Ask HN: How do you deal with rude interviewers?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31338591

by pmoriarty • 4 years ago

319 457 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.

Then they just walked out in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.

At the time I didn't say anything, and just continued the interview as if nothing happened, but in retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?

FatalLogic• 4 years ago

I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself

Yes, do this. Walk. The behavior is unacceptable and tells a terrible story about the company culture.

Perhaps if the remaining interviewers apologized immediately, you could reconsider, but probably not.

incomingpain2• 4 years ago

Interviewing is a skill you need to exercise and such interviews are where you are challenged to stay positive and continue the interview for further experience. Even when an interview has gone absolutely terrible and there's literally nothing they could do to convince you to work there. You work doubly hard to convince them to want to hire you. Ask them what they need you to do for them, explain how you can do it. Ask about their mission, what the business is ultimately trying to achieve. etc.

I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.

Snirk, I mean, I have started to grow grey hairs. What do you think is the best solution for grey hairs?

Then they just walked in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.

You may have not noticed they got told to gtfo.

In retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?

Nah, waste their time. Work doubly hard to convince them to hire you. Then if they do offer you the job, you can be polite again and explain that the business sounds awesome with X mission. Lather on how awesome they all are and then say unfortunately you decline have to decline. You felt the interview didn't go well and plan to work extra hard to do better next time.

HeyLaughingBoy• 4 years ago

I think you're right. My initial response was to say that I'd just get up and leave, but you're right.

You're already there, you've spent the time to prepare and get there on time, etc. Might as well get as much benefit from it as you can. So use the time to hone your interviewing skills and deal with the hostility, while knowing full well that you are not going to take the job. But you'll work on making yourself as appealing as possible. And you never know if one of those interviewers will admire how you handled the situation and recommend you to someone else, or you'll come across them in another interview years later.

So yeah, make the best of the situation and use it to your advantage.

incomingpain2• 4 years ago

I think you're right.

Interestingly I was pretty positively voted up on this post. I was nearly +10 at one point, but now I'm in the negatives.

Guess people don't agree?

Curious what they dislike about my post.

edit/ My imaginary points are going downward. Lots of my posts suddenly at 0 points. Guess it's time for a break.

p0d• 4 years ago

As a teacher (former sysadmin) I find that ignorance and aggression often work closely together. I would have seen out the interview and moved on.

dredmorbius2• 4 years ago

An interview is a two-way street. Presuming you're the candidate, the organisation is selling itself as much as you are you. The key difference is that there tend to be more candidates than positions --- the employer has a superior BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement).

That said, I've had several interviews I'd concluded I wasn't interested quite early in the process. In one case I wrapped relatively quickly, and immediately told the recruiter I was not in the least interested. In another, the situation wasn't hostile, but was so bizzare I continued the interview simply to try to understand what the heck was going on.

It would be extraordinarily rare for an interview to pose a direct threat, so continuing with a viewpoint that the experience is simply practice doesn't hurt. I've also had other staff who'd interviewed me and then left that position contact me with other offers, so from a networking perspective, the experience can still be useful.

There were other opportunities I should have passed on but did not. Having additional options is extraordinarily useful. Those are among my regrets.

what_is_orcas2• 4 years ago

I'd like to hear more about the bizarre interview, if you're willing to elaborate.

dredmorbius2• 4 years ago

Interview had been made by a founder, who wasn't present to interview me. I'm not sure they even existed.

Interview was conducted by a recently-hired, recently-graduated (and very fresh-out-of-school) developer.

The business prop just didn't make sense.

After about 15--20 minutes, I was just trying to make sense of the situation / why they were even at the firm.

I watched for further developments from the company for a few years, I'm not aware that anything ever came of it, so at least this one time my sense that this could never pan out was in fact correct.

(Stupid ideas often have a much longer runway than seems remotely possible, especially when money also gets stupid.)

I don't recall the name of the company any more.

