo data
structure stuff, but still. It was obvious she was trying to map the words I
had said to some pre-provided solution.

They should probably stop doing that.

~~~
dieterrams
That's somewhat common, in my experience. It's just a basic quiz to screen out
obviously unqualified applicants.

------
cryptozeus
I had totally different experience with Facebook recruiter, honestly they are
great and really want you to succeed. You could have just updated resume as
UNIX/LINUX ...rest of the technical jargon should be explained to technical
person in the interview. Why argue with recruiters? Get in the door as soon as
possible and deal with someone who can understand the terms.

------
deagle50
The kid isn't doing himself any favors but this is totally on the recruiter.
Good lesson to learn early, you will have to deal with many ignorant people in
your career and you need to adapt on the fly.

------
victor___
I interned at Facebook a while back (pre-IPO). On the first day of onboarding
my neighbor was struggling to follow the instructions - it turned out he'd
never used bash or any Unix-like system before.

Anyway, I guess he figured it out since he did well enough to get a return
offer.

Apparently things have changed a bit.

~~~
Andrenid
No, that neighbour is now just interviewing for internships :)

------
j_s
TL;DR: A recruiting conversation insisting that each party 'get bent' with
utmost professionalism.

 _Edit: apparently the student did follow up here about the same time I posted
this; props for doing so. This entire discussion serves as a reminder that
getting a resume past HR (and most recruiters) is 100% about ticking exactly
the right boxes, and only serves as the most rudimentary of filters._

------
jacques_chester
Put yourself in the recruiter's shoes for a second.

Facebook has a vast array of technologies in use, from the top to the bottom
of the stack and across a wide breadth of problem domains. A lot of the time
there are competing technologies.

No one engineer at Facebook is familiar with the sum of technologies worked on
by engineers at Facebook.

It stands to reason that recruiters are in the same boat.

So if someone comes to you and says "I've used Oberon, which is like Modula",
do you know if they're correct? You don't, really. They very well may be. But
the recruiter may also be dealing with one of the three dozen hopefuls every
day who are desperate to pitch that X is similar enough to Y that they should
be given a chance.

The recruiter was in the wrong. But at that size, there will always be
recruiters who are in the wrong. It's luck of the draw. I've dealt with two
Facebook recruiters in the past 4 years: one who misunderstood my résumé,
another who understands it quite well. These days I don't take it personally.

~~~
pweissbrod
If I'm a recruiter and an intelligent-sounding person comes to me and says
theyve used Oberon which is like Modula I would do 30 seconds research and
understand if that is true, maybe reach out to my peers for more info.

If I didnt bother accepting anything beyond an exact keyword match of
something I didnt understand then I was probably a lousy recruiter and likely
not worth my paycheck.

~~~
kichik
In your experience, does it make sense for Facebook to also hire low-level
recruiters to go over a mass of students? Would those recruiters be expected
to do the same?

~~~
pweissbrod
I'm not a recruiting manager. You cant really turn this situation around on
me.

I dont make the rules. If your job is procuring or selling a resource and you
have little/no appreciation of said resource then you're effectively a spam
bot.

Imagine a car salesman said to you "Im a low level guy. I dont really know
cars. But I bet you'd look great in this blue one". Does that sound acceptable
to you?

~~~
kichik
I misread your original comment as "I'm a recruiter but..."

------
arkadiytehgraet
I don't understand why you felt necessary to leave out the recruiter name. I
personally would really like to know this person and try to avoid her/him by
all means possible, saving me (and all the others, who will know him) a ton of
time and consequently punishing this recruiter for his incompetence and
inability to learn the actual thing he is recruiting for.

We (developers) want the recruiting, interviewing and hiring processes to be
improved and optimized to not let this sort of things happen again, yet when
it comes to actual actions to take, we just decide to post it as a "look,
another funny incompetent recruiter!" post. As time shows, this post will not
change anything and these people will continue harassing and denying
interviews for good developers. Today it was a fresh graduate; tomorrow it can
be me or you.

