Feedback.

Yes, indeed I am still very much unemployed. I have had a couple of video interviews that have sadly been unsuccessful. One of the interviews I did was with someone I used to work with so there was no hiding place in that one. There were two pieces of telling feedback from them. The first was that they thought that maybe the learning curve in the job might be too much for me. They thought I was too "Product based" and they were "Project-based" which I absolutely understand but I think I could easily transition to that kind of work process but they obviously did not feel that. I should cotton on to that in the interview but did not at the time. The second piece of feedback was actually quite interesting and did make me sit up to think. They thought I was too negative about my previous employer and my experience there; which as I have already documented was not exactly a happy one.

This has got me thinking about how do you go about talking about previous employment experiences especially if it was not a happy one? No matter how I think about it I tend not to come off good about what happened. I have tried to paint the picture that I thought that this was a great opportunity however it very soon turned sour as I thought I was doing the wrong type of job and the companies expectations were totally unrealistic. I have also tried to show that I was doing some good there but trying to get their testing more formalised in Dev Ops. Perhaps even saying something like that is too much. It has made me think that I need to just say the job just did not work out for me or for the company. What happens if they dig deeper I will just have to tread very carefully. I do not want to sound like some bitter individual, which by the sounds of it might of happened in that interview. I am not that downhearted as they did say to apply again as they are expanding and will be recruiting again.

It's not all bad I've had another vid interview recently and the person seemed quite relaxed about my previous gig. The interview got off to a great start when the person said that they were impressed by my answers to some questions they had asked during the application. I am waiting for their feedback and potential second interview which will be more technical- something that I dread as they will either ask me to write SQL or do some code! 

My journey with Python is very start, stop, stop, start. Sometimes I think things are clicking into place and then boom when I try a challenge I can not seem to convert the concepts into piratical code. I get somethings right but for the most part, completely stumped most of the time! I guess I have to remember that is learning and I will spend a good amount of time with my head in my hands. So if I do get a second interview I will just have to do my best or write some pseudo code as I do understand the general flow of code, it's just he syntax that is getting me!

Ok away from Testing. I have just finished Chuck Wendigs opus "Wanderers". It has taken me a while mainly because the concentration levels have fallen through the floor. If you like the big sprawling end of the world stories then go and dive in. There are probably things that some people will not like about it. Yes, it is a bit preachy in places and the story does weave about. Chuck wrote this before the Covid outbreak but somethings in the book pretty happened in real-time while I was reading it...cept the whole end of the human race. Might not touch Stephen King's "The Stand" but still worth a read. 

Over and out.

B