This sounds less like an interview and more like they’re gathering data to train their mental health model!
The worst job interview I ever had
201–210 of 589 posts
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dale Carnegie floating around this thread a lot. Remembering (and using!) someone's name is a magic spell, too.
> Remembering (and using!) someone's name is a magic spell, too. When it's done to me, it's the magic spell of "I Distrust You". A time or two is fine, as is its usage if one is -say- in a group conversation where it can be difficult to understand to whom one is speaking, or -say- one needs to get my attention when I'm focusing on something else. In my many years of personal experience, I've found that people who beh…
Isn’t the magic in the "time or two"? For example I always make it a point to thank call center people by name after they’ve helped me, even though their name comes up exactly once before that point (when they introduce themselves). It’s just extending a basic courtesy, treating someone like a human being. (Of course, remembering the name of who was helping you is not just basic courtesy but also useful for other reasons.)
Seems the message got distorted from "remembering people's names shows you care about them" to "use people's names unnecessarily or in bad faith". I was pretty upset by that Apple Intelligence ad where Bella Ramsey pulls up someone's name and then pretends she remembered it – yuck.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#203This… 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…
"The follow-up, they described over email, would be a bit non traditional - a ~90 minute culture fit chat"
"I fail to recall the exact wording of the discussion topics, but they were, in fact, non-technical"
"This person gave the impression that it was a safe space to share"
I mean yes, the correct way would have been to politely decline to answer - but it very much reads as the intention of the interviewer was to get into all the personal stuff, to better evaluate - and sueing them possibly the right move.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#204Earlier this year I was told I failed an interview because when asked why I wanted to join a company, my answer "could apply to other companies in the same stage of life." They apparently required me to be _uniquely_ interested in their company. There were other oddities about their interview process. Some interviewers just want to feel special.
As nonsense as this is, you should always have an answer at the ready for why you’re uniquely interested in them. If they don’t ask, volunteer it.
If their interviewing results in a handful of qualified candidates, guess which one they’re going to go with?
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#205Name and shame company: Canonical They make us write essays and life stories and reject in 24hrs. Felt the exact same frustration.
Sad to hear - putting these things on Glassdoor can help more people avoid these situations.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#206Right, you should never, ever, make yourself emotionally available to a prospective employer. They might seem friendly but they are not.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#207Earlier this year I was told I failed an interview because when asked why I wanted to join a company, my answer "could apply to other companies in the same stage of life." They apparently required me to be _uniquely_ interested in their company. There were other oddities about their interview process. Some interviewers just want to feel special.
As nonsense as this is, you should always have an answer at the ready for why you’re uniquely interested in them. If they don’t ask, volunteer it. If their interviewing results in a handful of qualified candidates, guess which one they’re going to go with?
I always counter the question by asking them why they are uniquely interested in me. That way they usually skip the question. (You should still have an answer ready for all of the obvious questions)
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#208Beats 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 got "tell me what you're passionate about" last time, and I'm curious what a bad reply would be, because I showed them a silly comic I drew on my phone. Apparently that was fine.
“Passionate? Jethro Tull should be in the rock and roll hall of fame.”
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#209I'd say I've been fairly luck as far interviews go. The vast, vast majority have been about as straight forward and by the book as they come. Completely predictable ones.
But I've had some iffy ones.
One was for a small boutique investment firm, for a data scientist type role. I'm not sure if it was part of their "stress testing" routine, but I was given a bash terminal where I had to SSH into some server, find data, and write a program to manipulate said data, and write it to a database. The problem was very straight forward, BUT one of the interviewers was practically hanging over my should for 60 minutes straight, commenting every other minute "No, no, you should...", "This looks wrong", "Have you actually done this before?", "Why don't you know..."
I tried my best to just be professional, and walk him through my thought process. In the end my program ended up doing exactly what it was supposed to, with optimal performance - but I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I thought to myself that I'd rather go unemployed than work under that level of passive-aggressive micromanagement.
But in the big picture, that's nothing. I have friends that have experience explicit age, sex, and race discrimination. Ranging from "Why should we hire [the caste this person "belongs" to]?" to "You better not get pregnant if we decide to hire you"
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#210This… 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…
You're so right, i prefer my colleagues perfectly mentally healthy, can't have these issues around!
.... why can we never find hires?
I think people (especially HR) need to realize we all pretend to be mentally sounds. These issues make us human, and if you are trying to filter by this, you'll end up with maskers as colleagues.