Engineers' Gate
Edition #2: Reframe to go from good to great
You may be thinking, why Engineer’s Gate?
It’s the entry point to Central Park for the New York City marathon.
My favorite place & my favorite event to bring everyone together.
I’m a New Yorker, avid marathoner, and technical recruiter looking to give back to the city & industry that made me.
I moved to New York City for love on a $15 bus from Boston with 1 taped up suitcase to my name. Now I’m a successful business owner, wife, and mother with a mission to get you to a better place.
Each issue explores:
Reframe of a common interviewing & hiring scenario
Life in New York City
Running insight of the week
Join the journey.
Reframe
There comes a point in time in an interview where a question veers into the unknown.
Either you knew the answer & forgot it or you have no clue.
You may feel tempted to make something up.
Don’t.
This is a test.
To see how you will handle the very real situation of what you will do on the job when you don’t know something.
Happens to everyone.
There’s a good way to answer, and a great way to answer.
Take this interview question for example:
"How does a flux capacitor work?" (Flux capacitor is not a real thing of course)
Bad: “Taking 1.21 gigawatts of electrical power from a plutonium-powered nuclear reactor and shooting it into a magnetic field which then sends it into a mercury-based core that has been activated by a laser beam from another set of electrodes at precisely 88 miles per hour.”
Good: “I don’t know.”
Great: “I don’t know & this is what I do when that happens. I first check with a person I know in the industry, google the components involved, and go to an industry specific website for context on the concept.”
See the difference?
Who would you rather work with?
Showing your thought process is more useful than memorizing random facts.
Yet how many times do you prepare for explaining your thought process versus cramming random facts?
Here’s a template for you to customize: “I don’t know & this is what I do when that happens. I first check X, google Y, and go to Z website.”
Document your own process.
Life in New York City
A good friend of mine invited me to see the Treasures exhibit at the main branch of the New York Public Library. The one with the 2 glorious lion statues outside. Don’t expect to borrow books from here, this library is for research.
The Treasures exhibit is a celebration of rare books, letters, art & historical artifacts from all around the world.
Check out a few favorite highlights:
George Washington’s handwritten farewell address with edits
“…the unity of government which constitutes you one people is now dear to you. It is justly so for it is a main pillar in the real edifice of your independence of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad, of your safety, of your prosperity, that very Liberty which you so highly prize.”
Powerful message of unity that stands the test of time.
Washington’s handwriting transformed this document from a sentence in a history book to an art form.
I love seeing the way people used to write, especially historical figures who seem bigger than the written word.
Want to see an original version of a “security question”?
Check this book out.
The Emigrant Savings Bank Test book confirmed details people would need to know before accessing their accounts.
Imagine logging into your bank account in person instead of online.
Wonder how many identity thieves they caught for people who simply signed X?
See the Treasures collection virtually here or get free tickets to see it in person here.
Running
I ran 3 full marathons in London (Oct 2021), New York (Nov 2021), & Big Sur (Apr 2022) within 6 months without injury using the Chi Running method.
The focus is on form & breathing.
Reminder: Systems > Goals
The originator of the systems over goals thought is Scott Adams as written in his book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
If you’re just starting out or just getting back into running, pick out an amount of time you want to run for, like 30 minutes, versus a distance.
Focusing on distance we tend to then measure success by pace, which is not sustainable. Setting yourself up to feel defeated and quit.
Run at a steady pace where you can breathe in and out of your nose the whole time. Setting yourself up for a pleasant experience, one that you’ll want to continue.
There will be harder workouts to come where you’ll be sucking wind through your mouth.
Just starting out or getting back into it is not that time.
When everyone is running, moving forward, competing against themselves, & sharing what they learn we’ll all be in a better place.
See you next Monday!
Jen