There Are Certain Things We Shouldn’t Know
I was talking to a friend that recently left a position as to the reasons for leaving the position, and he said something that was remarkably insightful: I shouldn't know that my COO hates me. It's sad that he does, but what's really just plain bad management is that this upper management makes it known publicly that he doesn't like developers.
I was talking to another friend today that went for an interview and he was talking to the CTo of the small-ish shop that he was interviewing with and the CTO told my friend that he was overpaid. He went on to say that his advice was to have my friend talk to a recruiter and see if he wasn't telling him the truth. The conversation he had with this CTO as part of the interviewing process was just not at all what you'd expect from a CTO.
It was almost like he didn't want my friend to take the job, but didn't want to say "No" to him. Very odd story to hear.
I'm sure there's more to this from the CTO's point of view - who knows how well my friend did on the technical side, and if his personality was a good match with the people. Lots of things can factor into an interview. Heck, back at Port-to-Port, my old company, we had a saying: Sometimes good people don't fit. It was the recognition that good, talented people might not fit into every organization well. It was no reflection on them as a talented person, it was a statement on the fit.
So I look at these two things and think there's a big difference between a good interview and a bad one. And a good manager and a bad one. And it's got nothing to do with skill or talent. It's about personality. If you're someone that likes to poke at people, then you might be a great coach or trainer. But you're not likely to make a great manager as you need to motivate differently in the long haul to be a real success. You also either like talking to people and have a good sense of how to make people feel good about themselves, or you don't. If you don't, your interviews might seem very odd.
It's all about knowing what you're good at. Focusing on the positives and trying to best deal with the negatives. It's not easy, and we all need to do more of it.