<story><title>Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews</title><url>http://blog.interviewing.io/impostor-syndrome-strikes-men-just-as-hard-as-women-and-other-findings-from-thousands-of-technical-interviews/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ravenstine</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s another similar problem that I&amp;#x27;m seeing that I don&amp;#x27;t think has been pointed out before.&lt;p&gt;Recently, I&amp;#x27;ve been applying for web developer positions and am coming across applications with these sorts of questions:&lt;p&gt;- What&amp;#x27;s the coolest thing you&amp;#x27;ve done both in life and at work?&lt;p&gt;- What are your dreams?&lt;p&gt;- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?&lt;p&gt;I certainly do have answers for these questions, but I can&amp;#x27;t tell if they&amp;#x27;re the ones that employers want to hear.  And are these things for other random people to know?&lt;p&gt;There are things I&amp;#x27;ve done that &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; think are cool, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily mean that most people will think they are cool.  Honestly, there really isn&amp;#x27;t anything about my life that is conventionally cool, even by the standards of the nerdiest nerds.  Should my life have been more unique and exciting by this point?&lt;p&gt;The same can basically be said of my dreams, although I do not aspire for big dreams.  I haven&amp;#x27;t made enough money yet to even think about anything more grandiose than simply living comfortably.  Do my dreams need to be more exciting?  Should I be shooting the moon?  I feel like any honest answer I give to the question will sound disappointing to any startup.&lt;p&gt;Should I see myself anywhere in particular in 10 years?  Beyond making more money and taking on more responsibilities in my career, where should I be in 10 years?  My field evolves so rapidly that I can&amp;#x27;t honestly predict that far ahead, let alone 5 years into the future.  But maybe I&amp;#x27;m not cut out for what I do if I can&amp;#x27;t see that far ahead?&lt;p&gt;I could very well be what&amp;#x27;s wrong in the picture, but it seems to me like we are culturally intolerant of &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; people who have a skill and want to make a living.  Everyone needs to have dreams, grand aspirations, and a little clairvoyance.  I tend to have pretty high confidence, but seeing this kind of language when applying for jobs does stir up that feeling of imposterhood in me.</text></item><item><author>twoquestions</author><text>It doesn&amp;#x27;t help that job ads are wanting &amp;quot;Top 3% only!&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Only top 1% Ninja Rockstars need apply!&amp;quot;.  Kind of reminds me of the market for singers or concert pianists, you &lt;i&gt;absolutely need&lt;/i&gt; to be the best, even imperceptibly worse makes you unemployable.&lt;p&gt;Should those of us who aren&amp;#x27;t top 5%&amp;#x2F;didn&amp;#x27;t go to a top school just find another industry, one where sub-perfect work doesn&amp;#x27;t actively make other people&amp;#x27;s jobs harder?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>alxlaz</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve made a point for myself to never ask questions like &amp;quot;what are your dreams&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;where do you see yourself in 10 years&amp;quot; in an interview, ever. For a long time, I&amp;#x27;ve used these as a filter, too. Getting this kind of question in an interview is a big red flag for me and a huge disappointment.&lt;p&gt;Let me elaborate a little.&lt;p&gt;My dreams are none of an interviewer&amp;#x27;s bloody business. I&amp;#x27;m here to work not share the things that give me hope in my darkest moments or the aspirations that shaped my adulthood. I find this question very creepy and extremely unprofessional.&lt;p&gt;I could maybe figure out a &amp;quot;lesser dream&amp;quot; to share, but then what&amp;#x27;s the point of this question? To find out the most intimate thing that I&amp;#x27;d be willing to share?&lt;p&gt;Where I see myself in ten years is a meaningless question to ask after I&amp;#x27;ve had, what, fifteen minutes of exposure to a company&amp;#x27;s culture? Maybe I&amp;#x27;m the kind of person who sees themselves in management over ten years, but you&amp;#x27;ve got such an amazing working culture that you could convince the most ambitious career builder to stick to engineering instead. Or vice-versa. Or do you really want to hire the kind of people who get an idea in their head, and then &lt;i&gt;do it&lt;/i&gt;, even if it takes them ten years and it&amp;#x27;s really, really, really bad idea?