Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The worst job interview I ever had

oliverio.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 589 posts

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#521

Post by dpark »

Dusseldorf wrote: post #490
cdud3 wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an effective way to sort out those candidates who are not able to leave private stuff at home.

Also a great way for candidates to filter out employers who play bizarre mind games and think personal trick questions are appropriate in an interview.

Literally he’s saying to behave inappropriately in a professional interview and see if the candidate plays along. Might as well see if you can get the candidate to offer a bribe or sexual favors for the job since we’re going all in on entrapment.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#522

Post by sharadov »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #440
sharadov wrote: post #414

Sorry 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…

Had something similar happen. I get on the zoom call. Told it would be a general interview and same thing. No camera, then asked me to show my drivers license and social security card to prove my identification. I asked why they needed this in the first interview. He stammered back and forth and then reiterated the interview would not go forward until I confirmed my identity by showing my drivers license and SS card.…

Big red flag - definitely identity theft there!

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#523

Post by gopher_space »

anyfoo wrote: post #108
MattRogish wrote: post #90

This… 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…

And even if, for the sake of argument, they legitimately did ask about your personal life instead of your work life... you normally wouldn't answer any of that. (In fact, it could very well mean the end of the interview, from the interviewee's side.) That's vastly overstepping commonly accepted boundaries. Sure, some surface level smalltalk is normal and expected: "Any hobbies? Ah, you like hiking? Nice. Where do you…

Just an aside:

> Sure, some surface level smalltalk is normal and expected: [...] Common ground helps conversations flow.

`smalltalk` is a misleading term for an interesting form of protocol negotiation.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#524

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

chadgpt3 wrote: post #421
fakwandi_priv wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're guesses are getting somewhat closer each time, almost there.

[flagged]

98,108 results on "India"

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

174,402 results on "Israel"

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I don't know how to tell they're "penalized" though.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#525

Post by naim08 »

burnte wrote: post #482
Aurornis wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I ask if he is the ML team lead. Turns out this absolute Chad is a mobile dev the client asked to interview candidates for the MLE role. Some times I run into companies like this: The people you talk to are so visibly inexperienced that you can't comprehend how the company functions, let alone makes money. Some times it's a zombie company. They received funding or got a windfall from some early business moves, hire…

I've had very few bad interviews, I've had very few interviews that didn't lead to offers, but I've declined a few. One was semi-recent and it was in in-person in-office interview but the CEO joined remotely. We chatted for a few minutes, then the COO came into the room and we began the interview. The CEO asked one question in the beginning, then the COO asked all the questions. The CEO sat on the screen like a lump.…

This feels similar to a recent interview experience I had in NYC.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#526

Post by eudamoniac »

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…

I've never understood this extremely common complaint. First of all if one can't remember the substring method in the language they are interviewing for, that's a red flag; extremely common standard lib functions should not be a subject for googling. But let's account for nervousness, okay. If that same candidate can't find the method by googling, it's a no-hire from me, easily.

"python find substring" gives you a valid answer on every single result. This story, and most like it, is incompetence in the python language, in googling, or both.

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#527

Post by tristor »

pan69 wrote: post #62
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 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…

I don't agree, but I think your perspective is valid so I upvoted you.

I've worked for companies that did this, in fact I'd say this is commonplace at startups and small companies, at least till around 500 employees or so. If I ever start another company, I'd operate the same way as a founder/ceo. While Dunbar's Number probably puts an upper limit on the number of people I can truly know in my organization, I think it's incredibly important as a leader to have the possibility of putting a face to a name inside the one endeavor (company) you are wholly responsible for. That doesn't say anything about my trust or lack there-of in the people below me on the org chart.

I almost feel the opposite. I've turned down jobs because I want to understand the strategic direction and the folks I was interviewing with couldn't adequately explain it and they were unwilling to let me meet the folks high enough up the chain that they could as part of my interview process. If I can't get the time of day out of the founder during one of the most important decisions (hiring) that their company makes, they're certainly not going to give me the time of day once I'm in the door and that means I have effectively no feedback mechanism. Why would I want to work there?

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#528

Post by tristor »

The worst interview of my life was at Meta, and it was bad enough that I have permanently blacklisted them as a place I will /never/ work. I get contacted by Meta recruiters relatively often despite the fact I let them know after the fact that they were horribly unprofessional and I would never work with them after that experience (setting aside any ethical concerns, which I also have).

I've had several other bad interviews in my career though, and almost all of them were small companies / startups. It was also obvious, sometimes in the moment, that it was bad because the person interviewing me lacked the maturity, experience, or professionalism to be conducting interviews of anyone. Many times that person was the founder. I consider those all dodged bullets.

It's always important to remember that interviews are a two-way street, and the way someone conducts an interview can tell you a lot about them and about the organizational context they operate in. Do you want to work there?

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#529

Post by Halian »

eximius wrote: post #59

Earlier this year I was told I failed an interview because when asked why I wanted to join a company, my answer "could apply to other companies in the same stage of life." They apparently required me to be _uniquely_ interested in their company. There were other oddities about their interview process. Some interviewers just want to feel special.

What were the other oddities?

Re: The worst job interview I ever had

#530

Post by eudamoniac »

butlike wrote: post #452
gspetr wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: https://www.google.com/search?q=list+python+string+methods Step 2: Parse the output with your eyes. The method is literally called "find". This one-trick pony failure mode could perhaps have been fine for a guy who did Java and nothing but Java for 10 years, but you are supposedly the person who runs "pythonforengineers" website... 100% correct call by the interviewer.

So I don't code python. Is it find() or index() or is being terse and rude not really going to add inches to your dick?

Why would you be interviewing for a Python developer position if you don't know Python?
Post reply on HN