Interviewing for associate level position this week: requires “expert” knowledge | Hacker News Reader

Interviewing for associate level position this week: requires “expert” knowledge

1 pointasynchronousjs4 comments

hi, hacker newsies:

i have a job interview this week for an associate-level web ui developer position. requirements for this job are "At least one year of production-level experience in web or application development" (of which i have almost 2), and "Expert knowledge of JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, and CSS" (which i do not have). i have great breadth and depth of javascript and jquery. i love studying them and learning best practices, but i would never call myself an expert. same goes for HTML. my weakest point is CSS, but i'm always able to accomplish what i need to with it and am constantly striving to learn and grow. despite my flaws, i am extremely passionate about these technologies and love seeing the amazing things they can do. i want this job.

these two requirements seem to be at odds to me: if they're willing to consider a candidate with one year's experience, how can that candidate be an expert at anything? how do i address my shortcomings without sounding like i can't do the job? i have connections at this company -- i've worked with one of the current directors on an ecom project and one of my references worked there as a sr dev, but obviously i cannot depend on that alone to secure this job. i've never had a true technical interview and i am anxious about all of this. any advice would be fantastic.

thank you!

> "Expert knowledge of JavaScript, jQuery, HTML, and CSS" (which i do not have). i have great breadth and depth of javascript and jquery.

Which is it really? You are confusing me :P

> i want this job.

This is what makes you the best candidate. Show them you're really interested. Don't falter.

---

Long story short: You'll be fine, and here's why:

That job posting you saw is a generic HR post. Typical "big net hiring" - HR throws very broad job post to attract people. If the company was really serious in finding "experts", they'd post the specific technologies used. If I were looking for an expert, I'd put in "Looking for front-end dev, specifically React and SASS". That would already imply that you know a lot of the front end to end up using SASS and React. Without this, you'll probably end up doing front-end design, layouting, a few dabs of JS here and there, nothing really serious.

There's usually an implicit message with job postings. "a year" is not enough to become an expert in the technology, but is enough to experience handling the kind of work. By that, it means you know how to handle the management, the clients, the sudden changes of schedules, the policies, the extra hours of work, deadlines and so forth. A few months is all it needs to drive away someone who can't take it. If you managed several years already, congratulations!

thank you for the feedback! i just had the interview today and it went very well. at the end, he went over compensation and benefits and said he'd be sending me an offer letter asap :)

>This is what makes you the best candidate. Show them you're really interested. Don't falter.

i hit this one hard. he asked me, "why are you looking to leave [current job]?" and i said, "i'm not looking to leave [current job]. i'm looking to join [his organization]." that got his attention!

Don't worry too much about it. Job requirements are ridiculously inflated and mostly meaningless. With your 2 years of experience, you should be fine talking your way through.

I saw (no exaggeration) some job postings the other day for "QA Intern" requiring 2 years of experience with Java, Selenium, Jira, and a half dozen other tools.

Job ads are absurdist these days. If you meet the main requirement, you apply and bluff your way through the rest by saying what you know and talking up how other experience is comparable to what they are asking for.

thank you, this helped my anxiety quite a bit! the interview went well and it looks like an offer is heading my way :)

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