They were in search space, and are neither alphabetic or waterfowl-inclined.

ddingus11• 4 years ago

[morbid curiosity piqued]

Yes, what was so bizarre?

dlsa• 4 years ago

Bad and rude interviewers imply even worse colleagues, supervisors and managers. Its a measure of the overall company culture and not simply just their professionalism.

Its ok to continue the interview but its also ok to finish, leave and never return. They're as much under investigation for fit as you are. Hold them to your standards.

You got a glimpse of what working with them would be like in future. I'd say you found them lacking. Can you imagine a code review with that person?

hef198982• 4 years ago

I'm always drawn between leaving on the spot or staying and dropping out of the process later. In practice, I prefer to stay. Waste their time, try to do as well as you can, practice interviewing, gain experience. And then professionally and politely drop out of the interview process. Just because the interviewers are unprofessional and unpolite doesn't mean you have to be.

All that assumes that the interviewers' behavior was "just" rude, if the cross line like sexism, racism and similar thing the solution is standing up and leaving. Their is only so much you can learn from abusive people.

bitexploder• 4 years ago

Asking “Hey, where did bob just go?” is not rude. Leaving an interview where you have been purposefully insulted and treated poorly is also not rude right? Why burn your time when you know you won’t accept any offers. Just seems like there are better ways to spend time.

mrozbarry2• 4 years ago

Leaving doesn't have to be rude. If there's no reason to work on your interview skills, you can simply say "I appreciate your time, but I don't think I'm a good fit for _company name here_." You don't have to give any further reason. You are the boss of your time and effort, so don't waste it if you don't have to.

sumthinprofound2• 4 years ago

Anytime I have brought colleagues in to interview a candidate, during the introduction, I'll note that "Bob from devops will be joining us, but he may get called away" based on the circumstances however I would not appreciate a coworker stepping out without an explanation for the candidate as that would reflect horribly on the organization in my opinion.

hutzlibu3• 4 years ago

"Waste their time"

You would waste your own time, too, with this approach.

roflyear• 4 years ago

One of my regrets interviewing is not walking out on a all day 10+ hour in-person interview.

I was asked to show up at 8am, but I was not told I would not be leaving the office until 6pm.

Also, I was told it was a direct hire - when I got the offer for something like $35/hr in a major city as a mid level programmer, I sorta lost it on the recruiter. No vacation, purely contract work through the recruiter.

More or less lied to during the entire process. I guess some candidates are happy to get a job and just put up with it? It has to work sometimes...

devnulll• 4 years ago

I open discussions with recruiters - typically Exec Recruiters who are normally cold/warm-calling on LinkedIn - and the conversation goes like this:

* "We have this amazing CTO / CIO / VP Role."

* "What's the pay range for this role?"

* "We pay market rates"

* "I'm currently making $X at my fancy FAANG role. Can you beat that?".

* "Oh. Nevermind".

It's helped, but there are still false promises made.

hutzlibu3• 4 years ago

"I guess some candidates are happy to get a job and just put up with it? "

Sadly yes and they don't have a choice, but anyone accepting that shit who do have a choice are lowering the standard for everyone else.

the_only_law• 4 years ago

I had a weird case where the team absolutely loved me, and had even extended verbal offer, but a surprise final interview with a low-level executive cost me the job.

irvingprime3• 4 years ago

I've found that the more rounds of interviews there are or the more people involved, the greater the chances of one person causing the whole deal to go south. I have been in similar situations. Six straight interviewers said to hire me. The seventh one said no and that was that.

ryandrake• 4 years ago

Similar story: I once went through all the rounds with a company, it was obviously going great, then the recruiter mentioned all candidates need to get the thumbs up from some VP big shot so I needed to talk to him. Well, they scheduled the interview while he was driving, obviously in a convertible. Neither of us could hear each other, and there could clearly be no information exchange. I figured we'd just re-schedule, but the recruiter got back to me to let me know it didn't work out, and they wouldn't be moving forward. Crazy times!

