Today, a hiring manager in my company told us a story. This manager is one of the only managers I respect in my company locally. He has a technical track record and knows what he's saying. His story is about one of the interviews he had.
Manager says: Earlier this week I interviewed one FW candidate from [an MNC in Penang]. He is the classic case of engineer with shaky FW foundation but good talker.
Manager says: He claimed to be a USB expert, so I ask him what he does ?He said he did everything USB, from USB firmware to USB WDM driver and SW application.
Manager : OK, describe what you did in USB firmware, what device classes you implemented ?
Candidate : Oh, I wrote the USB endpoints, bulk in/out, transfers.
Manager : How about device class ?
Candidate : I am the key person in USB, the USB communicate through bulk-in/out.
Manager says: It seems that he doesn't know much about device classes.
Manager: What end products are you making ?
Candidate: some multimedia streaming products.
Manager: So to make the multimedia product work with PC, both must agree on a set of protocol & FSM behaviour, what is it that you implemented ?
Manager says: When pressed, he told me the truth.
Candidate: Actually once we signed the NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), the semiconductor company gives us very good & working USB drivers.
Manager says: I guess he is more like a coordinator.
Manager : In our case, doing USB drivers is not a simple matter of signing NDA.
Manager : What did you do in WDM driver ?
Candidate : I have to modify/enhance Microsoft drivers, there are a lot of bugs in MS drivers.
Manager : So how many team members do you have in your USB project ?
Candidate: 3.
Manager : What are these 3 doing ?
Candidate: 1 HW, 1 SW app, 1 driver.
Manager : You claimed to be the key person doing all thing USB, but now you tell me there are 2 other persons doing SW app & driver ?
Manager says: This guy is not even a good liar.
Candidate: Oh, they do it, I do follow up and fix some bugs.
Manager says: Maybe he is a Project Manager pretend to be a technical expert too ?
Manager says: His good attribute is that he can laugh even when I placed him in awkward situation.
There we go. The helpless situation of local talent. This guy is employed! The unemployable ones are even worse. They probably don't even know what USB is.
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3 comments:
Why your manager still hired this guy?
I think I should just forget about the school, and learn to laugh at my awkward moments. Hmmm...
No, the manager did not hire the guy. If he did and he told us the story, I would've lost all respect for him :)
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