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve heard all sorts of ways to justify these things. That it&amp;#x27;s a way to see if a candidate can relate to you and evaluate their empathy -- if anything, this will say more about an interviewer&amp;#x27;s biases than about anything else. To see if a candidate can communicate about abstract matters -- as if there are not countless questions about ethics, aesthetics and epistemology in our profession that you need to start prying into personal things. That it&amp;#x27;s a way to see if they&amp;#x27;re &amp;quot;career-oriented&amp;quot;, whatever that means, as if someone who writes amazing code but wouldn&amp;#x27;t hustle for a promotion is a bad hire.&lt;p&gt;So far, it hasn&amp;#x27;t turned out to be a bad idea.</text></comment>
<story><title>Impostor syndrome strikes men just as hard as women in technical interviews</title><url>http://blog.interviewing.io/impostor-syndrome-strikes-men-just-as-hard-as-women-and-other-findings-from-thousands-of-technical-interviews/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ravenstine</author><text>There&amp;#x27;s another similar problem that I&amp;#x27;m seeing that I don&amp;#x27;t think has been pointed out before.&lt;p&gt;Recently, I&amp;#x27;ve been applying for web developer positions and am coming across applications with these sorts of questions:&lt;p&gt;- What&amp;#x27;s the coolest thing you&amp;#x27;ve done both in life and at work?&lt;p&gt;- What are your dreams?&lt;p&gt;- Where do you see yourself in 10 years?&lt;p&gt;I certainly do have answers for these questions, but I can&amp;#x27;t tell if they&amp;#x27;re the ones that employers want to hear.  And are these things for other random people to know?&lt;p&gt;There are things I&amp;#x27;ve done that &lt;i&gt;I&lt;/i&gt; think are cool, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily mean that most people will think they are cool.  Honestly, there really isn&amp;#x27;t anything about my life that is conventionally cool, even by the standards of the nerdiest nerds.  Should my life have been more unique and exciting by this point?&lt;p&gt;The same can basically be said of my dreams, although I do not aspire for big dreams.  I haven&amp;#x27;t made enough money yet to even think about anything more grandiose than simply living comfortably.  Do my dreams need to be more exciting?  Should I be shooting the moon?  I feel like any honest answer I give to the question will sound disappointing to any startup.&lt;p&gt;Should I see myself anywhere in particular in 10 years?  Beyond making more money and taking on more responsibilities in my career, where should I be in 10 years?  My field evolves so rapidly that I can&amp;#x27;t honestly predict that far ahead, let alone 5 years into the future.  But maybe I&amp;#x27;m not cut out for what I do if I can&amp;#x27;t see that far ahead?&lt;p&gt;I could very well be what&amp;#x27;s wrong in the picture, but it seems to me like we are culturally intolerant of &amp;quot;normal&amp;quot; people who have a skill and want to make a living.  Everyone needs to have dreams, grand aspirations, and a little clairvoyance.  I tend to have pretty high confidence, but seeing this kind of language when applying for jobs does stir up that feeling of imposterhood in me.</text></item><item><author>twoquestions</author><text>It doesn&amp;#x27;t help that job ads are wanting &amp;quot;Top 3% only!&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Only top 1% Ninja Rockstars need apply!&amp;quot;.  Kind of reminds me of the market for singers or concert pianists, you &lt;i&gt;absolutely need&lt;/i&gt; to be the best, even imperceptibly worse makes you unemployable.&lt;p&gt;Should those of us who aren&amp;#x27;t top 5%&amp;#x2F;didn&amp;#x27;t go to a top school just find another industry, one where sub-perfect work doesn&amp;#x27;t actively make other people&amp;#x27;s jobs harder?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>i_cant_speel</author><text>Imagining coming up with an answer to something cool that has happened in my life makes me feel anxious.  I have lived a pretty happy and fulfilling life up until this point but I  can&amp;#x27;t think of one thing that I&amp;#x27;ve done that would be &lt;i&gt;super cool&lt;/i&gt; to talk about. I hope I never have to answer that question.</text></comment>