As part of my 72 seasons (Sorry Lars! Hope you do not sue!) mentoring program, I have been reviewing content together with this half-year’s cohort about effective interviewing and how to spot red flags in a potential interview setting. Today, I am going to write a few words about one easy to miss red flag that few folks, if any, seem to talk about.
As RTO and hybrid modes of working are becoming more common across the board, if you get an interview, there is a good chance at some point it will be an on-site visit. Among of the things that you want to look out for, pay attention to the walls and the whiteboards (or any writable surface for that matter). What information is conveyed there?
Writable walls (or at the very least extensive whiteboards) are excellent means to convey information. For the sake of the conversation you are applying to a company that identifies as a tech company for an engineering role. Let’s drill it down to three out of many possible outcomes – extrapolating the rest is left as an easy exercise to the reader.
- Case 1: They are left blank. Unless there are specific privacy requirements, this is not a great sign. Exposing information for all to see and discuss is a good sign of inherent transparency. Lack of any information whatsoever might be an indicator of information hoarding or, at the very least, difficulties in sharing and a restricted flow of information.
- Case 2: Diagrams, that might have seen recent activity, code snippets, maybe an xkcd printed out, you know what I mean. This is a good sign, it demonstrates that information is shared and possibly discussed, revised and acted upon.
- Case 3: A dearth of group multi-color stickers. Watch out folks, agine is in effect. While agile per se is not evil, places that think that the single most important thing to be displayed are stickers from whatever agile frameworks du jour ceremonies tend to have a skewed power structure. The implicit statement is that you – the engineer examining the place – most likely you will be not very high up the food chain and expect a lot of seagulls and whatnot. There is only one and only one possible way this will turn up great for you: make an 180 and start running.
- Bonus case: this does not apply everywhere but is mentioned here for the sake of completeness. If there is an option to check the actual place around (so offices in ‘GIGACHAD COPR’ might not be eligible for this signal, owing to physical security requirements) and you do net a chance to have a look, same rules as above apply: 180, Run, Thank me later.
Usual caveats apply: YMMV and of course, the above are simplifications. In case you were wondering “hey! Where’s our music analogy?” – well, it’s in the title, case you missed it.
Athanasios Kostopoulos 