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Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

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Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#61

Post by ssully »

TrackerFF wrote: post #26

I remember being in an interview, with a very respected figure/researcher in the local ML/AI scene - had seen some guest lectures/seminars he held at the local Uni., which were excellent. He was glued to his phone for about 95% of the interview, completely focused on something else. It was quite the letdown. But I understand that a lot of people really, really loathe doing interviews. Probably stipulated in their wor…

I had an interview like that last year. It was the third interview that looped in the team lead. The team lead was answering slack messages the whole time and asked me to repeat my answer to questions a handful of times. He apologized and everything, but the bigger issue is you aren't going to remember a candidate for a job when you aren't paying attention so its clearly a waste of time for everyone.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#62

Post by [deleted] »

vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

[deleted]

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#63

Post by BossingAround »

ipnon wrote: post #13
ziddoap wrote: post #2

Interesting read but I (and I think many others) would be more interested in reading about how one manages to land 60 interviews, at all, in the current job market. You must have either a stellar resume, incredible experience, access to a huge network, or a combination of the above.

Apply the Lindy rule[0]: To get a job at a startup, have an app portfolio. To get a job at a Big N, go to an elite university, another Big N, or grind Leetcode for months. To get a job at a corporation, grind Leetcode and have recruiters spam your resume. Different jobs require different applicants. A balanced, general approach, would be to do 1 Leetcode problem and send 1 application per day. It'd be hard to still b…

> and have recruiters spam your resume

What does this mean? Do you mean the applicant to spam recruiters with their resume? Or use Leetcode directly for hiring, because corpos will hire through Leetcode?

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#64

Post by yokaze »

vmception wrote: post #56
ptero wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with the setup the author listed is not the exploding part, it's the pressure to accept and calls from the hiring manager pressing to accept. All well within the exploding offer window. If the team has this attitude before hiring, it often indicates that it will be "we need A B and C done by first thing Monday morning" after joining. My 2c.

You can optimize for avoiding that and still wind up in that exact situation. This is a complete non-signal.

Sure, you can still the up in that situation.

But what are the chances that the hiring manager will pester you within the time frame you supposedly have for considering the offer and then won't do the same when you are employed with your actual tasks?

I would put it close to zero.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#65

Post by duxup »

vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

At a previous large company more than once I had to explain that the interview process 'is HR's show'...but once the job starts it is now 'our show' and they don't have to worry about that song and dance anymore.

It's frustrating that it is that way, but the hiring at that company was a whole other song and dance that took very little input from anyone about the hiring process.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#67

Post by weston »

beforeolives wrote: post #57
vmception wrote: post #21

>I turned down the [exploding] offer because the experience got me thinking about the company’s work culture. Were the methods employed by the company to get me to accept the offer indicative of their work culture? I've never found the interview process to be reflective of the company. I find the interview process to be a random hodgepodge across the entire industry because nobody knows what they are doing. Small/not…

This isn't the author's reaction to the interview process, it's their reaction to the way the company tried to pressure them into accepting the offer. > Then the pressure started, incessant calls from the hiring manager and the VP of Engineering, back-to-back emails, all within the allotted time. I agree with the author that it's a red flag - it communicates that they don't respect boundaries or behave professionally…

You’re right, the author isn’t just complaining about the exploding offer, but the high-pressure boiler room sales tactics. It just reeks of desperation, good for him for knowing his worth and walking away.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#68

Post by neilv »

If someone is doing 60 technical interviews in 30 days:

1. When I'm hiring, I wish the resume sites have an indicator when a person is interviewing excessively or indiscriminately, so that my company doesn't waste our time.

2. In the rare situation that I've been interested in working at a particular company, I wish I knew better ways for my interest to stand out from the "shotgun approach" applicants.

I did see one interesting approach by a company that tackles both scenarios: they have a unique and hefty job-application packet requirement, before you even know whether they're interested at all, nor what positions are available. The packet looked like it would take multiple days of interpretation, focused effort, and soul-baring to put together. I suspect, when the company skims the packet from someone who took the hit to put it together and submit it -- besides what value they get from qualitative interpretation of the content of the application -- they can also pretty easily detect many half-hearted efforts by people doing things like the article author's "109+" applications (if those people apply at all). A downside of this particular proof-of-work approach is that the required upfront effort on a cold application for a nebulous opportunity probably is filtering out some people the company would otherwise like to work with.

Re: Red Flags I Saw While Doing 60 Technical Interviews in 30 Days

#70

Post by BossingAround »

ModernMech wrote: post #55

> Not enough clarity about your role I experienced this one to the extreme. Not only would the recruiter not tell me what the scope of the job was, neither would the interviewing engineers nor the hiring manager. I went to the on-site interview with the promise that I would be working on "world-changing technology". The location of the interview was a nondescript building in the Bay area with an off-limits engineerin…

> Seriously, how does anyone accept a job without knowing what the job is?

Well... I have had the opposite experience with the same effect too. The recruiters and team members had told me exactly what I will do, only to come in and discover they had exactly 0 idea what I will do, and that it's all different.

That was extremely disappointing (and moderately damaging).

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