Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mind raced to the letter I instead
Is it Iceland? Ivory Coast? Ireland? Indonesia?
You're guesses are getting somewhat closer each time, almost there.
The worst job interview I ever had
411–420 of 589 posts
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
" 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?
I can't tell if you're trolling or not, but this is a ridiculous thing either wya.
I've used Python as my main language for ~10 years in various professional roles (DS, DE, SWE) and I so rarely need the exact construction `substring in string` that I probably would have blanked on it too in an interview. 99% of my string processing is .startswith/.endswith and re.search, that's just the way it goes. Hell, I know the difference between re.search and re.match by heart (do you? no? you're substandard!) but I genuinely forgot that `in` works on strings.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
you think that's what it was? The people with 100% of the power in this situation did everything 100% correct and you're not victim-blaming at all?
It was a textbook example of the double contingency of communication¹. In communications it doesn't only matter what each side is objectively saying. It matters what the other side expects them to hear. And that goes both ways. In this case the interviewer asked these questions to get to know the candidate in a professional setting, so they expected a diplomatic or professional answer. The candidate however misjudged…
This interview lasted over an hour. If he was answering wrong they should have said something.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#414Sorry OP you had to go through this - not knowing your circumstances, but golden rule, once the interview starts getting invasive, please cut it short and move on.
Recently I had an interview for a contract position. First off, it was a zoom interview where the interviewer did not have his camera on.
He promptly asks me to share my screen - which I found odd, since I had no content to share with him.
Next - he tells me to go the top right screen of my mac and asks me to disable bluetooth.
I said am not going to do it, since I had my airpods connected and within the next second I also told him am not interested in proceeding with this BS interview.
There are boundaries of human decency, which you should never let anyone cross.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#415This… 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…
Rejecting the question is actually how you pass. Open with "I leave everything private at home when at work hence my answer for the work position is: [here the answer but scoped and formulated to your work life and NOT to your private life]".
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another pro tip for interviews: even if they explicitly ask for something like "the worst day of your life, including personal circumstances not at work", just answer about work anyways. You don't have to answer every question as posed. Pretend the worst day of your life was at work and was work related. There are a lot of interview questions asked as bait. If someone asks "What is your greatest weakness?", you bette…
In my understanding, interviewers expect sth like: > What is your greatest weakness? > I am too good at my work
That's not correct. You are expected to actually share a weekend and how you're handling it
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people vastly overstate the amount of actual risk companies are taking when they engage is possibly illegal behavior, especially on this forum.
Having been on the sidelines for spurious claims of this nature, these sorts of lawsuits are a huge risk: the cost of mounting a defense can easily bankrupt a small business, even if the claims turn out to be baseless. Even in the case of complete innocence, it often becomes a he-said-she-said situation, and the outcome boils down to which side presents the best set of “facts”. I use quotes there because my broader e…
I think it also depends on how big of a company. If someone (say perhaps, GP) mostly has experience in smaller companies, they might not have had the law of large numbers bring the lawsuit cudgel to bear on their company before.
But if you're at a large enough company, you're absolutely getting sued for this from time to time, so you'll have the "how to not get sued" training before you're allowed to interview.
(Edit: this isn't limited to interviews. There's many, many examples of things that large companies will not touch due to legal risk, that smaller companies will... either due to lack of knowledge on the legal risk (maybe no legal department even exists yet?) or intentionally as a gamble)
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#418I 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 had something similar years ago. I applied for a job at a company, size around 150 people. Did two rounds of interviews which were great. They wanted me to offer the role. However, as a third round, I was going to do a meet and greet with the CEO and he was going to yay or nay me. At point I dropped out. If a CEO can't trust his delegate managers to hire the people they see fit for a role, then thanks but no thanks…
My friend has been contracting at $STARTUP for a couple of years now with a revolving 2 month contract. His managers have not attempted to hide the fact they would likely end his contract once they've managed to hire a full timer into the team.
Sadly, their CEO has veto-ed every single full time hire they've tried to bring on for past 2 years now.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hard to claim the moral high ground if you do eye for an eye. I do not claim the moral high ground. My moral is more flexible, than just "an eye for an eye" or "be nicer than the other side". I can do any of that depending on a situation. I'm starting any communication with the latter, it is a consequence of my upbringing, but if it doesn't work I may do anything. I want to note, I know that "be nicer than the othe…
Agreed. Wasting applicants time should have consequences. I can play along for a little bit to appease people who are intentionally testing how I handle a difficult situation but I am not going to allow an extended waste of time to occur and that's something I want to communicate to potential employers as well
> Agreed. Wasting applicants time should have consequences.
This is so funny. "I'll show them by being slightly obnoxious for ten minutes! Then they'll know not to mess with me!"
I'm sure they'll really feel those consequences.
Re: The worst job interview I ever had
#420I 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…
I had one a bit like this, the interviewer was a nontechnical guy who just had a list of questions.