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After spending several years constantly hiring people in the Valley, here are small pet peeves that I encounter frequently - and bother me most. Last week one candidate did the hat trick and did all 3 which made me want to write it down and make it “public” for the record –

1. Don’t show up late, and then not apologize.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like candidates that show up on time.  But stuff happens. Traffic happens. Trains don’t run on time like they do in Germany.  But is it really that much to ask to apologize when you’re late to an interview?  Or at least call ahead to warn that you’d be late?

“Punctuality is the courtesy of kings” - quote I remember from the wonderful BOOK not the movie ”Thank You for Smoking” but supposedly its from a Louis XVIII. Its not that 2 minutes here, 5 minutes makes a world of difference in terms of time - its a matter of respect for the other person - and this is important no matter what the role (except maybe - brilliant engineer). 

2. Don’t admit you had a long weekend in Vegas, so you didn’t really have time to prep for the interview.  
Again, this is more about respect for the other person.  In what world is this an appropriate response to your lack of preparation? At the very least, you should try to appear prepared - because yes, at some point in your career, you will have a long weekend in Vegas and won’t be prepared for the important presentation. But the ability to get through those situations passably - is what separates the boys/girls from the men/women. 

3. Don’t be negative about the interviewer’s T-shirt.

Negativity is fine for soul-searching blogs and Yelp reviews.  And sure, you can joke about people’s dress after you’ve landed your job.  But being negative about the company, about industry events, about the T-shirt that the interviewer is wearing - all things which should follow the maxim “If you can’t say something nice, better not say anything at all.” You can think all these things - but do you really have to say them out loud? 

All of these things come down to “RESPECT”. If you have a modicum of respect for someone who is spending the time to consider hiring you and giving you money & a sense of belonging, I think its all common sense….

Otherwise - its much more respectful to cancel an interview, than to go thru with it. In the Web world, you may not want/or care about the job now, but in 2 years this same person may be interviewing you for the dream job, and negative impressions will last a lifetime….

I have a new job! Recently I became the VP of Product for FixYa, the world’s largest community Q&A site for technical support on everything you own.  FixYa maybe the largest site in the world that no one knows about.  We get over 9 million visitors a month, which is equivalent or more than much-better known Yelp. Thousands of difficult product support issues get answered every day, and its absolutely free.  Its like my old gig - Yahoo! Answers, except that the quality of Q&A is focused on product issues, and so there is much less chitchat, and because of its focus, its much easier to monetize.

FixYa is headquarted in the Peninsula of the Bay Area - in San Mateo.  We are hiring at every position - product manager, business development, designer, and marketing. So forward this on to anyone that might be looking.

During the 80s and 90s, the only common uses of the word “social” as an adjective in front of a noun was for “social studies” that you took in elementary school, and maybe “social security”.  Then in the middle of this decade we started to see it applied to Web 2.0 concepts (e.g. social bookmarking, social networking, social software, social graph) but now it is proliferating out of control - (e.g. social gaming, social commerce, social broadcasting, social media).  The only letter in the alphabet that does not generate a Google suggester in the G-Toolbar is the letter X (social X-box is not yet a common term). 

Since there is practically a site related to every aspect of Social Networking - why isn’t there one for profile pic management (or maybe Flickr should do a feature).  I don’t particularly go out of my way to join social media sites, but even so I have more than 10 profile pics that I have had to upload separately.  Now, you really expect me to go to each & every site and upload new pics, every time I have a makeover (or trying to play down my crazy Tequilla past?) No - there should be some kid at Stanford who starts a profile pic mgmt site or Flickr should allow me to do this.  Maybe I should write Kakul…

Every time I post on Craigslist for a part-time position for Web work (coding, design, etc.) I get a ton of replies from CURRENT eBay employees who all say they can work up to 20 hours a week on moonlighting freelance.  One person we hired for a facebook application was absolutely horrendous - but I still am amazed at how he often came to our office in the middle of the work-day (long lunch???) to do milestone meetings.  Is life at eBay that slow & boring that you have to look for outside work? Or do they not pay enough?  Inquiring minds want to know….