Sometimes the Recruiter Does Know Better

R.F. of Newburyport, MA (who's among the few good ones in Mass) sent me to a pre-screening interview with a company in Boxboro, MA.

He gave me a "cheat sheet" with things that the hiring manager is known to ask and advised me to read & follow it.

Indeed the hiring manager did just that but I kinda blew it as did not follow the script -- I answered the question with a twist. As to other topics I was asked I gave the answers with practical/historical examples of why and how. Maybe I was a bit didactical.

He didn't quite like that and turned me down. The feed-back was that he did not like the way I communicated. In my defense I must say that I was tired (I always sleep badly before an interview) so maybe I missed a few cues verbal or not when interacting with the guy.

Moral is if you know the recruiter is good and he/she gives you good advice about a certain employer then you'd better follow it.

Jul 7 update: It appears that C**ssbeam is still advertising the job till this day. The hiring manager was complaining about not finding people skilled enough (he was looking for somebody who could maintain their own kernel patches, port them forward to new releases and possibly pushing them into mainline Linux).

On the other hand I suspect based on his need for scripted interaction and inflexibility in interacting with me that he has his own problems in dealing with (new) people.

In hindsight the moral is this: if I were desperate to get the job I should have sang to his tune and jumped as high as he told me to. On the other hand this interaction pattern would have extended into my employment there and I am anything but a yesman.

-ulianov