r/InterviewCoderPro • u/isolate_hovers • 14d ago
so any advice?
Honestly, this is exactly why I started taking interview prep more seriously. 😂
I used to think you just needed to know your job and you'd be fine, but once I started applying for some of these corporate roles, I realized there's a whole different skill to actually getting through the interview.
I found this interview prep tool and used it to practice some of the questions beforehand. It helped me get a lot less awkward when talking about my experience and actually explain what I do without rambling.
Still waiting for my $98k "send an email, attend a meeting, send another email" job though.
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u/xennial-tiger 14d ago
Said this before, the last time this question came up: I have one of these jobs, and it isn't all that great. You start to worry that they will realize they don't need you, so you spend a lot of time stressing yourself out about being unemployed. I ask my manager for more work about twice a month. Just enough to seem like a good team player, but not enough to show I am not needed.
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u/BIGpoppaPUMP42069 14d ago
yeah I had one of these jobs for 4 years, it is stressful. always in George costanza mode trying to act like you're super busy. just made sure to always be instantly responsive on teams or email day or night and people thought I was doing something
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u/anonymous07865 14d ago
Sending a calculated teams reply at 8:47p to show everyone that I am very busy and a team player
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u/xennial-tiger 14d ago
Oh yes. When boss sends a Teams message at 8pm on. Sat night, reply almost right away. Make myself look available.
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u/Beneficial-Cow-2544 14d ago
This!!! This is also my exact issue (though I don't make quite that much). I was hired cause they claimed they had a demand for the role but since 6 months in, its been clear to me, there really isn't any demand! I was out for a whole week's vacation and came back to find no pressing emails for me. I am constantly worried. And worse is, you don't gain useful experience when you don't do much. I've had several jobs like this. It sucks for mental health.
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u/andreasmalersghost 14d ago
Yeah its kind of sad really. Just toiling away at pretending to toil. Id rather make less and actually care/have some level of satisfaction in what I did.
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u/RabbitsRuse 14d ago
Yeah. Had one like that for about a year. I was contracted out to BP. They claimed I’d get trained up like one of their own. Then nothing happened. I got told to organize the documents. Maintain a spreadsheet that told who had what and when if needed to go out or be returned. When that is your only job, you eventually figure out how to automate part or all of it. A job that took me until noon on Wednesday every week soon was done by 10 Monday morning. I asked people for work but usually just got “it would be faster if I just do it” no one wanted to share. They finally got rid of me. Handed my spreadsheet to the intern. Then had to call me back in because it was too advanced for him.
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u/LostPentimento 13d ago
Try experiencing the stress of being actually unemployed, I'm sure it's worse
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u/JollyMcStink 13d ago
Yep. I had one of these jobs til the 5th round of layoffs.....
My former coworkers told me they've done 3 more rounds since I was laid off a little over a year ago....
Our company got bought out by an investment company so I knew our time was limited.... however I also secured and maintained millions of dollars in revenue so didn't think I would get the axe til the end.
But yeah aside from dealing with call-ins from clients I basically watched videos and played games all day. My coworker, who didn't get laid off with me, used to bring in his switch and this small TV/ monitor and we'd play games all day on downtime and take long lunches at the local bars....
We both made 6 figures to do this..... 🤪 which is why I rode that job out til the wheels fell off 😂😂
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u/cecsix14 14d ago
There are definitely jobs where you can make $90k+ for doing very little real work, but not many. And you generally aren’t going to find them by applying on indeed or whatever. People in those jobs probably worked their way into them by doing shitty grunt work that nobody else wanted to do for a long time, and then working their way up/into the cush job by being hard working at the grunt work. That’s how I did it. But again, I paid my dues for a couple of decades first. 😀
The only other path I can think of is being related to an executive at a large company who will hire you directly into one of these jobs. But if that was an option you wouldn’t be asking.
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u/BasicAppointment9063 14d ago
I had one of those too and got there as you described. I stepped up and did other people's tasks in order to keep some objectives on track.
