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Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

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Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#111

Post by jermaustin1 »

c2h5oh wrote: post #103
sys_64738 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I say above, if there's a fit between company and candidate then things can be done to make sure that everybody is happy. You can't do that with inflexible salary ranges ahead of time.

If upper bound of their salary range is e.g. 30% below what I make right now it's very unlikely we can find an agreement and even if we could I'd be wary to accept an offer, because as an "expensive hire" I'd be less likely to get a raise in the future.

I start every engagement with something like: this is how much I'm willing to accept. If this falls outside of your range, I wish you all the best.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#112

Post by lhorie »

c2h5oh wrote: post #86
lhorie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, do you mean you're applying to companies where the interviewers actually have a say in salary negotiations? AFAIK, interviewers almost never a say on compensation, except in very small companies where your interviewer is a co-founded or partner.

I'm not looking. I've got companies reaching out to me. If there is no recruiter or recruiter defers to interviewer to discuss salary range then I want that question out of the way before I spend my time interviewing. It doesn't matter if they tell me what the salary range is or confirm my expectations are within their salary range for that role - I just want to know upfront before everyone involved wastes their time…

I used to prefer explicit salary ranges when my salary was in the middle of the bell curve. On the higher end of the bell curve, I've started to think explicit salary ballparks can be a bit limiting. Companies that pay top dollar are usually on levels.fyi and you can get a pretty decent idea of what the pay rates are even if the recruiter/interviewer doesn't tell you. These companies also typically have multiple roles open at all levels and can't realistically spam people about multiple roles. So a lack of salary numbers upfront can be a tool that you can leverage to upsell yourself towards higher pay roles early in the process (in addition to being able to negotiate numbers at the end).

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#113

Post by klipklop »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #6
sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

They keep giving me questions from TopCoder. Stop doing TopCoder-based interviewing. You're ruining your company this way. I'm offended on principle.

I've walked out on a couple of interviews when they tried whiteboard coding. I politely laughed and said I really don't do performance art. I thanked them for their time and left.

Guess you will never work at most of FAANG then. I did 5 back-to-back whiteboard leetcode's in one day last time I did that.

Was able to provide a working solution for all of them. One of the interviews I was unable to do the optimum solution, but discussed how I think it could be done better. No offer, heh.

I have been told that it's now mostly luck getting in. My lunch break person even told me that.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#114

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

bad_interivewee wrote: post #65

have had a few of these experiences one interviewer was watching their laptop and typing (slack?) and made almost no eye contact the entire time. it started with dead silence for a bit, then "what questions do you have for me". and that question was repeated 2 or 3 times after I finished with my reply, then it was just over. another time, after the first 10 or so minutes of talking on the phone, the interviewer said…

> one interviewer was watching their laptop and typing (slack?) and made almost no eye contact the entire time. it started with dead silence for a bit, then "what questions do you have for me". and that question was repeated 2 or 3 times after I finished with my reply, then it was just over.

In this case it does sound like they weren't actually paying attention to you, but FWIW, when I interview people I have a checklist of questions[0] and take notes on my laptop so I would be typing and at least glancing at the screen. On the other hand, it's obvious that that's what I'm doing, not least because I tell candidates so.

[0] Or at least topics that I want to make sure we cover.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#115

Post by sys_64738 »

cglan wrote: post #46

They've been rude in a variety of ways. The big one though is simply ghosting me after 5+ rounds with no explanation. This has happened a variety of times and reaching out usually gets a non response. It's infuriating. The others are just not being professional. Wearing pajamas or not paying attention or acting incredibly disinterested. It's really terrible.

I don't take that personally. If I don't hear anything within a period of time then I get they've moved on. There's no utility for them to be in contact anymore with me. It's unprofessional but I get why it occurs and don't feel slight.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#116

Post by akamia »

I interviewed at Microsoft around 2010 and had a horrible interview with a Principal Engineering Manager in Bing. He was my last interviewer of the day and the interview started at 5 PM. I had been there since 10 AM and the only "break" I had was a lunch interview so I was exhausted but I was going to give it my all.

Since it was the last interview and he was a manager, I was expecting a culture fit/soft skill interview but it was more whiteboarding. I was surprised but I went with it. I asked some clarifying questions and then I started walking through my solution on the whiteboard. After a few minutes I turned around to ask him a question and he was staring out the window day dreaming. I said "excuse me" and repeated my question. He gave me a brief answer and then turned to stare out the window again. He did this through the entire interview.

I was shocked. I understand that it was the end of the day but it was his choice to have the interview loop keep going. I had given them an entire day and he didn't even respect me enough to give me an hour of his attention.

I didn't get the job but I'm sure I dodged a bullet if that was what the management was like for that team.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#117

Post by sys_64738 »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #6
sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

They keep giving me questions from TopCoder. Stop doing TopCoder-based interviewing. You're ruining your company this way. I'm offended on principle.

I've walked out on a couple of interviews when they tried whiteboard coding. I politely laughed and said I really don't do performance art. I thanked them for their time and left.

I actually love white boarding as it's what I use to design. I find it a way to focus my thoughts and control the conversation. My old office had three walls of white boards though :)

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#118

Post by sys_64738 »

shados wrote: post #15
drenvuk wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? What would you rather have? A takehome? People find a reason to complain about those as well because the ones administering them become really god damned nitpicky. What I try to give is a three parter simple string parsing manipulation question where you build on each successive part as well as providing both valid and invalid inputs for them to use as test cases. It shows organizational skills and the ability…

There's more and more companies that don't give you coding exercises at all. They'll have code reviews, or a debugging exercise, system design, all the other stuff, but will skip the algo question. I hate algo/whiteboarding myself, especially complex ones, but I think there's some value in doing some minimal in person fizz-buzzing, especially if you work for a very popular company. The amount of people who can talk t…

Whiteboarding is a skill you would use at most large companies. I've driven many design discussions via white boarding on the job. Being able to do it in a job interview shows you possess such a skill for interactive design.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#119

Post by shados »

sys_64738 wrote: post #118
shados wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's more and more companies that don't give you coding exercises at all. They'll have code reviews, or a debugging exercise, system design, all the other stuff, but will skip the algo question. I hate algo/whiteboarding myself, especially complex ones, but I think there's some value in doing some minimal in person fizz-buzzing, especially if you work for a very popular company. The amount of people who can talk t…

Whiteboarding is a skill you would use at most large companies. I've driven many design discussions via white boarding on the job. Being able to do it in a job interview shows you possess such a skill for interactive design.

Whiteboarding in general? Absolutely.

Writing a java sort function on a white board? Much less so.

Re: Ask HN: How are your interviewers being rude to you?

#120

Post by kerneloftruth »

sys_64738 wrote: post #117
kerneloftruth wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've walked out on a couple of interviews when they tried whiteboard coding. I politely laughed and said I really don't do performance art. I thanked them for their time and left.

I actually love white boarding as it's what I use to design. I find it a way to focus my thoughts and control the conversation. My old office had three walls of white boards though :)

White boards are fine for design ideas with boxes and arrows etc. We're talking about being asked to write code on a white board.
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