So please, do share the name of this recruiter.

~~~
Kluny
Doxxing/outing people here is probably against site rules, and if it's not,
it's still unprofessional and likely to reflect just as badly on the him as on
the recruiter. The recruiter can say to his boss, "shit, I didn't have enough
coffee that day!" and be forgiven; Stan won't get the same forgiveness.

~~~
arkadiytehgraet
It does not matter what recruiter says to his boss; what matters is that we
will know this person and avoid all contact with him; it is not his boss (as
if the boss cares) he should seek forgiveness from. Stan does not need
forgiveness for there is nothing to forgive him for; the only thing he will
get is respect for standing up for the gross incompetence and bullying.

------
beefsack
The cynic in me makes me think this was actually intentional by the recruiter
to gauge personality characteristics of the candidate. It's not entirely
implausable to think that corporations could use techniques like this to try
to measure social capabilities of technical people.

------
marktam264
so you didn't get the internship. did you get one with a different place,
after all of that? if not, do you think your response and this subsequent post
increase your marketability?

~~~
LeoNatan25
> _this subsequent post increase your marketability?_

It did in my eyes.

------
hohohmm
The recruiter is an idiot who doesn't really know the hiring requirement of
his/her employer, which is exactly the job he/she is supposed to do. Simple as
that. I marvel at people who can spin it as the student's bad communication.
Maybe you communicated your way to your current position? The recruiter is
tasked with a job to find appropriate candidates, and is apparently failing.
If it were to happen in my company I'll just fire the recruiter on the spot.

The lesson that should be learned: HR should have some technical background to
do technical hiring.

------
coverband
If true, this is truly hilarious. (I'm sure the young man will do fine with
another employer.)

------
zapperdapper
Oh this is hilarious. I was left wondering whether the recruiter was a real
person at all, or one of those Bots that FaceBook had to unplug.

Seriously though, this conversation is not completely untypical of some I've
had in the past. The technical knowledge of _some_ recruiters is, well, non-
existent. As has been pointed out they tend to keyword search, and well, if
you don't have exactly the right keyword you're toast.

------
SolarNet
A lot of people in this thread seem to believe people should remain ignorant
of technology. How many people understand how a car or airplane works - at
least in theory? A technology recruiter should be able to know this (or at
least pick it up on the job when polite explanations are given to them). And
it would be beneficial to broader society if people had at least a surface
level understanding of computers (like how airplanes generate lift, how
combustion engines work, and how source code is used; so that when someone
says Linux is a common variant of UNIX, they understand what that means from a
source code perspective).

Perhaps it's in our best interest to keep these people ignorant; we do get
paid a lot of money. Perhaps society has decided it's not important for most
people to know, and that it's alright to be ignorant (though this leads to
common problems we complain about every day). But whatever the reason, this
person was doing the right thing by trying to educate the person in a pretty
polite way. Sure he could play the game and get the job. But it's still
frustrating.

------
nhumrich
FWIW I think OP handled the situation well. A lot of commenters say, "just
role with it", but he did. He updated the resume to match what the recruiter
wanted, then the recruiter said, well... What about this? He gave an
explanation as to why his resume was still valid, and added that. I also think
he explained the issue very well, and communicated well. A no-win situation in
my eyes.

------
on_and_off
You are technically right but also very wrong.

Empathy is a critical skill in engineering. In this exchange you have shown to
be unable to understand what the recruiter's point of view.

You will encounter many similar situations in your career, especially when
working with people in areas of expertise different than yours.

Luckily, it is a skill, not a gift. So it is just up to you to get better at
it.

~~~
bsamuels
I'm sorry, but we're looking for social skills, not empathy. -Facebook
Recruiter

------
FuckOffNeemo
Was this conversation with a recruiter?

