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The worst job interview I ever had

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Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#191

Post by globular-toast »

MattRogish wrote: post #90

This… was a mistake on both you and the interviewer. All interview questions - unless it’s impossible to twist your answer to fit this - is scoped to “… at work”. Nobody who asks “tell me about yourself” is asking you to talk about how you met your partner, how many cats you have, or that experience you had, that one time, at band camp. It would be redundant and awkward to literally say “… at work” at the end of ever…

I'm prepared to give the author the benefit of the doubt here. We weren't there and maybe they really were asking what the hardest day of their life was. Your take is the author is completely incapable of basic communication, essentially.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#192

Post by traumabaited »

MattRogish wrote: post #90

This… was a mistake on both you and the interviewer. All interview questions - unless it’s impossible to twist your answer to fit this - is scoped to “… at work”. Nobody who asks “tell me about yourself” is asking you to talk about how you met your partner, how many cats you have, or that experience you had, that one time, at band camp. It would be redundant and awkward to literally say “… at work” at the end of ever…

Absolutely not. I've been in an interview like this, and the interviewer specifically prompted me for for personal struggles, which I had to then fake having been way more affected over '"friends" asked me to take a photo so I'd be out of it' type incident than I actually was, just to satisfy them.

"... at work" expectation in an interview advertised as non-technical can be ableist screening anyways. Gonna poke that elephant since you're drapping it.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#193

Post by KaiserPro »

fsckboy wrote: post #117
anyfoo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even if, for the sake of argument, they legitimately did ask about your personal life instead of your work life... you normally wouldn't answer any of that. (In fact, it could very well mean the end of the interview, from the interviewee's side.) That's vastly overstepping commonly accepted boundaries. Sure, some surface level smalltalk is normal and expected: "Any hobbies? Ah, you like hiking? Nice. Where do you…

> Your traumata? That's a level of intrusiveness crossing into "rude" territory OP didn't say that, he said "hardest day of my life, my biggest life challenges" and then characterized it (his opinion) 'similar “trauma-baiting” questions' asking a young person (I don't know that he was young, just saying) "what was the hardest day of your life" is a pretty standard question. Like on a college application, they expect…

> "what was the hardest day of your life" is a pretty standard

I would suggest that this is a misremembering. As someone who's hosted thousands of interviews at companies big and small, all of the questions were scoped to professional work. Why? because when you ask things like "what was the hardest day in your life" you have a non-trivial chance of getting your interviewee tell you about the time they saw someone die, cleaned up a suicide attempt, or developed a new fear. That or you see someone make something up on the spot.

Its just not a useful question. If they answer honestly, then they are going to just going to remember that sad feeling of re-living trauma. If they don't answer honestly, they are more than likely going to be pissed off at the weird prying question.

These questions are emotionally expansive, you could have been getting on really well, shared a joke, had a great conversation. All of that will be blotted out by remembered pain.

The reason why people ask "can you tell me a time you overcame a big obstacle to achieve a business outcome" is threefold:

1) can you describe a blocker with the right amount if context

2) can you talk about improving things without insulting the people blocking you

3) can you think of ways to non-destructively overcome problems

Asking about when your pet died doesn't give you useful information

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#194

Post by sevenseacat »

Heh, I once interviewed at a place that asked me to sit the Oxford Capacity Analysis test as part of the process. (The Scientology personality test, for those unaware.)

I politely declined, which seemed to confuse the interviewer, but he moved right along. I still got the job lol

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#195

Post by nailer »

MattRogish wrote: post #90

This… was a mistake on both you and the interviewer. All interview questions - unless it’s impossible to twist your answer to fit this - is scoped to “… at work”. Nobody who asks “tell me about yourself” is asking you to talk about how you met your partner, how many cats you have, or that experience you had, that one time, at band camp. It would be redundant and awkward to literally say “… at work” at the end of ever…

> never, ever forget the entire thing is scoped to “…. at work”

I think the mental health startup part and the wide scope of the questions (hardest day in life, not hardest day in career) made it clear that this meant what it said.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#196

Post by skrebbel »

gobdovan wrote: post #186
skrebbel wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you get the job?

No, but I gained something just as valuable. After the interview, the recruiter who introduced me to this job said they had another role for me. But first, he wanted links to the other positions I'd applied to, what those positions were paying, and how far along I was with each one. I told him I wouldn't do that and he said that it was ok. Haven't heard from them in a year or so, but I'm sure that other interview is…

Hahah excellent. I love that the terrible job interview came through a terrible recruiter, it just fits perfectly.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#197

Post by Scandiravian »

MattRogish wrote: post #90

This… was a mistake on both you and the interviewer. All interview questions - unless it’s impossible to twist your answer to fit this - is scoped to “… at work”. Nobody who asks “tell me about yourself” is asking you to talk about how you met your partner, how many cats you have, or that experience you had, that one time, at band camp. It would be redundant and awkward to literally say “… at work” at the end of ever…

I think this is a very cultural thing. When I interview candidates at my current job, we are interested in hearing about their life outside of work, since we want to know how we can best collaborate

If they have to pick up their kids in the afternoon, then it's probably better that they work closer with the other parents than of they're late risers who prefer coming to the office at 10

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#198

Post by supriyo-biswas »

gobdovan wrote: post #173

I always wanted to tell the story of my weirdest interview. It's bad in a different way from OP's. This was for a "Machine Learning Engineer" contractor position. - Hi, I'm gobdovan. How are you? says I. The interviewer doesn't bite: - How many prompting techniques do you know? (ok?..) After a couple confused seconds, I respond with 2-3 techniques and ask if I should explain them, but the interview engine is already…

I've had an interview like this in the past. At the time, I chalked it up to a power trip and the indignant behavior that comes along with it, as it is especially embedded in the culture of the country that I'm based out of.

Having said that, talking to a relative, I found out that this style of "interviewing" is often done when they already have someone for the position, but need to show (for compliance reasons, or otherwise) that they tried finding candidates, and only their preferred one qualified.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#199

Post by IshKebab »

tsukikage wrote: post #177

Genuinely opening up is a mistake. The incentives for these clearly mean that they actually select for candidates who are capable of glibly blagging their way through an extended conversation without saying anything inconsistent, weird, compromising or of substance. This isn’t usually a required engineering skill. I’m guessing the interview was designed for salespeople and/or middle management.

Yeah, definitely just tell them what they want to hear on the personal question front ("tell me about a time..."). There's zero benefit to being truthful and zero downside to blagging it.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#200

Post by andsoitis »

It is OK to be rejected. Showing vulnerability (in a professional manner) can be a sign of strength and trustworthiness, but one should also be resilient when it isn’t a match and not dwell on it too much. Ego is the enemy.
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