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Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#11

Post by MarkCole »

git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

Sometimes in an interview its better to just say "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons. Sometimes simply just because I know I probably wouldn't like to have the interviewer as a Colleague or Boss.

If I thought I was interviewing for a Django/Python job and they completely changed the job description on me I'd have probably cut it right there. You can't just completely change the job someone is interviewing for from under them.

I definitely feel you on it though, I'd much rather earn less in a comfortable job where I'm happy than go through the stress of interviewing and having to refresh my knowledge of CS trivia so interviewers can throw a few at me.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#12

Post by qualitytime »

git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

I'll raise my hand.

When I look back it seems I'm experienced at hearing other peoples software requirements and implementing them.

From university to the workplace, I seem to be very good since those who receive the end result always benefit.

Done it so many times, for others and for my own ideas.

But check this out, occasionally in a dry period, when I feel I should find a job and get an interview.

I get asked a puzzle, unrelated to anything, no benefit to the interviewer or their company, in a language that requires a thicker than the bible manual, to program in some corner case that I would never find myself in and to someone to see the solution in the future to also feel the urge to puke.

And don't even get me started on the latest frameworks buzzword bingo crap.

You know, the tipping point was once when I got a rejection email where the top guy said I wasn't even good at a particular language, one which I'd programmed several applications for some years.

Some guy, who last "coded" by "clicking" on a button which generated a TODO list single page web fucking app.

Fuck all of you because we do what you dream of wanting to do that you'll never be able to do, not because you are running out of time, it's because you just don't have the chops.

You really should be doing something else with your life.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#13

Post by beilabs »

MarkCole wrote: post #11
git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

Sometimes in an interview its better to just say "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons. Sometimes simply just because I know I probably wouldn't like to have the interviewer as a Colleague or Boss. If I thought I was interviewing for a Django/Python job and they completely changed the job description on me I'd have probably cut it right there. You c…

Interviewed for a large tech company a few months ago just for the sake of it. (VP of engineering role), corporate headhunter persuaded me to take the call even though I'm happy where I am.

5 minutes into the job interview the guy seemed very obsessed with my direct reports number. I have 12 engineers currently (CTO), have worked in China with 30 engineers reporting to me and in my previous life as a school principal I had 40+ staff and a few hundred students. With many other software roles in between around the planet.

Anyhow, it seemed that the position was not a good fit, they were recently acquired, the founders had all left and a new management team had taken over. Multiple interviews were expected as well as attending their office on-site on the other side of the planet. Ended the call once I heard this and told them this was not the right role for me. Have to be respectful but not every position is a good fit for the candidate. Trust your gut especially if red flags are raised. The guy conducting the interview seemed a bit shocked that i bailed on the process so quickly. Ain't no-one got time for the commitment some interviews require some days.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#14

Post by kenhwang »

Interviews go both ways. If everyone was unpleasant, then it might be representative of the culture there and you may have dodged a bullet. If it's just one round or one person souring the experience, let the recruiter know. Companies that care about their culture or image will take the feedback to heart.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#15

Post by margorczynski »

For me an instant turn-off is live coding (I get too stressed) and pointless academic questions that have nothing to do with the things I would be doing there.

And to be honest after I experience that combo I usually give up cause that means most people there were chosen based on that.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#16

Post by nvarsj »

git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

It's Hanlon's razor. Tech interviewing is done poorly, almost everywhere. It's cargo culted to death, with little thought. It's brutal on certain types of personalities. It predominately favors people without families or responsibilities. And it rarely correlates with actual engineering skill.

I personally get bad anxiety from interviews, from some negative experiences. To the point where I actively avoid interviews, even if in my best interest. Not worth the risk, I think. I recognize this is self defeating and self limiting though. And it's something I need to deal with and overcome.

