Be an unideal candidate

Good job of being you instead

When I went through my interview with the engineering lead after carefully researching the company today, I realized, “Shit, this is totally different from what I expected.”

They asked me some stuff about why I left my past job, trying to see what kind of person I am. “Ownership, ownership, ownership,” the interviewer insisted. Sadly, my previous responses seemed to show that I didn’t fully embrace ownership.

Well…should I compensate now? Many thoughts were whirling in my mind. But my answer represents who I am. Nowadays, I am very careful of saying that I can take lots of ownership because from my past experience, I learned that ownership might actually mean, “Go figure out everything yourself. No one is gotta help you.” or “We love ownership if you do things I like, but if not, that your responsibility.”

Ahhh f**k it, so I rolled with whatever I said and drilled down to it. I asked,

• In this case, how does the team manage the conflicts of interest between ownership and collaboration? What if everyone just wants to drive their output?

• How do you trust people and give them ownership? All my managers love to say so, but at the end of the day, people want control.

• What do you learn as a manager here?

Rather than proving myself, I gave him questions to think about. It’s not really about testing what kind of manager he is, those questions are genuine questions in me about ownership and management.

In the end, it’s an inspiring conversation. Because they are real questions we face when we learn how to collaborate with people, not some random BS that people discussed during an interview. Everyone in the interviews loves to show they are perfect, a perfect candidate, or a perfect company. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to choices. Do you rather have a great collaboration but slower on the result or you rather accomplish fast but sacrifice how people feel?

So the end of the story is... If the interviewer loved it or hated it, I don’t know. Would I get in? I don’t know. But did that matter that much if I really tried to find the right place though? Because I've learned that if I know what I want and who I am, why should how people want me to be stop me from being myself?

Nowadays I understand why people are painful in the job search process is not only about rejection but the confusion of fitting into too many boxes and eventually being confused about who they are and what they are worth. Unfortunately, Esther is too stubborn and too honest to pretend she is other people.

So I patted my shoulder, bought myself a hot chocolate, and said, “Good job of being you.” And I go on with my day.

Side note: Questions to challenge all managers

I realized I should actually push those managers more when they are BSing. For instance, a question to drill down on what is ownership for you mean will be:

Let’s say you agree on the outcome with A. But that person did it in a way you hate. Your mind was thinking, “Oh, I haven’t considered X, Y, Z when we discussed that. This might be more important for the users.” How do you handle the situation?