I would have had to move across the country and they recently laid off 1000 (50%) of their staff, so in retrospect I figure I dodged a bullet, but wow!

thorin• 4 years ago

I think you learned an important lesson there.

Not a lot you can do about it now.

dorkwood• 4 years ago

Why is Scheme your favorite language?

Gustomaximus• 4 years ago

Strange this is getting downvoted here of all places. I like to think HN is a place that would enjoy this conversation regardless of their own view.

Let keep the good intent and intellectual curiosity please.

phil294• 4 years ago

I guess it's mostly these guidelines: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. [...] Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. [...] Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

It's very simple, elegant, and powerful -- like no other language I know (and I've learned well over a dozen, of a variety of paradigms).

It's easy to write, easy to read, and easily does everything I need. I prize clarity over almost anything else when programming, and Scheme lets me do that way more effectively than anything else. There's very little syntax or boilerplate to get in the way.

It's also very consistent, and I like that.

The worst languages feel cobbled together or congealed rather than designed. Scheme is the opposite of that.

Sohcahtoa828• 4 years ago

Heh, your reasons for loving Scheme are basically word-for-word why I love Python.

photochemsyn• 4 years ago

Why do people have favorite languages? Programming languages are more like tools than say, video games or novels. If someone said they love screwdrivers/impact drivers and hate hammers/nail guns, well... okay. You can build everthing with screws instead of nails, but this can create problems and probably isn't the optimal solution.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

I'm not wedded to my favorite language. Right tool for the job and all that..

Still, when given the choice I prefer to work in a language that's easy and clear, rather than one that's painful and convoluted.

Sure, I might be able to do the same in another language, but I'm reminded of Alan Perlis' advice to "Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy."

WesolyKubeczek• 4 years ago

Same reason I guess some tools are better to work with than others. I definitely like my iFixit screwdrivers set more than a generic set I've bought years before: there are more different bits actually used in things I need to disassemble and assemble, the things are sturdier, they feel nicer to hold in my hand, there is this nice magnetic pad so my screws are not lost. Now if I have no choice but this shitty screwdriver, I'll use it, sure, as long as it doesn't break (this has happened), but when I have a choice, I go for better tools.

What's so incomprehensible about this?

Of course if you do a half-assed job all the time, you may afford to not care about your tools. I want to excel at mine, so I definitely have preferences.

TillE• 4 years ago

Right, I certainly have languages I'm more comfortable with, largely because of experience. I have a few languages I dislike.

But I couldn't tell you my favorite language, it doesn't really make sense to me.

xisukar2• 4 years ago

From Dijkstra:

The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.

Obviously you should use the right tool for the job, however in the realm of programming languages someone might find a language's model of code structure better than other languages and more in tune with his/her way of thinking.

chlorion• 4 years ago

I am not sure the comparison to regular tools is very accurate.

For many people, programming language and compiler/interpreter design is one of the major parts of computer science that they are interested in. Language development is an entire subfield of computer science on it's own!

Languages are a lot more deeply complex than what they may appear on the surface, and choosing a specific one for a specific task is also a little more complicated than choosing a nail vs a screw, with the tradeoffs not always being so clear cut and there being many more factors and "dimensions" at play. Style is also a big part of it, with some people just preferring certain styles and opinions more than others.

MiddleEndian2• 4 years ago

Ehh sometimes an L wrench is the right tool for the job but I still hate using L wrenches.

forinti2• 4 years ago

I really enjoyed Lisp and Scheme while in college, but I never got to use them professionally.

I think we would be better off having core business rules in one of these languages instead of having to rewrite them every decade or so in the current fashionable language.

keyle• 4 years ago

It sounds like you fare well not working there.

I have terminated politely some interviews that didn't sit right to me in the past.

Something along the line of saving everyone's time and that I don't see myself a good fit at the present time.

It's like a date gone wrong, you're not paid to be there neither to fake for approval. If it's not a good match, let the seat for someone else and find your own elsewhere; respectfully of course as the industry is small enough that another interviewer in that room might be a future colleague.

