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The worst job interview I ever had

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Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#551

Post by ryukoposting »

porknbeans00 wrote: post #344

two stories. fun one first. I once did a coding interview entirely in bash. and the poor software engineer giving the interview did not have that as a skillset. so he was deeply confused when I spent like 70% of the time building a massive sed awk xargs one liner. then proceeded to answer every question in order with it. I thought he was so confused by it that's why I never heard back. Turns out it was much stranger.…

Damn. I'm grateful I've never had that happen in an interview I've run. Then again, I've never had an employer give me a set of questions to ask.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#552

Post by ryukoposting »

mettamage wrote: post #337

I had something similar to OP. "What was the worst fight you've ever had in your life?" I asked "you want me to answer that honestly?" "Yes" So I did. It was from when I was seven. They didn't proceed forward with me. But quite frankly, I wouldn't have proceeded forward with them either.

I'd answer this one honestly. A kid took my Nintendo DS and I tackled him.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#554

Post by ryukoposting »

freehorse wrote: post #79
booleandilemma wrote: post #16

I was asked what my hobbies are during an interview once and it made me believe they were just looking for a personality hire or a pretty face.

The mirror side of this is when almost all the intern applications/cover letters we used to receive contained a paragraph about the hobbies of the applicant (all domain-irrelevant). I find that weird but I guess it is sort of common nowadays?

I have a one-liner in my resumé that lists "interests." basketball, baseball, photography, music, the outdoors, privacy and digital human rights. With the heading, it takes up half an inch of paper on the second page, which I only provide in a PDF.

If anything in there is a disqualifier, I don't want to work for you anyway. If you need any more info than that, ditto.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#555

Post by suttontom »

StilesCrisis wrote: post #367
stemchar wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably would've done the same. "I don't remember what the function is called" would've been fine-ish, but reaching for a regex is just insane.

Why? Unless it's an extraordinarily hot code path, it doesn't matter. A regex once compiled will be quite efficient.

This is a good example of being bad at writing code.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#556

Post by nekusar »

bcantrill wrote: post #539
nekusar wrote: post #489

Ive had a few stinkers of interviews. One when I was 19 was for a 3rd shift stocker at a "family business". Guy straight up asks "Are you married?". Sure, its illegal to ask. Not like a jobless 19 year old could do anything. Ive had a few jobs claim "pay band was from x to y. And surprise it was x-20000 to y-50000. One interview (an HN company) did the interviews. Got back round 2, seemed interesting. The "third roun…

Sorry to hear that you viewed it as a "litany of crap", but if it's of any solace, if you had slopped it, the result would not have been immediately different -- but you would be marked in our system in such a way that subsequent applications would also be disqualified. It sounds like we're not a fit for you either, though, so maybe just as well!

Im guessing you dont get that much feedback about the process. Or, you do and you dont care.

The process stank, wasted my time, and got HR slop form letter as a result months later. A deny is normal. The way it was done was a big FU.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#557

Post by tomhow »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #524
chadgpt3 wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

98,108 results on "India" https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... 174,402 results on "Israel" https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... I don't know how to tell they're "penalized" though.

It's completely false.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#558

Post by ljm »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #405
ljm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a really weird power-trip interview once, and it was the CEO who was joined by a contractor who was ostensibly the technical lead for the project. There was nobody in engineering who worked full-time on the job, everybody was contracted. I was also going in as a contractor so I was aware that the interview would be a bit lighter on process as a result. The questioning very quickly veered away from technical stu…

> I lasted about 6 months and even trying to leave was an ordeal. Like finding your next gig or just not showing up ever again? Because I've worked at a place where someone came in, went to lunch, and they never saw them ever again.

Waiting for the next gig. This was before I learned that sometimes it's better to take the hit and walk away.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#559

Post by ljm »

ryukoposting wrote: post #546
ljm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a really weird power-trip interview once, and it was the CEO who was joined by a contractor who was ostensibly the technical lead for the project. There was nobody in engineering who worked full-time on the job, everybody was contracted. I was also going in as a contractor so I was aware that the interview would be a bit lighter on process as a result. The questioning very quickly veered away from technical stu…

The most shocking part of this story is the part where you took the job. Not trying to throw shade, just the truth! What on earth was going on that made this your best option?

Needed to pay my bills. It tided me over for a short while.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#560

Post by squigz »

jrflo wrote: post #363
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…

Another pro tip for interviews: even if they explicitly ask for something like "the worst day of your life, including personal circumstances not at work", just answer about work anyways. You don't have to answer every question as posed. Pretend the worst day of your life was at work and was work related. There are a lot of interview questions asked as bait. If someone asks "What is your greatest weakness?", you bette…

As an autistic person, it's nonsense like this that has made me dread every interview I've ever done.
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