Tales From the Intervie... Or not


  • Garbage Person

    So I'm presently jobhunting in earnest. I think I'm going to resolve to stop applying at federal contractors - they all seem to be batshit insane - and the more closely related to the military they are, the worse they get.


    This morning, I received an offer from a place that wants to give me a Top Secret+SCI security clearance (which, for you foreign people, is as high end as you get as a civilian)... And never bothered to interview me. No shit - I don't even know where their office is located. Maybe that's sensitive comparmentalized information and I won't find out until the clearance process is over? I am trying VERY hard not to accept this offer and hang around just long enough to get cleared and then [i]run like hell[/i]. 

    In the past month, I've had all of the following happen - almost all from different places:
    1) Received a spectacular lowball offer (more than $20000 below entry level pay in DC) for a 'senior' position
    2) Had a phone screen where the hardest question was "what is web.config for" - and was apparently the first person to answer it correctly (I'll bet those of you who aren't .net developers can at least take a good stab at it)
    3) Had a phone screener INSIST that my resume said I have prior military service and had attained the lofty rank of Colonel (protip: I'm in my mid-20's. The last time there were colonels in their 20's we were fighting the nazis)
    4) Had a recruiter that insists on starting every conversation with "It's kind of a long commute but..." - yeah dude. I know. I live in the wilderness. It takes me half an hour to get to the grocery store. Accept my answer of 'Yes to all' in terms of commute questions and get on with the business of selling me like a piece of meat.
    5) Had several promising leads completely evaporate because the the Republicans and Democrats decided to play chicken.



  • @Weng said:

    2) Had a phone screen where the hardest question was "what is web.config for" - and was apparently the first person to answer it correctly (I'll bet those of you who aren't .net developers can at least take a good stab at it)



    web.config is how spiderman controls those things on his wrist, right?



  • @Weng said:

    2) Had a phone screen where the hardest question was "what is web.config for" - and was apparently the first person to answer it correctly (I'll bet those of you who aren't .net developers can at least take a good stab at it)

    Is it something from Apache? Where it says which mods to use and such? Those kind of settings that can sometimes be overwritten with .htaccess files? ... No wait, I think that's httpd.conf or something... what the fuck is web.config?



  • @Weng said:

    The last time there were colonels in their 20's we were fighting the nazis
    Clearly you need to arrange a fight with those puppies in bstorer's signature:


    These puppies are Nazis. They aren't being obvious about it, but I can tell.

    @Lord abletran said:

    Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na SPIDER MANNNNNNN!
    I didn't know Spiderman played Katamari.



  • @Weng said:

     the Republicans and Democrats decided to play chicken.

    This.

    We were worried about this, even made contingency plans (vacation without pay), so far we haven't need to implement it.



  • @Weng said:

    This morning, I received an offer from a place that wants to give me a Top Secret+SCI security clearance (which, for you foreign people, is as high end as you get as a civilian)... And never bothered to interview me. No shit - I don't even know where their office is located. Maybe that's sensitive comparmentalized information and I won't find out until the clearance process is over?

    You won't find ANYTHING out until you actually get the clearance.  No interview is of course dumb, but after you get hired is when the security clearance starts, and they can only make guesses as to who will actually be able to get it.  You might be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for 6 months before you get it, but you won't get any sensitive information until you get the clearance.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Sutherlands said:

    You won't find ANYTHING out until you actually get the clearance.  No interview is of course dumb, but after you get hired is when the security clearance starts, and they can only make guesses as to who will actually be able to get it.  You might be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for 6 months before you get it, but you won't get any sensitive information until you get the clearance.

    Yes, but the office address is generally not considered sensitive information.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Sutherlands said:
    You won't find ANYTHING out until you actually get the clearance.  No interview is of course dumb, but after you get hired is when the security clearance starts, and they can only make guesses as to who will actually be able to get it.  You might be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for 6 months before you get it, but you won't get any sensitive information until you get the clearance.
    Yes, but the office address is generally not considered sensitive information.

    Unless it is that place... the one that can not be named



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Sutherlands said:
    You won't find ANYTHING out until you actually get the clearance.  No interview is of course dumb, but after you get hired is when the security clearance starts, and they can only make guesses as to who will actually be able to get it.  You might be sitting around twiddling your thumbs for 6 months before you get it, but you won't get any sensitive information until you get the clearance.
    Yes, but the office address is generally not considered sensitive information.

    Unless it is that place... the one that can not be named



  • @Weng said:

    This morning, I received an offer from a place that wants to give me a Top Secret+SCI security clearance
    Are you in California?  Most of the dev jobs there are freaking Top Secret.



  • @derula said:

    what the fuck is web.config?

    Obviously it webs the config.



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    @derula said:
    what the fuck is web.config?

    Obviously it webs the config.

    Thanks for clarification :)


  • Garbage Person

    @hoodaticus said:

    @Weng said:

    This morning, I received an offer from a place that wants to give me a Top Secret+SCI security clearance
    Are you in California?  Most of the dev jobs there are freaking Top Secret.

    Negative. Baltimore/DC.

     

    And then today I got a cold call from a certain very large Interweb company, who inferred from my having GPL'd a C# project that I'm totally all about the opensource-based C++ and the Pythons and the Perls and the Linuxes. But that's alright, because the GPL is so damned hippythey might have assumed the # was a typo.


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