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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?

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the company thinks this is the person best qualified to judge applicants, you're dodging a bullet. There are so many reasons this is a bad way of thinking. - A sample size of one is never enough. This alone is enough of a reason. - The interviewer could have normally been a great person but been having a rough day (maybe some personal stuff or a huge deadline coming up - every company has those every once in a whi…

I'm ruled out after one bad interview. Why should I extend a company any more courtesy than it extends me?

Don't worry about "getting even" with a company. If a company is the best fit for you out of all the companies you interviewed at, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to cancel your application.

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

#62
Look somewhere else.

If company X has inexperienced interviewers, then company X almost certainly has other problems. Inexperienced programmers? Inexperienced managers? Bad processes? Something, anyway, because a company shouldn't be sending people to interview who are unfit for the task.

And if you get past those interviewers and get hired, then you're going to have to live with whatever else was going on that allowed those people to be the interviewers. So I think you're better off taking those people as being a datapoint about the company. Walk away, and be grateful you found out early enough.

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

#63
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,…

Amen.

I'm a data scientist in healthcare with approaching 10 years of experience (since, you know, people were doing "data science" since before "data science" was a thing, they just called it epidemiology, biostatistics, or biomedical informatics). I had two recent interview experiences that left a really crappy taste in my mouth.

One was at Grail. Recruiter contacted me. I have a biology background from undergrad, but little direct experience in that field since then. Recruiter says that's totally fine, they were happy with even a little bit of bio experience and would happily get people up to speed after that. In my five panel interviews, they literally all asked the same technical question. Literally all of them. Asked the same question. The exact same question. It was a question related to a project that they had all worked on previously, and required some biology knowledge specific to this problem. I did not get that question right. However, by the fifth time I was asked that question, I had surmised enough tidbits from the previous four times that I could piece together a decent answer. No response from the recruiter (which was fine by me, as I assumed there was our opinions of each other were mutual). Well, until three months later, when I get an email saying they had long considered my application and would not be moving forward. Uh huh.

Second experience was at one of the big companies. Recruiter contacts me about a very specific role that seems perfectly aligned with my background. It's a new team, there isn't a job description for it. I've previously chatted with this recruiter and some of the folks on the team, but timing never worked out (or, alternative theory, an ex had been working on the same team and would not be ok working together). They bring me in, and the technical screen is done by someone from a totally different part of the organization. This person apparently does a lot of signal processing. I have never done signal processing in my life, and it's not something that's on my resume. I'm very open with that, and yet all of the technical questions he asks me are ones involving signal processing techniques. Recruiter tells me that I "didn't have enough data science experience" for that job. I almost snapped back (but didn't; not worth burning bridges) that I was surprised they would even know that, since they never asked any questions that tap into my data science skills. Someone screwed something up in that process, and it wasn't me — if signal processing is required for that job, then I should never have been a candidate; if signal processing is not required, then I should never have been quizzed on it. There are plenty of studies that show unfavorable answers to irrelevant questions tend to negatively bias perception of candidates.

Being set up for failure really blows. If I could redo everything again, I would ask recruiters more questions about the interview process and how that process lines up with job requirements; I would not be shy with the interviewer or recruiter if I felt like I was being judged on something that wasn't in line with my expectations ("I noticed that you're asking a lot of signal processing questions and not questions around things I have experience with — is that a core aspect of the job? I'm not sure I would be a good fit if that's the case, otherwise I'd love an opportunity to demonstrate my skills that might be more relevant"); and I would not be shy about cutting an interview early, as it saves everyone's time.

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

#64

I think that commentators on this page have got this one completely wrong. It is important to let inexperienced engineers have a say in the recruitment process because they are the ones who will be working under you (right when you join or maybe in 6-12 months)! Just to give an example, in one of the onsite interviews at a big tech company, I was interviewed by someone 1-2 years out of his undergrad. He asked me to s…

OK, but if he's junior, he shouldn't be telling you your answers are wrong. If he does, he's not the kind of person you want under you.

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

#65
Unfortunately I don't think there is much to do about it. The strategy I've adopted the past couple years is to just grin and bear it and get out ASAP. Even if I get an offer (not usually in these cases, because the interviewer is dead set on proving you're an idiot and they are smart), I will reject it (unless I've been through several interviews with other teammates that I enjoyed).

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

#66
post #2

Normally, I also reject companies that have bad interviewers - it means that the rest of the people they actually hire are likely below average as well. Which also means poor growth, poor salary growth for you, and likelihood that you'll have to lift some of your colleagues' weight as well. Sometimes it's just the recruiting dept that's bad. I've interviewed with one company, where the recruiters were quite incompete…

Wait, they honestly asked you about the education level of your siblings? This is the most SVesque thing I've heard all year.

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

#67
post #47

I had the exact same problem with an interviewer recently. He came in with a preconceived notion to reject and kept moving the conversation towards that. He was interviewing me for a Sr. Engg role , and his first question was what is the difference between Server side and Client side scripting. I took it in good humor and answered him. He stunned me by saying "That's not what I was looking for. You should have just s…

Ahh so JavaScript is just Java which runs of the client as well.

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

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ruled out after one bad interview. Why should I extend a company any more courtesy than it extends me?

Don't worry about "getting even" with a company. If a company is the best fit for you out of all the companies you interviewed at, you'd be doing yourself a disservice to cancel your application.

It's not about getting even. The company needs me more than I need the company.

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

#69
post #2

Normally, I also reject companies that have bad interviewers - it means that the rest of the people they actually hire are likely below average as well. Which also means poor growth, poor salary growth for you, and likelihood that you'll have to lift some of your colleagues' weight as well. Sometimes it's just the recruiting dept that's bad. I've interviewed with one company, where the recruiters were quite incompete…

Wait, they honestly asked you about the education level of your siblings? This is the most SVesque thing I've heard all year.

One of many questions. It was more like spouse, children, parents, siblings and then a table of age, job, education level. They made it look something like it's asking for emergency contacts.

I'm sure they asked pregnancy status too. Also I've heard some forms will even ask your spouse's race and religion.

Very personal questions are normal where I live, but there's no law that says I have to answer them.

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

#70
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 have published code all over. I code 10+ hours a day, even on the weekends. I get hammered in technical interviews."

Yes, yes, and yes. I've been meaning to blog about this experience (as an update, after last touching on it a few years ago). But I wanted to blog from a position of triumph. You know, "now that I've beaten the coding challenge I can say with conviction what is wrong with the coding challenge". That sort of thing. Except it's becoming obvious that I'll never beat these coding challenges, despite them being completely unsuitable for the role being advertised.

Apart from now, I hit the job market about 2 years ago, and before that another 2 years ago, and there seems to be a lot more of these gatekeepers around now who favour irrelevant coding challenges. Are German or French language teachers rejected on some obscure piece of Latin taught 10 years ago in college, but can't recite perfectly anymore?

The current crop of gatekeepers in tech seem to be a really bizarre mix. I'm having the hardest time in trying to find work this time, despite being more skilled, and having more people skills (hopefully). I'm at a loss.

You might be onto something with people trying to protect their jobs by using these obscure challenges to filter out suitable candidates. It's some kind of negligence. I don't think it's me, or you, but I feel like I'm going crazy. I can do the job, well I think, but the interviews (and perhaps the interviewers) aren't suited to filling the role.

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