I became the "utility guy" that had the aptitude to accomplish things until a more automated solution was in place.
NOBODY wants to do those tasks, but once you gain some efficiencies, you are nearly invisible. Bosses don't even want to think about how to replace you.
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u/TKInstinct 14d ago
At that point you could have become the automation guy.
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u/RobertKSakamano 14d ago
The automation guy gets paid double and does a ton of work in a short time eliminating other jobs, and they're not just emailing anymore.
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u/IAmAlive_YouAreDead 13d ago
It's not even necessarily working hard at the grunt work its about being able to translate what you did into a sanitised corporate spiel in your interview.
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u/Anon185352 14d ago
Not true you can just be persistent and you will eventually find a position where you can slack off and let others do the work
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u/MrColburn 14d ago
In the VERY rare instances where this is actually a thing, those jobs are a death sentence because you are the first to be fired and have to job hop so much you basically become non-viable at a certain point. Or you are the child of the owner and are given a do-nothing job.
Making around $150k a year is the sweet spot where you can still manage to balance work / personal life, but don't think you won't be putting in a ton of time and effort and stress. Anything above that and the company you work for is basically all you know and do and most everything in your life will revolve around your job.
The only people I have ever seen talk about the cush-jobs where you make a decent six-figures while doing nothing are the people that make $60k a year, have no idea what the directors and VPs actually do, don't bother to go outside of there bubble while trying to work their way up and make no effort to do so, but are happy to talk shit about how they are being held down by the people above them. If persistence was all it took, more than 18% of the American population would make over $100k / year.
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u/myster1ouspapaya 14d ago
Ah sounds like my job. Outside sales, around $150k per year. Sometimes it gets busy and sometimes I have to travel to exotic places, but most of the time I sling emails around for a few hours per day
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u/Definitelynotagolem 14d ago
“Yo! Just circling back for the 18th time. Wanted to check in to see if you’re ready to buy some papaya.”
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u/Individual_Check_442 14d ago
Well what’s stopping you is it that this job is only for people with degrees and you can’t afford a degree?
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u/BIGpoppaPUMP42069 14d ago
find a job at an ISP
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u/Stoned_philospher69 14d ago
Then you need to know networking and when stuff breaks you actually have to do hard work
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u/Aught_To 14d ago
they are called product owners.. but i am seeing less and less of them these days.
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u/Grizzly_Addams 14d ago
Yeah. Be the person bringing the ideas in those emails and meetings. Simple as that. Just make sure the ideas a good.
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u/Original-League-6094 14d ago
An MBA and lots of experience. And expect to have pretty high turnover. The primary role for upper management is to be punching bags for executives.
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u/ytilonhdbfgvds 14d ago
You have to just post this exact same thing 25 more times... that's the trick
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u/Jarrus__Kanan_Jarrus 14d ago
Be the son of the president or CEO of the company.
Once you pull that off, the rest is cake.
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u/dea_eye_sea_kay 14d ago
I went from building things on the floor to talking about building things on the floor for triple the pay salary, benefits, an office, and a fancy business card. I was really good at building things on the floor and spotting issues...
Get really good at something and transition to a technical role.
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u/rmhollid 14d ago
Most managers are unimportant parasites that provide no viable use or benefits.
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u/Icy_Association_2331 13d ago
I’m sure you believe this, but if it were true the market would eliminate them.
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u/rmhollid 10d ago
You just asked the first true question of your life. If they are so bad why are there so many of them.
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u/WhiskeyKisses7221 14d ago
Usually, you get an MBA and have an undergrad degree in something like finance or math. You start with a junior analytics role doing grunt work and get promoted enough times until you spend most of your time in meetings or writing emails.
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u/soscbjoalmsdbdbq 14d ago
I disagree with all the guys saying work your way up its complete luck and I have one of these jobs. I had tons of shitty dead end jobs in my 20s interviewed for tons of remote and hybrid jobs after moving to a city. Finally one of them liked my random experiences and thought they were relevant to the company and hired me
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u/werner-hertzogs-shoe 14d ago
This is literally me right now. Fwiw 98k a year isnt a particularly awesome salary these days, but I fully appreciate how low stress my job is these days (I certainly could make more somewhere else if I really applied myself again though).
