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If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

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Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#231

Post by zebnyc »

valand wrote: post #226
treyfitty wrote: post #94

I’ve been interviewing for 8 months. Getting to many final rounds, 1 lowballed offer, 1 rescinded offer, and it’s playing a mental toll. Today, I got a rejection that went along the lines of “everyone loved you and there was absolutely 0 negative feedback, but we just found a better fit.” I almost broke down, but hid behind a facade of positivity because the long weekend was starting and my kids can’t afford a bummed…

Been doing it for 2 years because I specifically am looking for company looking for founding staff which is hyper-selective. The worst thing is to be refused without knowing what's wrong so you're kept wondering why. Is it geographical reason? Is it national border reason? Legal reason? Culture fit? Personality fit? Another worst thing is to be denied without any tests. Nowadays, I'd pick difficult and time consuming…

Serious question: How do you vet for these? I would be interested in a founding engineer position as well but how do you know that the company itself has potential and not just hot air. Additionally, it seems I cannot get into an early stage startup cause I have never worked in an early stage startup.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#232

Post by dinom »

ipaddr wrote: post #222
ReptileMan wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live there is almost always 30-180 days probation period and then the contract turns into permanent. Usually not a big deal.

Leaving a fulltime position becomes a gamble.

It's always a gamble to some degree.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#233

Post by wnolens »

treyfitty wrote: post #94

I’ve been interviewing for 8 months. Getting to many final rounds, 1 lowballed offer, 1 rescinded offer, and it’s playing a mental toll. Today, I got a rejection that went along the lines of “everyone loved you and there was absolutely 0 negative feedback, but we just found a better fit.” I almost broke down, but hid behind a facade of positivity because the long weekend was starting and my kids can’t afford a bummed…

I'm in the same boat. Been interviewing for 3 months now. More than half of interviews are ego exercises for the interviewer. I've had a few where I could barely get to my point before the interviewer was finishing my sentences, or suggesting a different but equivalent answer more to their liking. One even refactored my code in coderpad while I was typing elsewhere lol!

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#234

Post by wnolens »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #110
treyfitty wrote: post #94

I’ve been interviewing for 8 months. Getting to many final rounds, 1 lowballed offer, 1 rescinded offer, and it’s playing a mental toll. Today, I got a rejection that went along the lines of “everyone loved you and there was absolutely 0 negative feedback, but we just found a better fit.” I almost broke down, but hid behind a facade of positivity because the long weekend was starting and my kids can’t afford a bummed…

This is why I just interview endlessly. At least one a week. You need to develop a callus to interviewing. Find the time for it by rubber stamping a few code reviews. It gets boring after a while. Just a very repetitive process after 100 or so.

I just now am understanding this. I usually do a leetcode per week. But now I'm straight up booking interviews. They created the game, I'm just playing it.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#235

Post by SxC97 »

It's very refreshing to hear others complain about the interview culture at these companies. In the last year I've interviewed at Apple, Amazon, Meta, IBM and a couple others and failed every interview.

I've only recently finished my undergrad in CS and am still working on my CS masters but despite doing well in school I felt like an absolute failure after every interview.

It's somewhat comforting to hear this is a common occurrence.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#236

Post by bitwize »

telman17 wrote: post #191
bitwize wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Write down the source code for your editor in a notebook, and then read it back to me over the phone.

Back in 2013 I had an interview with a large company whose game consoles are very rare to find in stores currently where the guy wanted me to recite JS syntax over the phone. He'd tell me I was incorrect if I didn't say "semi-colon". I wish I was making this up. Hoping they've modified their process a bit. :)

Hey, these semicolons are my light inside the dark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw

This very large e-commerce and cloud services company did the same to me in 2007, except it was C syntax.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#237

Post by zebnyc »

xtracto wrote: post #69
happyopossum wrote: post #27

I’ve seen so many of these jokes and complaints about modern SV interviews that I was blown away when I recently interviewed at a FAANG… I was assigned a recruiter who communicated clearly and often with me, told exactly how many interviews I was doing (3), what each was about, and all 3 were scheduled on the same day, and were handled by extremely smart and supportive people. Offer came through by the end of the wee…

I found it funny that a week ago I got an email from a Google recruiter, offering me to enter their interviewing machinery. I bluntly told him that I rejected the offer because of the horror stories regarding 5-7 interviews in Google. The recruiter's reply was that it was ok of this was not an appropriate time for me , and that we would stay in touch. How can they be so dense? Of course it may be that they are also j…

I had a bunch of onsites and Google was the one only one which caused me angst. The fastest that the recruiter ever responded to me was in two days and the scheduler was based in India which meant 1+ day response time.

So during my onsite, one of my interviewers turned up around 5+ minutes late and I realized a) I had no idea what to do about this as recruiter is not responsive b). There is nothing stopping the interviewer from just saying "the candidate is a no show. Rejected!"

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#238

Post by technick »

treyfitty wrote: post #94

I’ve been interviewing for 8 months. Getting to many final rounds, 1 lowballed offer, 1 rescinded offer, and it’s playing a mental toll. Today, I got a rejection that went along the lines of “everyone loved you and there was absolutely 0 negative feedback, but we just found a better fit.” I almost broke down, but hid behind a facade of positivity because the long weekend was starting and my kids can’t afford a bummed…

You need to break out some social engineering on these companies. Tell every single one of them that you're interviewing with a bunch of other companies and that you may be approaching a offer soon. On the first call, be straight forward with your expectation in pay, benefits, other compensation and where you expect to do the majority of your work (home / office / farm / park / bathroom). Tell them you do not wish to waste their time or yours, they will often appreciate it.

In the mean time since you are out of work, start volunteering, participating in the community and even create some youtube / twitch content.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#239

Post by technick »

PebblesHD wrote: post #44

These styles of multi-round interviews inspired by the FAANG collective started picking up in Australia before the pandemic, but it got to a point where most of my more talented colleagues and I all agreed it just wasn’t worth the time for the salaries being offered. 4 round interviews for a ‘senior’ developer position on $120k? When interviewing my own candidates, I use a 1 hour interview mostly focused on approach…

> We have a probation period to work out if they’ve over-promised

That's what contracting is for and I tell everybody to turn down any position that starts as a "contractor". Commit or GTFO, stop wasting peoples time.

Re: If You Want This Job, We Must Interview You Forever

#240

Post by white_dragon88 »

gabeio wrote: post #65
PebblesHD wrote: post #44

These styles of multi-round interviews inspired by the FAANG collective started picking up in Australia before the pandemic, but it got to a point where most of my more talented colleagues and I all agreed it just wasn’t worth the time for the salaries being offered. 4 round interviews for a ‘senior’ developer position on $120k? When interviewing my own candidates, I use a 1 hour interview mostly focused on approach…

> We have a probation period to work out if they’ve over-promised I'm curious what you mean by over-promised? Unless you only do this for people who don't already have a job, this sounds more toxic than multiple interviews. "Oh yeah we want you to work for us, but quit your old company, we'll try you out for a few weeks and if not we'll go our separate ways" ... but they quit their previous company so it's not as nic…

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