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Interview Humiliation

deliberate-software.com

41–50 of 94 posts

Re: Interview Humiliation

#41
post #4

This is such comic book villainy I just don't believe it happened as described. I wonder how the other side would describe it.

Looks like the story some time ago. Especially with emotionally charged stories like this, people always tend to misremember or warp the details and not realize they're doing so. I'm sure the general gist is right, but I always get a little suspect when someone describes eye-rolls or how someone sounded sarcastic. Those are exactly the sorts of things that we remember differently as time goes on.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#42
post #4

This is such comic book villainy I just don't believe it happened as described. I wonder how the other side would describe it.

I agree to a small degree. It is certainly one mans biased perspective. However, ive been through enough interviews and am even guilty myself when interviewing of turning on a condescending attitude when feeling threatened. Im not proud of it, but its the truth.

The other side of the story probably has a perspective/narrative that makes them look peachy. As with most stories, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Both sides made mistakes. I just hope this candidate turned interviewer realizes the solution is not as easy as, dont do what they did...or even " treat people with respect" those words mean nothing without taking ownership of your own screwups and working on being secure in who you are... IME nothing will make you a better human being than being secure in who you are intrinsically, owning your imperfections and striving to improve yourself...judging others, as this article does, while possibly true, id an indication of someone shirking their own culpability in this experience and blaming external variables. Its not about what actually happened, its about what you do with the experience, and being a nice interviewer is too subjective to know if you are actually nice or just think you are acting nice.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I found out later their recruiter had given me and many other candidates the wrong time.

Right, but as someone conducting an interview, checking your watch every minute waiting for someone to arrive, you don't know what their reasons are. And as the time passes, you start wondering what the hell is up with this person, wondering about all the other things you could be doing, etc. etc. and it leaves you in a bad mood for when they do arrive. No amount of explanation will change the bad mood, I'm not going…

I used to do get riled up over things I don't control. Getting into a bad mood over this is your responsibility. Think of it as a situation to work on your emotional intelligence.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#45
post #25

it is obviously a dubious story. Wouldn't the first thing you would say as soon as you enter the room is that you got an invitation to 9h30 and not 9h? Then what did op reply to their questions such as 'can't you afford a real machine'? he just mubbled? I would reply very harshly to such comments and show them who is the weakling. While they were total assholes, you were not in a desperate enough situation that would…

It's dubious because he didn't respond as you would? I never thought I'd be reminded of victim blaming here, yet here I am. Unless you personally know the OP, you have no idea what the OP's personality is like. Sure, I personally would tear them a new one (civilly) if they treated me like that, but I have non-confrontational friends that would be terrified to escalate the situation like that.

[deleted]

Re: Interview Humiliation

#46
post #4

This is such comic book villainy I just don't believe it happened as described. I wonder how the other side would describe it.

No, I see this everywhere.

There's a large segment of the software industry that believes their way is right, and everything else is wrong. The phone you use, the computer you use, etc.

Recently I had someone tell me that if you're still writing apps that serve HTML, you're "doing it wrong" because everything should be an AJAX backend with JavaScript. Is that the way apps are going? Certainly. But is that the way to do everything? No.

I did a conference talk on Elixir this last week, and later ran into someone who told me that there's no need for that as he can do everything better and faster with Node, and "why should I waste my time learning THAT? I saw a benchmark showing that Node was faster, so I'll use that."

Here's what I think the problem is. Every morning you log on to Twitter and HN and you see ten new things out there. You don't know when your thing of choice will be out of style with the clique you run with. And it's tiring. So developers are so insecure about their own knowledge that they seem to seek out confirmation bias, surrounding themselves with an echo chamber that believes what they believe. That's more comfortable. And anyone who believes differently has no business being there.

It's like high school, really.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but as someone conducting an interview, checking your watch every minute waiting for someone to arrive, you don't know what their reasons are. And as the time passes, you start wondering what the hell is up with this person, wondering about all the other things you could be doing, etc. etc. and it leaves you in a bad mood for when they do arrive. No amount of explanation will change the bad mood, I'm not going…

> No amount of explanation will change the bad mood, I'm not going to suddenly get bright eyed and cheery because it turned out to be a scheduling error. It won't & can't change your past frustration - sure. But do you have to take it forward to the new few hours as you are judging another person trying to find his means of livelihood?

Me personally, no. But I recognize that it takes extraordinary actions to turn people's moods around. Saying "the recruiter messed up" doesn't solve my mood, I'm just mad at a different person now.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#48

All the usual cliches apply- you wouldn't want to work for them anyway, etc etc (Seriously though, a suit?!)

Exactly. What kind of schmuck wants to look like some kind of business professional? What are you trying to do, give the impression that you put some thought into your appearance and have respect for the interviewer's time?

A suit? Get with the programme; we have a strict uniform in this game and you'd better not have the self-confidence or the sense of style to step outside the uniform. We hire people who are just like us, and don't you forget it. Monoculture and groupthink? Damn right. That's what we want.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#49
This sounds highly improbable, especially the "Oh, wow, Linux, what is this, 2003? I'd hoped I'd never have to see....." comment, I honestly can't believe there are any developers would make such a comment.

The OP should name the company if this interview was this terrible.

Re: Interview Humiliation

#50

Almost everyone on this site seems to have gone through similar interview experiences one time or the other. Our profession can get rid of this malady only with collective effort, as the author suggests: Lastly, this story fills me with an overwhelming desire to never continue the cycle of abuse. I strive every interview to try to respectfully work with the candidate, and never humiliate them. I want every person I i…

I agree. It looks like most interviews are aimed at finding "defects" in people - why they would not be a fit, than looking for reasons what the candidate can bring to the company/team if they were to join.
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