-
April 02, 2008
Zattoo Non-Job/Internship Interview!
About a week ago, I had an interview with Zattoo, a local startup here in Ann Arbor. I had met their VP of Engineering, Dug Song at a career fair and ended up giving him my business card. I got an email from Zattoo about them being interested in an interview. I’m not looking for an internship anymore, but I figured I’d have a chat to get to know the company better in case I want to work there after I graduate.
I talked to two engineers. I can’t really remember their names now! Oops. But basically we talked about the technologies behind the service (it’s a real-time streaming tv service). It’s kind of interesting that they use P2P in order to distribute the live tv content. I thought this might end up with a pretty big delay in actually getting the content, but one of the guys said there was only a difference of ~20 seconds or so.
One of the things that their website job page lists is that they want people with an interest in social networks. While I thought this was interesting and figured they might have something specific in mind, apparently they’re just trying to get people with knowledge in the area to maybe generate some ideas and build new stuff. Seems pretty cool.
Something nice about this interview was that while it went like a typical job/internship interview (they asked me a question about some engineering problem I’ve faced and how I solved it), there was like, no pressure for me to really do well. I mean, besides the desire not to sound like an idiot to other people. I kind of liked having no pressure on me during the interview. I should probably pretend it’s like that for every interview I take, since I think I answered their questions pretty “well” regardless.
So yeah, Zattoo is a startup in Ann Arbor. One of the few interesting tech ones that I know of. Though there will be more. More on that later…
-
March 26, 2008
Now That’s What I Call REAL ULTIMATE HR!
I met a recruiter from this company called imo.im last week at the Mpowered career fair on North Campus. Basically, the event was a career fair for startup companies. For some reason, some really big companies were there as well. I think I saw NEC…
Anyway, imo.im is some sort of web-based IM client, kind of like Meebo. I even asked the recruiter something like, “I’m sure you get asked this a lot, but this company is like Meebo, right?” Anyway, it seems the claim to fame for imo.im is that they’re financed almost exclusively by one of the first 10 employees of Google. This post isn’t really about their company though. It’s about their HR!
There were a bunch of t-shirts on the table. I, being a t-shirt connoisseur, especially of the company shwag type, asked if I could have one. “But they’re reserved for interviewees,” the HR person Marissa Huang told me. She also said she could mail me one when she gets back to their headquarters, since they have a lot. I gave her my contact info and figured I’d never get the shirt. Here’s a story!
When I went to interview at Google, they said I’d get some kind of awesome bag with Google related goodies in it. Like shirts and lava lamps and whatnot. Maybe not lava lamps. Anyway, it was supposed to be in my hotel room but I never got it. After the HR person at Google asked for my address for them to mail it, I felt that I’d get the stuff for sure, but I never did. It was like adding insult to the injury of not hiring me. By the way, I’ve fully recovered and hold no ill will towards the big G. Just throwing out this story to prove a point: why would imo.im go to the trouble of sending me a shirt when I didn’t even interview with them?
But they did. And it came today. Which is why I award imo.im the official “Hung Truong Company Shwag Award Seal of Approval!” I don’t know if something can be both an award AND a seal of approval at the same time, but whatever. There was also a nice hand-written note in the package, which is unheard of as far as corporate HR goes. But imo.im is a startup, so I guess that makes them different.
Anyway, thanks, imo.im, for the t-shirt. As a bonus, I’m even not adding a rel=”nofollow” to my links to you! Rock on!
-
March 24, 2008
Overheard in eCommerce Class…
Professor: So the Amazon.com auction is different. If an auction receives a bid within the last 10 minutes, the auction is extended for 10 minutes. So the auction ends when it is quiescent.
Student: How do you spell that?
Me: *Facepalm*
-
March 22, 2008
Jazz Standard Currently Stuck In My Head: My Foolish Heart
Well, it didn’t take long for Rick Astley to get out of my head. While on shuffle, my iTunes played the Bob Mintzer version of “My Foolish Heart” sung by Kurt Elling. It’s really a nice ballad. And the arrangement by Mintzer is nice and slightly weird as is his style.
The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart!
How white the ever constant moon, take care, my foolish heart!
There’s a line between love and fascination,
That’s hard to see on an evening such as this,
For they give the very same sensation.
When you are lost in the passion of a kiss.
Your lips are much too close to mine, beware my foolish heart!
But should our eager lips combine, then let the fire start.
For this time it isn’t fascination, or a dream that will fade and fall apart,
It’s love, this time it’s love, my foolish heart!
And, as usual when I get a standard stuck in my head, it’s really friggin’ stuck in my head!
-
March 22, 2008
This is Probably Slightly Unhealthy…
