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Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

blog.interviewing.io

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Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#211

Post by plorkyeran »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #129
jacquesm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic. I had a similar thing happen a while ago. US based company - not named to protect the guilty - wanted me to move to the United States to do some pretty specific work for them. I'm not open to such offers but they went out of their way to make the invitation, offered to fly me out there and a whole pile of other buttering up bits and pieces. So I said if they wanted me that badly, could we do this remote? You…

I always love getting a question about "Why are you interviewing for this position?" and replying "I got an email from your internal recruiter". The follow up is usually "Why do you want to leave your current company?" replying with "I'm not, your recruiter said this was a cool place".

Presumably you don't schedule an interview every single time a recruiter contacts you, so there the question is more of "what made you say yes to interview with us?"

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#212

Post by malyk »

compiler-guy wrote: post #28
nickff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, there often needs to be a time limit, or else they will be too late to make an offer to the runner-up (when the leader turns it down). I am not sure what a 'reasonable period' is.

A reasonable period is: You tell them up front your ideal timeline, that you have a couple of other irons in the fire (if you do), and you keep them informed of the progress of those other fires. And they do the same for you. Maybe you can't get a timing that works for both sides together, but that is OK. The pressuring is what isn't.

Right. What I found works well is "We'd like to extend an offer, but we'd appreciate a 48 hour turn around, so let us know when you'll be in a place to make that decision"

Assuming the time period is reasonable (a week or two), this works well. What I, as a hiring manager, want to avoid is you shopping my offer against 5 others for the next month. This gives people some safety net where they can get through their current interviews with other companies and then compare them at the same time and give me an answer with a known timeline.

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#213

Post by 101008 »

pnutjam wrote: post #94
101008 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I am going through that. I started as a Python Sr dev a month ago, now I am handling server which is not my expertise. They are going down, deployment pipelines are not working, when I mentioned several times, my superior answer is "You are becoming a devop ;)"... I know they will be mad the day we deploy this to production and everything fails, but I honestly dont know what else to mention. (In my interview I sa…

Just consider it getting paid to improve your resume. Whether this project is unmaintainable won't matter when you've moved on for you 20% raise at the next company. The one you're currently working for will never give it to you. - voice of experience -

Ha, thank you! Yeah, I am trying to remain positive, thinking that this is an oportunity to learn, etc. But at the same time i feel responsible if this fails :-/

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#214

Post by TulliusCicero »

claudeganon wrote: post #188
C1sc0cat wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am reading this correctly a short list of 50 for a single role?

It’s completely insane if they’re interviewing 50 people per role. The filtering process is entirely broken if they’re doing that many. The most people I’ve ever interviewed for a job is 7.

It's possible they're including phone screens/interviews there, not 50 total on-site interviews.

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#215

Post by quickthrower2 »

hinkley wrote: post #104

I sometimes feel self-conscious asking deep questions about morale, especially when I'm on the fence about working at a place and am just being polite in case I need this as a Plan C. There are some questions where if you get the person to take them seriously you may pop whatever bubble they're living in that helps them get through the day. One place, I was not doing so great. I was participating in the interview pro…

Sounds like maybe the whole team was handcuffed to the bonus, then everyone left after that? I remember one job where I put in my resignation on the day the bonus money was a confirmed transaction in my bank account, and not a day earlier!

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#216

Post by rurp »

justinzollars wrote: post #58

> If through all the different stages of the interview process, you experience a consistent lack of interest or low morale from your interviewers, you might want to pay attention This is good advice. I certainly have a different perspective of a number of companies, where my outlook of those companies has changed are after witnessing this. It was easy to pass on those companies.

Agreed and I want to add that it can go the other way as well. I've interviewed with a few companies that I was ambivalent about going in, but after interacting with some extremely sharp and pleasant interviewers I got quite a bit more excited about the job.

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#217

Post by grumple »

Galanwe wrote: post #107
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #66

As someone with 20+ years in the experience, red flag #1 for me is being expected to go through a skill-testing technical whiteboard (or similar) coding exercise before even having a deeper discussion about the role and whether there's a fit, etc. I've seen this many times and I find it baffling: I already have a very high paying high quality job, I want you to sell _me_ on the position before demanding I do stressfu…

After being on both sides of the interview situation for quite a while now, my feeling on this is more nuanced. The thing is, when you look for a job, you will often go for 5 to 10 interviews. On the other end, when I'm looking for someone to fill a position in my team, I will interview at the very least 50 candidates. That is to say, all things equal, the interviewer has most likely more incentive than the interview…

If you're interviewing 50 candidates, your process is horrifically broken. As soon as you find an acceptable candidate, hire them. They don't have to be perfect; no hire will be, no matter how much time you spend. You're wasting company time and money.

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#218

Post by user5994461 »

xtracto wrote: post #185

> Your interviewer is only open to solving the problem ONE way Haha, I've happily been in the "interviewer" side of this two times: One time, as part of a DevOps interview I asked the candidate to run something in a POSIX OS every 15 seconds using a cronjob (that was the general idea). Crontab granularity is only in minutes, so you have to use your head or Google to get a Cronjob answer. The interviewee however told…

That's the first thing I thought reading your sentence, cron cannot do seconds granularity (I think the lowest was 1 hour on the last OS I was working with).

Why would you ask questions which you know are impossible? That's setting up the candidate to fail.

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#219

Post by BrandonM »

victor9000 wrote: post #169
jnwatson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been the recruiter in this position. I think it is unethical to string your runners-up along in this situation. You're essentially taking up their (and your) valuable time with little chance at success. Exploding offers are the least bad solution. Give them 48-72 hours, with a small extension if they are currently talking to someone else.

If you don't like being a runner-up then you should negotiate with the candidate so that your company ends up in a more competitive position.

I assumed that jnwatson was talking about runner-up job candidates, who are in a holding pattern until the first-choice candidate accepts or declines the offer.

Re: Red flags I saw while doing technical interviews

#220

Post by nickff »

user5994461 wrote: post #210
nickff wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accepting an offer without an intent to follow through is fraud. If you think your counter-party is dishonest or ill-intentioned, then you should refuse to enter into any agreement with them.

If you want to play the legal game, the contract is void because it was signed under duress. Forcing the employee to sign in 24h qualifies as consent under duress, not free consent.

First, I don't care whether it's illegal; lying to people is wrong.

Second, the definitions for fraud vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but the course of action recommended here falls under the common definition of civil fraud:

>"Somebody misrepresents a material fact in order to obtain action or forbearance by another person;

>"The other person relies upon the misrepresentation; and

>"The other person suffers injury as a result of the act or forbearance taken in reliance upon the misrepresentation"

Third, a time limit is not duress unless there are other exigent circumstances. Duress is usually defined as:"threats, violence, constraints, or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment." Getting someone to accept a slightly lower salary is not 'against their will or better judgement', it's just a negotiation.

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