I'm hoping this is a yes. That was... incredibly difficult to read.

~~~
abhisuri97
Yes it is...

------
anonu
Working at a large corporation is knowing when to pick your battles. IMHO the
candidate failed before he even got started. Picking your battles means
figuring out if putting up a fight or being pedantic about something is worth
it. What are you getting out of it except for some sort of sense of "winning"
in the short term. Corporate survival is about thinking long term, and often
doing or saying something to keep moving forward. Not suggesting one iota to
compromise the quality of your work or your moral perspectives. Just saying
there's a delicate balance to surviving in any corporate setting.

------
lsmarigo
This bit in particular I think did you in:

 _Beyond software developers who have programmed in the 1970s, most people do
not have experience with a true UNIX OS, and I would find it hard to believe
that such outdated technologies are underpinning Facebook 's advanced
innovations._

These two sentences could easily be read as

"Hey idiot, no one since 70's era programmers have that experience, also I
think you're wrong about this requirement because I know better.

Dripping with condescension, but you're young and smart so understandable that
ego can swell. You've down tremendous self-awareness in your post here though,
clearly have a bright future!

~~~
trengrj
He is actually incorrect in this case as Mac OS is certified UNIX so is a UNIX
and not just UNIX-like [*]. If the recruiter was being clever and wanted the
applicant to understand the distinction or answer with the magic OS X words
I'd be impressed.

[https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/1489/is-mac-os-x-
un...](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/1489/is-mac-os-x-unix)

------
jrpelkonen
This exchange reminds me of this old Dilbert strip, one of my all time
favorites:
[http://dilbert.com/strip/1993-11-09](http://dilbert.com/strip/1993-11-09)

------
williamscales
The right answer is to say

"Oh, you're exactly right. I've updated my resume accordingly.

...//Unix //Linux"

and have that be the end of it. What is the point of arguing here but to prove
some kind of imagined superiority?

~~~
nandemo
"Ha! He's lying on his resume! Rejected".

------
machz
Some recruiters can truly get on your nerves. I once applied to Expedia; the
recruiter once called and asked me what's an 'Epic' (from Agile Methodology).
That was my first call after email communication. I expected the HR guy to ask
questions about my experience and setup an interview time with an engineer. I
just didn't get why asking for a definition of keywords from the Agile Method
was the first step in their interviewing process at all!

------
Jdam
I'm so tired of this Linux/Unix/Posix religious BS. Earning money with
software development for 7+ years now and mostly using macOS, Suse and Ubuntu
(to precisely name it), I'm wondering if this Posix debate is applicable
anywhere outside school and Wikipedia.

Of course, the recruiter is just a recruiter but with this "I know it all &
better"-attitude, when the intention was absolutely clear, having no deal was
the right choice for fb.

------
mathattack
Were they begging the OP to lie? Or perhaps it was a chatbot?

~~~
cracell
No it was a non-technical recruiter just looking to check off their box that
the person had "UNIX" experience.

------
royalharsh95
Somebody once referred me to a role at Facebook. I never got a response from
the recruitment team. After emailing them, one of the recruiters told that
their referral platform has some issues. After that I never got a response
from any recruiter, I tried reaching out to different recruiters on LinkedIn
but none responded. I suppose they have a shitty recruiting team.

------
jtanderson
Reading through the comments about the "recruit by grep" methods made me
wonder: what are the chances this was a Facebook chatbot instead of a human
recruiter? Anybody in the know able to say whether it would have that level of
conversational fluidity (e.g. "Thanks for the tutorial but..." sounds a bit
too human to me)?

------
walrus1066
You should have just appended UNIX to the CV and been done with it. You just
have to play the game and keep a long 'experience tuple' of keywords.

The recruiter was basically trying to help you, most would have just filtered
you out and not even replied.