Lio3• 4 years ago

I like this reply, I think it nails it.

You're there to show that you're a professional, so that's how you act at all times.

If you decide the company isn't a great "cultural fit" then you can politely and professionally move on.

Same with leaving a job in general. As soon as you decide to go there's no reason to not be as polite about it as possible.

mgdv• 4 years ago

If the interview was like this, what does it say about the culture of the company? Either way, I would have politely terminated and left

endisneigh• 4 years ago

Wow, what company is this?

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

I'd like to say, but that would be unprofessional.

This was a long time ago, and they were a very small startup. Odds are you haven't heard of them. It's definitely not any of the big names.

yakak• 4 years ago

You aren't there to fix them or help them hide their faults to future candidates.

Mainly you want to leave a good impression on the other people in case you meet them elsewhere in the future and only show a lot of initiative fixing something like that if you are being hired in a role that actually focuses a bit on those soft skills.

Personally, I once got far too involved in discussions with HR at a place where it clearly wasn't going to work out and they are high enough volume that it never mattered.. but I would prefer to have practiced the skills of never showing my hand and continuing along to learn more about their part of industry.

sowei• 4 years ago

A lot of us software engineers aren't exactly known for being social butterflies. Arrogance and crass behavior are more common than they should be, sadly.

"Before we wrap up, can I ask a few questions?"

(No interviewer, rude or otherwise, has turned this down on me)

"I just want to say this is as much as an interview for you to evaluate me, as it is for me to evaluate you. What do you think could have been improved in our interview for the future?" - if you feel they were especially rude/arrogant: "Do you feel you have conducted this interview professionally?"

bedast3• 4 years ago

The first thing you need to understand is the interview process goes both ways. They're not just trying to figure out if you have the skills to do the job and figure out if you're a good fit for the team, you should also be figuring out if the company is a good fit. Usually you have to pick out context clues to figure out if the company culture is going to be a fit, and if you don't, you ask those questions and gauge their answers.

When they directly insult you during the interview, that should be the end. If you're willing to tolerate abuse during the interview process, you should expect the culture to persist and you advertise that you're okay with it.

Respect of my time and the time of those around me is important to me. I had a recruiter that didn't understand this concept. He was representing a major media company that seemed like it'd be interesting to work for. But since the recruiter advertised to me that he couldn't care less about my time, I took that as an ongoing issue at the company and I ended the process.

It's just not worth it, especially when you have other potential opportunities that may still be interesting. Respect is important and if they can't respect you at the interview, they will not respect you in the job.

robbiejs• 4 years ago

You are exactly right. When I was younger, all I could think was: I need to impress them! Now I think, this company needs to impress me. If their culture is abusive or even uninspired, I am not joining them. It's hard to find a decent club though sometimes.

appleiigs3• 4 years ago

To add some personal context, I'm the same where as I get older the company needs to impress me with a good work environment. But not because my resume is better or that I'm financially better off. It's because I've learnt from personal experience that a crappy work environment is not worth tolerating. (Same goes for personal relationships).

bedast3• 4 years ago

I was the same way. Interviews were very intimidating. Imposter syndrome didn't help. It took time for me to figure out the power dynamic in this process, and to learn that, as a candidate, I have more power than I previously assumed.

And the crazy thing is, knowing that power dynamic means you can, likely, command more compensation.

data_spy• 4 years ago

For whatever reason, companies do not think this way. I usually get the rude comments with the 'we passed on you' email or voicemail.

tuan• 4 years ago

It’s unfortunate that most interviewers do not think that the process is two way. The normal interview setup is also very one sided. For a 1 hour session, the interviewer has like 55 min to ask the candidate questions, and leaves only 5 minutes at the end for the candidate to ask them questions.

Sindisil• 4 years ago

There should be no need to wait for permission to ask pertinent questions.

The interview process should be a conversation, not an interrogation.

