If You Came to Interview With Us
startup
I have been looking for people continuously for a while now — found online, introduced by friends, machine-learning researchers, technical and non-technical roles — and I have spoken directly or indirectly with a great many of them. Here is the recruiter’s view of what tends to leave a poor impression in an interview. These are personal opinions; I hope they help, and I am happy to be argued with. (Everything below is void for anyone with an unusual enough background.)
First: the CV. For me and most candidates, the CV is the first exchange we have. So presenting one that is logically clear and plainly written really does seem essential to a good first impression. List education simply. Describe your professional background systematically. Where an experience stands out, explain it in a little more detail. Avoid long sentences wherever you can, and use the layout to separate the sections cleanly. I imagine you can read this advice in many places — but it genuinely, genuinely matters. Once it is written, show it to a friend with some visual taste and let them tidy it up. If you cannot find one, then check it yourself: consistent indentation and alignment, one typeface, no typos. As for a photograph, I personally think you can take it or leave it; a professionally styled portrait is a little strange.
Second: still the CV. Before you come in, go back and reread what you wrote on it. For anything within the last year, you should be able to state clearly what led to what and why. For anything within the last six months, you should be able to answer on the technical details. Your interviewer will certainly ask carefully about whatever you have highlighted, so prepare it properly. Otherwise you get the case where the answer to “what are you strongest at?” is “linear algebra”, followed by an inability to diagonalise a matrix. For my own part, I do not put much weight on thinking on your feet, because plenty of problems at work are ones I cannot solve on the spot either — I go and look things up. So when a candidate tells me they prepared specifically for this interview, I think that is a genuinely good sign.
Third: understand the role, and the company you might be joining. Some companies — ours among them — have very little material online, and a lot of the detail simply cannot be looked up. But if a candidate can tell me what they did manage to find, and bring specific questions about the company and about how the role relates to them, I am close to moved. How much you can say here, and how valuable your questions are, is genuinely a matter of what you put in: nobody can know us deeply, so the information you gather is more or less proportional to the time you spend. When I was job-hunting I would usually write a cover letter aimed at a particular company or role. Many positions no longer ask for one, but you should still prepare to the standard of being able to write it.
The rest really does come down to ability. The summary above is fairly general, but broadly:
- A concise, logical CV.
- Know yourself (be fluent in your own CV) and know the other side (understand the role you are interviewing for).
I have kept it general on purpose, so that you can hold it against your own situation and ask whether you have prepared enough.
We are also still looking for people with experience in computer-aided drug design (CADD) and Python engineering. Do get in touch.