Recruiters don't have technical experience, so don't expect them to understand
the nuances of OSes etc.

~~~
pmlnr
> Recruiters don't have technical experience, so don't expect them to
> understand the nuances of OSes etc.

Yes, you should. If they don't understand what they should be looking for in a
CV, they should not be recruiting for the position.

------
robocat
Good summary of difference between Linux and Unix:

[http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-vs-unix-crucial-
differenc...](http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/linux-vs-unix-crucial-differences-
matter-linux-professionals/)

"Mac OS X is also a certified Unix operating system".

------
Cursuviam
Hey recruiters,

At the point that it became clear that there was a technical misunderstand,
would you find it condescending to say something like, "I think there's a
misunderstanding over this qualification for `foo` position. Could we clear it
up with a `foo` engineer who is working on this stack?

------
threecleartones
Just send the recruiter to the Linux Wikipedia article and have them read the
first line:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux)

------
fellellor
Wow. Great thread. I'm personally waiting for n-gate's take on this.

------
_anonymous
Most recruiter are relatively idiots, and obviously do not know how to talk to
super-smart people. Lesson to learn here is to stop apologizing, and start
learning how to exploit their idiocy instead.

------
foo-man-chu
Part of working in the industry is learning to work with recruiters.

~~~
MatthiasP
Or with other people in general.

------
real-hacker
The HR person should at least understand the very basic technical terms,
a.k.a, what it is and how are they related.

I know HR/headhunters who think Hadoop/AWS are programming languages.

------
Zelmor
Bio-droid recruiter. You shouldn't feel bad about it. Hopefully these sort of
obstacles will be removed with automation of recruiting processes.

------
Gonzih
HR is basically keyword matching nowadays, person doing hiring is completely
unaware of intricate details of the domain, it applies not just for IT.

------
seorphates
Sooo, no UNIX, then?

------
banhfun
I wish I went to a prestigious enough university for a Facebook recruiter to
reach out to me for internship opportunities.

~~~
oculusthrift
but id you did, youd be so arrogant from your perceived IQ that youd blow the
chance with your response email

------
acd10j
I am updating my resume to list Unix to Unix Like , did not thought that i was
lying on my resume till this date.

------
mcbits
> We're looking for experience in Linux and Unix, not just Unix-like OS.

...

> We're looking for students with experience working on Linux and Unix.

What the recruiter said - twice - was pretty clear and matter-of-fact. Why
does everyone assume it's not true? They could indeed be filtering out
candidates whose "Unix" experience is limited to Linux.

------
andreygrehov
Interesting. I almost feel like he spoke to an ai chat bot. Could that be the
case?

------
speiestaaim0
Ad: we're looking for guitarists Candidate: I have experience with guitar like
instruments Recruiter: can you play guitar? Candidate: as I explained, I have
experience with guitar like instruments. I have played a couple of fretted
string instruments. Recruiter: do you play guitar? .... ..

------
stesch
So the people who are currently working at Facebook do so because they lied?

------
justinjlynn
Robots are going to do what robots are going to do.

------
Ice_cream_suit
Cutting off your nose to spite your face...

------
beckystreet
yeah she's not known for being the kindest person around..

------
fiatjaf
Unless you value money over all the other goods in the world, why would you
want to work for Facebook?

~~~
nandemo
Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

Besides, there are other upsides: you get to work at a company that values
developers, you'll have lots of competent colleagues and you'll learn a lot,
and you'll work at a product that hundreds of millions of people love.

------
gargarplex
Facepalm. Somebody show this to Zuck. Change needs to begin at the top.

EDIT: Is it possible that they actually want people with actual UNIX
experience? They are recruiting students. Maybe they want someone who has used
an actual UNIX system on some kind of emulator for some sort of secret retro
initiative.

EDIT2:
[http://www.jbox.dk/sanos/pdp11.htm](http://www.jbox.dk/sanos/pdp11.htm)

~~~
foo101
Did you read the email exchange carefully? The Facebook recruiter did not ask
for experience with the AT&T Unix systsem of 1970s. The candidate perhaps
assumed that incorrectly.

Facebook asked for actual Linux and Unix experience which indeed many people
who have worked on GNU/Linux systems like CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, etc. and
Unix systems like AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, etc. have.

~~~
gargarplex
Truth be told, I didn't remember there is a distinction between Unix and UNIX.
I also didn't know/remember that Solaris and AIX are proper Unixes. These are
probably things that a systems developer should know. Given this distinction,
I am starting to empathize with the recruiter – when an unqualified candidate
is trying to sell me / pedant me on something they're actually unqualified to
talk about.