If it isn't, I probably don't want to work there.

bedast3• 4 years ago

As a technical interviewer and team lead, I liked to spend the first half of the interview on technical questions and answers, and maybe some discussion on that, then the second half just having a conversation. I've rejected candidates who were technically sound, but would not be a good fit for the team (they would likely fit in somewhere, and I'd be willing to admit it was a mistake if I just read things wrong or they had a bad day). I also spend some time on who I am, what I expect, etc. This interview style doesn't seem super common, but I feel I've been pretty successful in my recommendations to the hiring manager following this, and the hiring mistakes have been pretty minimal.

I think the worst interview process I've been through is when I did 8 interviews at a company, 6 of which were technical, and then was not hired (overqualified apparently...I'm old enough to start encountering ageism and all that). Such a monumental waste of time.

ddingus11• 4 years ago

I will simply ask.

If time comes up, I let them know I have the time needed and would not have asked if I didn't.

Do they have the time needed? If not, why?

Answers to that can make sense and can bias the session toward a more productive exchange.

omar12• 4 years ago

I agree 100% with your statement. I see a job interviews as dating. It has to work both ways, you will be spending most of your day with them, you need to determine what you expect from them and what negative behaviors you are willing to compromise based on your needs.

tomerv• 4 years ago

That is extremely unprofessional behavior from that interviewer. But how did the other interviewers respond? I think that the "correct" response really depends on that:

  * Other interviewers don't say anything -> ask what's up, and whether this means the interview is over. Point out that you don't feel comfortable continuing like this.
  * Other interviewers show they are "on your side", i.e. as confused as you and don't endorse that behavior -> continue the interview, and maybe later try to figure out what happened. Consider it a yellow card (in Football speak). Make sure that you don't ever work with that specific person.

Of course, this is all easy to say from the comfort of my desk!

DavidWoof• 4 years ago

Is it really all that unprofessional? We're completely missing context here. Maybe I'm just too forgiving of people's quirks, but I've definitely had people smile/chuckle when I've said my favorite language was Haskell and that's led to interesting conversations rather than uncomfortable silences. People laugh at all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons: the fact that the interviewer had any reaction at all to an obscure language seems like a positive thing to me.

And leaving when the "interview wasn't going well", makes me picture OP struggling at the whiteboard and somebody not wanting to interrupt him. Sometimes people have to leave. To me, this fits into the category of devs often being unthinking rather than actively rude, and those are completely different categories to me.

I feel like we too often ascribe malice to people for what are often just cultural differences.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

"leaving when the "interview wasn't going well", makes me picture OP struggling at the whiteboard and somebody not wanting to interrupt him."

They were interrupting me constantly during the whiteboarding. That was actually one of the other things I didn't like about the team. They wouldn't give me time to fully answer their question before butting in and telling me how they would do it. Half the time I felt like they were solving it for me. When I expressed my dismay they told me they didn't actually want a solution from me but were just trying to determine whether they could work with me or not, because that's how they came up with solutions at their company.

In any case, they clearly had no problem with interrupting me. So when the person who had laughed at me later just got up and walked out during the interview (after the whiteboarding) without saying a word, it did seem kind of rude.

I've been in lots of interviews throughout my life, and never once did anyone act remotely like this.

Of course, I could have misinterpreted them, and maybe their laughter was good-natured (it seemed condescending to me). Maybe they had some good reason to leave in the middle of the interview, but they could have just excused themselves.

hn_version_00232• 4 years ago

To me, this fits into the category of devs often being unthinking rather than actively rude, and those are completely different categories to me.

I want to address this quote because I’ve been this guy, and I’ve had to train myself out of habits like these. When one acts without thinking the results are often quite rude. Not thinking through your actions and the impact those actions will have on others is itself rude!

Now, I don’t mean to ascribe malice here either, but you can be quite rude without malice. Intent matters, and its worse with malice. But simply being “absent minded” is also rude! Good people acknowledge it, apologize and move on. Some people dig in their heels and won’t concede. YMMV. :)

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

"how did the other interviewers respond?"

