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The worst job interview I ever had

oliverio.dev

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Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#161

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…

Do you experience many "life challenges" at work?

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#162

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…

Or at uni, at work-likes (volunteering, toastmasters etc.). It has to be in the pursuit of a commercial-like goal really. But yeah avoid friends, family, travel, pets...

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#164
post #5

Yikes. Good thing you didn't wind up there. The furthest I've gone in these jazz style culture interviews is asking people what they do outside of work for fun. This was for fully remote async positions. And it was important to know you had other stuff going on because the mental/personal health risk in failing at remote work is massive and life altering. If, through wherever that discussion went, I wasn't 100% sure…

Hmmm. Maybe overindexing on anecdata. Did that one guy go a bit crazy once?

I think you gotta trust adults to be adults.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#165
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I conducted a few hundred software engineering interviews while working for a non-tech corp. Aside from technical problem solving & programming interviews we'd also ask a few behavioural questions -- including asking about times where the candidate had made a mistake at work, or a time at work where they were very frustrated. What we were looking for - people unwilling to admit they'd ever made a mistake -- red flag…

Right, I'm aware, and like I said, I expect those questions, and I have several examples I'm prepared for, and can tailor it to the interviewer. Like if it was a devops role, I could talk about when I took down production and what I learned from it. Or I could talk about when I failed to properly manage a junior if the role was more management-oriented and what I learned from it. Or when I badly architected a feature…

Where I work we divide up topics and questions so we aren't all asking the same thing in an interview. This guy might have been given the "handling failures" scenario.

It's possible that's what happened here and the interviewer also just wasn't very good. Some people just really suck at interviewing.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#166

Beats my worst interview. For some reason I mentioned that I like reading. The guy then demanded to list the last ten books I read. I just named ten random books that I had read at some point in my life, even in childhood. Pretty bizarre. Glad I didn’t get that job.

I would go by something like: "The industrial society and its future" - Theodor Kaczinski. "The communist manifesto" - Karl Marx. "Rules for Radicals" - Saul Alinsky "Hitler's War" - David Irving "The Souls of Black Folk" - W.E.B. Du Bois "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" - Tom Pickety "Las venas abiertas da America Latina" - Eduardo Galeano "The question of Palestine" - Edward Said. "Grapes of Wrath" - John Stei…

Non zero chance you make a friend by citing the list! Or you get the boot. Especially when the Atlas Shrugged reading startup founder is deciding.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#167

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 was also part of this sort of interview once. They specifically asked personal questions - parents stuff, relationship, etc. Definitely not work related. It was indeed a very strange and exhausting experience. I could've definetly refused to answer some of the questions or drop out of the interview altogether, but not sure why I haven't. So yeah, this type of interview exists so I highly doubt the interviewer inter…

> They specifically asked personal questions - parents stuff, relationship, etc.

In the US any employer who asks you about personal relationships during an interview is opening themselves up to an illegal discrimination lawsuit.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#168

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 was also part of this sort of interview once. They specifically asked personal questions - parents stuff, relationship, etc. Definitely not work related. It was indeed a very strange and exhausting experience. I could've definetly refused to answer some of the questions or drop out of the interview altogether, but not sure why I haven't. So yeah, this type of interview exists so I highly doubt the interviewer inter…

Doesn’t that open them to discrimination lawsuits?

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#169

I was excited, it was a game company, and I'd wanted to get back into games - or more specifically, game engines - for a few years. The tech of this particular company was interesting, an in-house engine developed by wunderkind, of course, and they'd invited me for an interview because I had done a fair bit of low-level work, which would be handy for their rough edges. Apparently. Half way through the interview, I ha…

Good. and you saved time by doing this. It feels more the right thing.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#170

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 was also part of this sort of interview once. They specifically asked personal questions - parents stuff, relationship, etc. Definitely not work related. It was indeed a very strange and exhausting experience. I could've definetly refused to answer some of the questions or drop out of the interview altogether, but not sure why I haven't. So yeah, this type of interview exists so I highly doubt the interviewer inter…

At that point, I think I would have just started making things up or telling stories from other people I knew. Some random interviewer has literally no right to be asking me personal questions so I have no problem improvising some fun answers for them.
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