All I can offer is that you try to accept there is the "interview game" and you have to play it. Fortunately once you get that job, you can forget about it for a while.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#17

Post by [deleted] »

MarkCole wrote: post #11
git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

Sometimes in an interview its better to just say "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons. Sometimes simply just because I know I probably wouldn't like to have the interviewer as a Colleague or Boss. If I thought I was interviewing for a Django/Python job and they completely changed the job description on me I'd have probably cut it right there. You c…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#18

Post by akerro »

MarkCole wrote: post #11
git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

Sometimes in an interview its better to just say "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons. Sometimes simply just because I know I probably wouldn't like to have the interviewer as a Colleague or Boss. If I thought I was interviewing for a Django/Python job and they completely changed the job description on me I'd have probably cut it right there. You c…

>they completely changed the job description

>the stress of interviewing and having to refresh my knowledge of CS trivia

I was recently visiting a friend from uni, he wanted to start working in a bigger company, so he took his chances on Amazon (they had office 10min walk from where he lived). He applied for Java/C++ backend role with some indication that's related to robotics.

First week interviewer told him to refresh knowledge from basics of machine learning, searching algorithms and path finding, so he spent all weekend reading wikipedia and our notes from uni. During the interview he was asked questions about his experience with JS, Angular and CSS. What interesting JS projects he did and why links to the projects are not in his CV.

He graduated with second best grade at the uni with a major project from autonomous sailing robot and failed interview in Amazon because he didn't do anything hipsterish with Angular on Github. I showed him link to the FACE of Amazon to cheer him up... and it worked, he decided not to apply there any more. What a waste of time.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#19

Post by BigJono »

qualitytime wrote: post #12
git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

I'll raise my hand. When I look back it seems I'm experienced at hearing other peoples software requirements and implementing them. From university to the workplace, I seem to be very good since those who receive the end result always benefit. Done it so many times, for others and for my own ideas. But check this out, occasionally in a dry period, when I feel I should find a job and get an interview. I get asked a pu…

Don't get me started on the framework buzzword bullshit. I'm so sick of developers that launch into 50 tool stacks just to tick the boxes. Whether it's resume driven development or just plain ignorance, it seems to be pervasive.

I hate that every other interaction I have with the developer community is suggesting that a newbie back up a few steps and understand the problem they're trying to solve before introducing a solution, or worse yet, suggesting that the person trying to help them shut the fuck up and stop recommending things this beginner has no business using. The mindset is literally everywhere. It's like I'm surrounded by a cult of redux middleware worshippers that is trying to drain my will to live before they hand me a cup of cyanide.

I'm interviewing candidates for front-end roles at the moment and every other one is someone that has launched into a huge React project with barely any basic understanding of Javascript or web development. Half the candidates have every buzzword under the sun in their resume, and a GitHub full of little React projects with all the dependencies checked off nicely, then you get them into an interview and half of them can't name a single HTTP method, while the other half have done 5+ years of jQuery, and yet couldn't tell a closure from a prototype.

One of my first questions is always to ask them what front-end tools they are familiar with, and then follow up with "what problem does that tool solve?". 90% of the interviews are pretty much donezo by the time that question is answered (or more often not), and it feels like the rest of the time is wasted just running out the string.

Since most of the people in this thread are candidates rather than interviewers, if anyone has any suggestions about how to make the interviews more inviting and find out quicker and easier whether someone is the right fit, please let me know! I feel like I'm strugglinga bit.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers?

#20

Post by expertentipp »

MarkCole wrote: post #11
git-pull wrote: post #6

I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews. There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me. But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie,…

Sometimes in an interview its better to just say "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons. Sometimes simply just because I know I probably wouldn't like to have the interviewer as a Colleague or Boss. If I thought I was interviewing for a Django/Python job and they completely changed the job description on me I'd have probably cut it right there. You c…

> "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons.

I think this is the only weapon the interviewed person has. Not applying is not a solution as it will lead to even more disconnection. Apply, talk with people, disconnect when the bullshit level is too high.

Looking for years of experience in your exact Angular/React stack? Cheerio.

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