The others completely ignored it and acted like nothing unusual was happening... though I did sense that one of them was uncomfortable when the interviewer who had laughed at me just got up and walked out.

appleiigs3• 4 years ago

When meeting people for the first time, I will often say something quirky just as test. Their reaction is great info to have. There are so many different reactions that a rude response is a major red flag and I'm done or wary from then on.

Good responses are, on one side of spectrum, they think it's funny and interesting. In the middle (also good responses) they or ask why or politely disagree. On the not so good, they politely disagree but think you're stupid without saying it. Then, out of all those response options, if they pick being rude, then you have a very strong indicator.

feoren• 4 years ago

Out of curiosity, can you give some examples of quirky test things you say?

crispyambulance• 4 years ago

There is likely something else going on that the OP wasn't in on.

The person who was rude might have been in a situation where he didn't want to hire someone but was compelled to, so his reaction might have been an unskillful projection of not wanting to go through the process. The others could very well have been mortified to the point of inaction or pretending it didn't happen. There's no way they could justify the behavior of their colleague.

In any case, yeah, it's a sure sign of a toxic environment. That said, if the OP was in the right head-space, he could have used it as an opportunity for humor to take the edge off and help him and the others feel better.

jagger27• 4 years ago

That’s brutal. I can’t imagine laughing in someone’s face in any circumstance during an interview, and especially not in this job market.

whalesalad• 4 years ago

The same way I deal with rude people anywhere in life: call them out on it.

pengaru4• 4 years ago

Sometimes people have bad days, sometimes those days overlap with being pulled into an interview.

I wouldn't get too hung up on it personally. It sounds like you behaved maturely and kept your cool, that's a desirable trait.

HomeGear• 4 years ago

How does one determine it was a “bad day” verse a bad person? The answer to which is critical in a job acceptance.

pengaru4• 4 years ago

It's just another of myriad variables to weight when considering the opportunity vs. others. Maybe the bad interviewer data point just bumps up the minimum compensation you'd accept for that particular opportunity, assuming you even get an offer.

What's important here is you don't react to a bad interviewer unprofessionally by becoming a bad interviewee, producing a high probability of creating no offer at all.

Friction occurs in any professional setting, how you handle it is part of what you bring to the table as a potential employee. Keep your eye on the ball; pursuit of the best offer one can garner.

What you do with that offer is completely orthogonal. Even if you decide in the moment of that bad interviewer being a jerk that you'd never work for the company, there's no reason not to still kill it and discover what compensation you're walking away from. Plus it's just plain good practice at not empowering individuals to negatively affect your behavior/performance.

Brian_K_White6• 4 years ago

You ask them and see what they have to say about it.

An event like that is actually a kind of a bonus because you get to see how they handle that, do they think it was bad behavior or are they used to it and expect you to be used to it.

Brian_K_White6• 4 years ago

I would pair that with making them explain though. 1, It's fair and reasonable. No one reasonable can have a problem with it. 2, The response is more informative than the initial event itself.

If it's unusual, then they should have no problem saying that and even apologizing. Or do they act like that was fine and why are you such a baby?

Basically the same way I'd react or expect anyone else to react to the same action in any other context.

"What's up with that guy?" or "What was that?" Should be easy enough to answer.

The difference between "We don't know, and we apologize for that." and "What do you mean?" tells you more about the culture than the intial act by that one person.

flappyeagle• 4 years ago

In many difficult social situations, including this one, it helps to have a canned sentence ready to deploy.

"Gentlemen, it's clear to me that we're not a good fit here. Let's not waste anymore of our time"

Say it 10 times in front of a mirror or something and just push the mental button when you need to.

spicybright• 4 years ago

+1 on the practice. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the number of times I sounded like an ass and didn't communicate my message clearly enough because of the heat of the moment.

