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The worst job interview I ever had

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Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#441

Post by ctrlkctrls »

bee_rider wrote: post #407
shantnutiwari wrote: post #256

Earlier 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…

I’d call this an understandable mistake on the part of the interviewer. “in” is a pretty commonly used operator. But it is also a bit unusual/trivial, in the sense that most languages would have a method or a function instead. It’s the sort of thing where if you’ve written, like, any Python at all, it’ll be somewhere in the back of your head. It’d surface immediately on the job. But if you’d been using any other lang…

The "in" operator is not unusual or trivia, it's something people who code in python use all the time! Python does have a function (or more accurately a method), it's called __contains__ and it's invoked by "in". I would expect a python developer to be able to comment on whether python uses a fastsearch algorithm or not, they should be able to comment on BM and H algorithms.

Maybe this was a very junior position, but I'm with the interviewer here. Using regex would be very questionable - and a solid case of 1171.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#442

Post by interviewitis »

elzbardico wrote: post #342
simoncion wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In defense of Dale Carnegie he always said that for this to work, you need first to learn to GENUILY CARE about other people.

The worst thing about even relatively-good advice of this sort, like Dale's, is that applying it well requires being so good at these kinds of things that you probably didn't need the advice in the first place.

People who've read a couple of these books and are trying to use them are usually transparent, and it hurts way more than it helps. If they weren't inept at applying the advice, they probably wouldn't have needed it. Especially if they're not very young—if they're older and haven't picked up most of that stuff through natural observational skills and curiosity-driven trial-and-error, their odds of reading and practicing their way to significant improvement seem low.

This goes for "nonviolent communication" and similar, too. Trying to use these things if you weren't already a natural just red-flags "I'm trying to manipulate you".

"First, genuinely care" is only a little less useless than "be attractive; don't be unattractive". In practice, most of the folks with a problem in that area aren't going to read the book and do the work on that bit before trying to apply the rest. Those without such a problem, likely don't need the book.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#443

Post by dpark »

cdud3 wrote: post #415
victorbojica wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]".

Rejecting the company that attempts to put you through this kind of interview is how you pass.

Remember that interviews are 2-way. You don’t have to engage in someone’s bad faith or incompetent interviewing.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#444

Post by JCTheDenthog »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #402
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had an interview like this in the past. At the time, I chalked it up to a power trip and the indignant behavior that comes along with it, as it is especially embedded in the culture of the country that I'm based out of. Having said that, talking to a relative, I found out that this style of "interviewing" is often done when they already have someone for the position, but need to show (for compliance reasons, or…

> Having said that, talking to a relative, I found out that this style of "interviewing" is often done when they already have someone for the position, but need to show (for compliance reasons, or otherwise) that they tried finding candidates, and only their preferred one qualified. Or they only want candidates from a specific country to apply which is seemingly the case. I've heard from very talented and capable dev…

>There's a problem with tech hiring and nobody wants to talk about it because most people are unaware.

And those who are aware and bring it up often get accused of racism when they do, making it difficult to spread awareness of this awful practice.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#445

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

freehorse wrote: post #375
jrflo wrote: post #363

Earlier 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

This is a common misunderstanding, and I don't want to sound like I'm blaming you for it, but it's based on a misconception of how the process works.

What interviewers are looking for is genuine introspection of the kind a high-quality hire would be expected to have. One answer I've given before, for example, is that I instinctively focus too deeply on technical requirements; I have to regularly prompt myself to answer "why does the customer care", or I get too deep into the details and end up with solutions that fail to serve their needs. The fact that I can recognize this weakness and take action to mitigate it is a positive signal.

What interviewers are looking to avoid is terrible answers that reveal underlying flaws or show you can't introspect at all. "I don't have any weaknesses", "I have trouble dealing with dumb people who give me bad ideas", "I get frustrated when people come to me with problems but don't explain what program I should write to solve them", etc.

Lame, humble-bragging answers are not the intent of the question and will not impress the interviewer, but probably won't prevent you from being hired if the interview otherwise went great. So maybe they're useful strategically if you're worried about giving a bad answer.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#447

Post by at-fates-hands »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #405
ljm wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a really weird power-trip interview once, and it was the CEO who was joined by a contractor who was ostensibly the technical lead for the project. There was nobody in engineering who worked full-time on the job, everybody was contracted. I was also going in as a contractor so I was aware that the interview would be a bit lighter on process as a result. The questioning very quickly veered away from technical stu…

> I lasted about 6 months and even trying to leave was an ordeal. Like finding your next gig or just not showing up ever again? Because I've worked at a place where someone came in, went to lunch, and they never saw them ever again.

My buddy did that.

I got a gig as a contractor for a well known company. They were hiring and he told his recruiter to get him in. After several conversations trying to tell him not to come in and telling him what a clown show it was, he still managed to get hired.

Same thing. Came in, continually had to ask me how to do stuff, and I kept telling him, "See man, I told you this place is a clown show!". He did the same thing. Left his laptop, "Going to lunch, be back in an hour."

Never came back.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#448

Post by TRiG_Ireland »

GJim wrote: post #270
neoden wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is scoped to "… at work" It should be but nothing guarantees you from meeting an interviewer that somehow misunderstands their role and then you will be in a situation when you need to choose what to do next: try to be open or resist. Once during an interview (for a software engineer position) I was asked if I had a family and when I replied that I didn't, I was asked why. You might be able to cut it down in an app…

> I was asked if I had a family and when I replied that I didn't, I was asked why. In Blighty, that would surely have garnered a response along the lines of 'they were all lost in an industrial accident involving a steamroller and a packet of Lurpak'.

"I lost both parents. ... I was careless."

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#449

Post by JellyBeanThief »

Unbeliever69 wrote: post #381
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, "I…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony should be n our vocabulary.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#450

Post by abustamam »

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…

I wonder if such companies realize (or care) how much good talent they're losing by keeping bad talent.
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