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The worst job interview I ever had

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Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#381

Post by Unbeliever69 »

rigonkulous wrote: post #40

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…

Nothing will take years off your life better than working for people you don't like in a company you don't want to work at.

I guess that is the problem with the current state of the world. Employers hold most of the cards and people are desperate to find and retain employment. As someone who has coupled themselves to the wrong trains more than I'd like to admit, I'd encourage all young engineers to ask themselves, "Is work more important than your mental and physical health?" Don't underestimate the affect of toxic people, management and companies on your brain and body. Over time you may pay the ultimate price; an early death.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#382

Post by IAmBroom »

An interview is a date between a company and a new employee. If either one of them acts inappropriately, or gives off strong "bad chemistry", the other party learns it is a red flag.

Sometimes these red flags are ignored because one side is desperate (lonely, horny and attracted, needs a job, needs the role filled soon). That's always a bad thing.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#384

Post by andrewflnr »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #333
zeafoamrun wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holding up a cardboard board in a video interview? This is so deranged.

I wonder if the letters were hand-written or cut and pasted from several magazines.

I bet if they'd been cut out they'd be easier to read.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#385

Post by cindyllm »

teiferer wrote: post #309
ordu wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What does this tell you?" Why didn't you answer, that it tells you that his camera is unfocused? I don't understand how people tolerate this for so long, I'd start trolling the guy after his third question. If he wants to be rude, then I'd retaliate and make sure I have a laugh while he is wasting his time.

Hard to claim the moral high ground if you do eye for an eye. Always be nicer than the other side. Even for practical reasons. If they think you are a prick, the blast radius can be substantially wider than this specific interview. And for what? The lulz? I'm not saying to accept rude behavior, but one can leave such situations without being rude back or making a scene.

[dead]

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#386

Post by firesteelrain »

rigonkulous wrote: post #40

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…

I left mid interview for a game company too. It was likely due to bad interview skills on behalf of the interviewer.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#387

Post by farmdog »

During university, I had an interview for a quant role. I was asked an option pricing question, and then the interviewer immediately picked up the phone, asked something, then spent the next 2 minutes yelling at the person on the other end. I had a question, so I looked at him during this, and he paused, said "Why are you looking at me, you have 3 minutes left?" and went back to his stream of expletives.

To this day, I still don't know if it was part of the interview or the interviewer's working style. I learned a few new curse words and insults from the exchange, but mostly the signal to tell me I didn't want to work there.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#388

Post by Chris2048 »

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.

And an extra import. also, it sounds like they where looking specifically for knowledge of built-in operators.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#389

Post by jubilanti »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #256
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…

" but the interview engine is already running at full speed:" I dont know if this is a recent thing, but I had a similar thing where an interviewer was racing forward, and would only accept the answers he had in mind. In Python, he asked me how to search for substring. I was thinking but he started hurrying me. So I said regex and started writing a regex. "No, there is an inbuilt method" I couldnt remember the method…

The interviewer was right. If you don't know "if substring in string" by memory, your python programming is substandard. This should be automatic for anyone who works with python as a primary language. But if you can't even Google to find "if substring in string", why would anyone pay you even minimum wage to be a programmer?

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#390

Post by raincole »

the_af wrote: post #331
raincole wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was being rude, but I'm equally baffled by your description. It was very weird that you couldn't figure out which method is to search for substring when you have access to google search. And it was triply weird that when he already said he wanted the non-regex way and you insisted on that.

I think there's zero excuse to be rude to candidates, and the 101 of interviewing is to make it as comfortable as possible for the candidate and not hurrying them up when they are thinking (which wouldn't rememble real work anyway, those aren't the typical time pressures one usually finds on the job... usually). You want them to succeed and not trip up; if anything because it means no more conducting interviews for y…

Personally, I think the fact even after being asked to google another solution they still insist on the first solution came to their mind is the second biggest red flag.

(The biggest one is that they still think there is nothing wrong about this and decide to victimize themselves on HN.)

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