ISL2• 4 years ago

Yep -- even a single preparatory iteration makes a huge difference for many tasks.

dane-pgp• 4 years ago

I can't help being reminded of the "Choice" PSA from The Stanley Parable:

"If you find yourself speaking with a person who does not make sense, in all likelihood, that person is not real. Allow the person to finish their thought then provide an excuse why you cannot continue talking."

https://thestanleyparable.fandom.com/wiki/Dialogue#Choice_Vi...

cm2012• 4 years ago

Might want to practice it as "folks" instead of "gentlemen" so the occasional woman doesn't trip you up.

dymk• 4 years ago

Gentlepeople

Gentlefolx

pestatije• 4 years ago

Yeah, and at the same time avoid the "gentle" part. Being rude disqualifies them as gentle

wccrawford• 4 years ago

I would just leave out the world altogether. There's no need to address them. They know who you are talking to.

narag• 4 years ago

Folks...

[Not an English native] Isn't that a little too informal? Bugs Bunny came to mind.

Is "ladies and gentlemen" somehow out of fashion?

lostlogin• 4 years ago

The medical comedy show ‘Getting On’ covers this in the most cringe worthy way, with a senior female doctor addressing a group of juniors (male and female) as ‘gents’.

worik5• 4 years ago

There is no gender neutral term (is there?) for "gentlemen".

"My noble friends"?

"Good people"?

Does not quite feel the same. Perhaps it is my linguistic habits too ingrained

MiddleEndian2• 4 years ago

Perhaps "Motherfuckers" is the way to go.

vishnugupta• 4 years ago

Perhaps have a harsher/rude version in case you see someone not respecting your time and are being rude.

"Folks, it's clear to me that I don't want to work here. I don't want to waste any more of my time".

KerrAvon3• 4 years ago

There’s no need to match their rudeness. Take the high road. Your karma is your own.

mekoka• 4 years ago

OP's approach is punitive enough and really is all you need in most situations. Although sinking to rudeness can be a natural and spontaneous manifestation of anger, it's rarely worthwhile. When facing a rude or angry person you further lose because they managed to pull you into their own personal hell.

Such disagreeable situations call for calm and playful assertiveness. You catch the opposite party off guard by politely calling them out and exposing them for being an asshole. You leaving thereafter also strips them of the opportunity to correct their immediate behavior and thus, robs them of a chance to demonstrate that it was, in fact, a misunderstanding. That can be quite frustrating, since most rude people really like to project the veil of being decent human beings and hate the idea of someone thinking less of them.

maerF0x04• 4 years ago

It's clear to me that we're not a good fit here. Let's not waste anymore of our time

IMO this effectively terminates all possibilities. IMO it might be more effective to say a break in the convo adding something tailored to what you're feeling/observing.

"I'm getting the sense that something's off here. "

Distracted/Disinterested - "Is there something more pressing you need to attend to?"

Rude - "Can you tell me about your company values and how you treat eachother?"

Superiority - "Can you tell me a bit about how CompanyX mentors and develops new talent?"

etc -- put it out to them assuming the best, but implying you're now interviewing them about their qualities.

medler• 4 years ago

This is such a good response. Rather than shutting everything down and walking out, which could itself be perceived as rude/arrogant, you allude to what you’re perceiving and start a conversation about it while assuming good intent on their part.

hpcjoe• 4 years ago

I used that once a few years ago with a very rude CTO/VP Eng. They had given me a "coffin" problem (e.g. expected to fail) during the interview. I was working on it overnight while sitting with my elderly mother-in-law in the hospital. I spoke with them that next day, with 0 sleep, but still gracious and apologetic that I'd not finished every element of the problem. I didn't tell them why.

They didn't like the not finishing part. I got an email later on saying thanks but no thanks. I asked them if they wanted to see the work they asked me to do. That piqued their interest. They then asked if I was still interested.

I said, "No, I think we are done here."

Assholes are a major red flag. You really need to avoid them. Your life will be much better without them. Look up the companies on glassdoor, search for the people you speak to ahead of time, see if there are any major issues. You'd be surprised at how easy some of these are to find with careful digging. Though you need to be adept at filtering disgruntled people seeking reputational revenge versus specific critiques.

bsder• 4 years ago

Maybe, but I'd probably finish the interview anyway. It's good practice for learning how to calm down after you've been upset/slighted/abused, and you've already likely allocated the time.

