

Will You Hire Me? I Have Not Used Your Product. - jeffmorrisjr
https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/cb3e44823cee

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incision
_> "If the candidate did not take the time to use your product, why are they
sitting in your office asking for a job?"_

Because my personal level of interest in what exactly you're selling may have
little/nothing to do with my ability to deliver and passion to improve the
infrastructure you use.

I'd say it's certainly a good thing if a person understands and is passionate
about your product end-to-end, but it's a bit much to try and make a hard and
fast requirement.

By the way, I'd never heard of Zaarly and found it a bit irritating that I had
to scroll through 3 pages of marketing with four uses of "amazing" (The new
beautiful?) to find the small "Purchase shippable items from select
communities »" link in order to see what exactly the site is offering.

~~~
eshvk
> Because my personal level of interest in what exactly you're selling may
> have little/nothing to do with my ability to deliver and passion to improve
> the infrastructure you use.

I agree. The problem with our industry is that people want it both ways. They
still have the old model of thinking of a servant who is "asking for a job".
They also want someone who is a collaborative partner who might actually
extend your product in cool, different ways. Now, I am going to go ahead and
point fingers at an exec (CTO, VP, Products etc) who goes in, hasn't used that
product. However, an engineer, really? He needs that level of abstraction in
order to be competent at the job? If I am making the pipes faster, I think
abstractions at the stage of an interview for me to talk about pipes without
having to worry about the color of your house are fine. After all, it is not
like the stuff that I am interested in: how ugly your codebase looks comes up
by me perusing your shiny site which was probably outsourced.

Side Digression on the phrase "asking for a job". I always find it amusing
when I get on the phone with a company after they contact me. Then they ask me
the phrase: "Why do you want to work for us?". Rarely, if ever, is the
unanswered question addressed: 'Why do _you_ want to work with me, the
candidate?'

~~~
incision
_> "They also want someone who is a collaborative partner who might actually
extend your product in cool, different ways."_

I wonder how many people _really_ want that versus wanting a skillful
automaton to execute their vision or worse, are simply giving lip-service.

 _> I always find it amusing when I get on the phone with a company after they
contact me. Then they ask me the phrase: "Why do you want to work for us?"._

So true. The last company to contact me did exactly that. I mentioned that
they had in fact contacted me, but proceeded to explain just why I honestly
how like to work for them.

A recruiting pitch that starts with a basic "Why we want you." could be pretty
powerful.

------
barylen
You don't have to be the real audience for your own product.

I've done interviews with e-commerce sites and can say I have never bought
anything from any of the ones I interviewed with, but I have dedicated some
time to observe the flow (maybe get to the point of paying and cancelling
there).

Forcing me to purchase something just to be allowed to interview is an
obnoxious barrier.