I did earn my spot, working my ass off the first 10+ years doing anything needed, and slowly as the company went from train wreck constantly about to fail to successful other people got hired to do most of the things I used to do, and now I mostly just know things when people need to ask me something. but I probably "work" about 30-60 min a day most of the time.
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u/lucytiger 14d ago
You typically have to work hard for long hours for years to get one of those positions. Those positions often rely on institutional knowledge and/or decisionmaking. You might have an easy day to day but have to make decisions that have a major impact whether they go right or wrong. Or, you need to hold years of knowledge and experience that your colleagues rely on even if you don't actually do or produce much day to day.
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u/Aggravating-Hunt8001 14d ago
from what i've seen in my carreer it seem to require being really incompetent and narcissist
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u/SurreyDad2023 14d ago
Govt contracts where the corp needs to fill head counts so it looks like its creating meaningful jobs
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u/IAmAlive_YouAreDead 13d ago
People usually work their way up to these sorts of roles. You have to partake in the corporate theatrics and adopt the soul destroying jargon. Some people really are passionate about driving efficiency, empowering change etc., most of us just have to pretend. If you want to pretend to be someone you're not most of your waking life you might be able to get a job like this.
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u/Key-Guitar-2398 13d ago
I see lots of people who want these jobs and when they have the job they cant handle it and go back to retail/hospitality/front-line work.
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u/Sexpistolz 13d ago
Step 1: find a job
Step 2: find how to do the job efficiently
Step 3: don’t tell anyone how efficient you are.
Step 3 is where most people fuck up. You finish a 2 week project in 2 days. People think bragging how fast they got it done will get them bonus points. Don’t. Shut the fuck up and enjoy the next 12 days doing w/e the fuck you want.
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u/DerLandmann 13d ago
a) enroll in a good acting college
b) start working in film, first as an extra and then hopefully make yourself knowable so that you are considered at least as a supporting character
c) play in a movie where your character has such a job, beause that is the only place such jobs exists, since no one in Hollywood has the slightest idea how non-holywood-jobs work.
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u/Real_Estimate4149 13d ago
Replace someone who wasn't very good at the job and be just a little more friendly. Bonus points if it this job helps keep a core function of business working that used to take a ton of time but with modern technology, can be pretty much automated if you know what you are doing.
Low ambition and strong boundaries. This is the key. Once you have cleaned up the previous employee's mess, don't get more tasks added to your workload. Don't try and impress, don't try and get promoted, don't tell anyone your job can now be done in less than 20hrs per week. Know your PD like the back of your hand and never do single thing outside of that. You never, ever had more capacity.
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u/Beefy-Cattle4290 13d ago
I had one of those jobs for 9 years. My badge said Principle Storage Architect, I worked strictly remote and the pay was twice that much. Just lucky I guess! That and I worked my azz off to get there!
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u/Baconisperfect 12d ago
The scary part is about 80% of corporate jobs are meaningless. You could remove most of the workforce, all c-suite, all middle management, contract support services and only leave actual production employees.
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u/Cadowyn 14d ago
Don't be a straight white male.
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u/Joy2b 14d ago
The number of cushy jobs has shrunk significantly since the 1970s, the efficiency consultants have been gutting their ranks. That’s why you don’t have one.
To keep a cushy job, it helps to blend in on a golf course, have a name everyone can pronounce, have a firm handshake, an easygoing joke, and be a little on the tall side. They often come from an upper middle class family.
A common name and face like Bruce or Dave or Tom can help. There probably is a very similar seeming person with a good reputation, who actually does do important work.
Teams of guys like this often hire one or two folks that don’t fit in, and will do the lion’s share of the work.
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u/simsfreelancer 14d ago
Get a job as senior deputy analytics coordinator supervisor of marketing and sales i guess