I might make a quick crack like: "Wow. Must be important. Anyhow, let's get back to what we were doing." in order to see what the reactions of others are and whether I get an apology. But I might not. Shrug.

However, the probability of my taking a job there would be close to zero after that. It's just a huge red warning flag.

DerekBickerton• 4 years ago

I told them my favorite language was Scheme

Well done for being honest and not tailoring your knowledge set to the requirements of the position, like many people do. Often people learn something just because it's advertised fiercely in a company's 'requirements'. This is why I refuse to learn React, Vue, Angular etc because although they're required often, a baseline of HTML, CSS & JS will outlast the new 'soup of the day' framework.

vsareto• 4 years ago

I'm with you in general, but Angular/React have been around long enough that they're no longer trendy new frameworks

spcebar• 4 years ago

I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience! As others are saying, an interview is as much about them deciding if you are a good fit for them, as you deciding if they are a good fit for you. Interviews (even bad ones) are an opportunity to hone your skills, but if it's soul crushing sitting there, it's not like it's your job to stay!

As for the rudeness of the interviewer, I will add that sometimes great developers have terrible people skills, and sometimes those people get put on interview committees. One obnoxious person doesn't necessarily dictate the culture of an entire company. Go with your gut. If the position seems otherwise exceptional and it's just one rude person, consider giving them another shot, and if not, walk--either figuratively, or literally out of the interview.

ilrwbwrkhv• 4 years ago

As a candidate you should always approach from a position of strength. Assuming that is the case, you can always call them out, politely, and explain that behaviour makes you feel like they are not a good fit for you and see their reaction. You are interviewing them too after all.

gwbas1c• 4 years ago

I really only faced rudeness when I was a junior engineer and didn't know better. I was brought in for a round of interviews and there was rudeness in two of the early interviews. I quickly lost interest in the company. (One interviewer was very rude about my working solution, and another interviewer was rude to a junior member of the staff.) When the recruiter followed up with me, I didn't have the maturity to give a frank report about the staff.

~20 years later, I should have politely left after one of the sessions. I should have found the hiring manager, told him that "I don't see myself working out well here," and then given much more candid feedback to the recruitment agency.

But also, from that experience, I've learned to guide candidates more if they don't give me the answer I'm looking for. Specifically, if a candidate writes what I think is a sub-optimal solution, I'll say something like "can you make it faster?" or "can you make it more robust?" I never expect a candidate to read my mind the first time, especially if the candidate is feeling overwhelmed.

If I was in your situation, I probably wouldn't have walked out right away. If I was turned off the company, I'd have stayed until a break between sessions. If I was still interested or curious, I'd have discussed this particular employee with the hiring manager or HR rep.

I've only "walked out" of an interview once; it was a phone screen and it very quickly was obvious that I wouldn't be happy there. I told the interviewer that I really liked their product, (I really did,) and I wished them luck. (I really did wish them good luck too.)

q3• 4 years ago

Just say "Sir, I have given you an argument, I am not obliged to give you an understanding" and then hop out the window.

Brian_K_White6• 4 years ago

Disappointed that this wasn't Feynman. However thank you for bringing it to my attention.

My unequal trade,

"The rain, it raineth on the just, And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because, The unjust steals the just's umbrella."

edit: I was obviously thinking of "I can only explain it to you. I can't understand it for you." but that appears not to be Feynman either. Oh well!

jokethrowaway• 4 years ago

I don't understand why someone would laugh at Scheme, but it's a minor thing. I would ask what's funny about it and ask him what's his favourite language.

Seeing an interviewer leave during interview would leave me pretty unfazed as well.

Overall, I wouldn't personally register this interviewer as rude. If it went over my threshold I would have just left.

saagarjha• 4 years ago

I'm curious about the "you're interviewing the company" comments here. I think that's true in a lot of places, but some will run algorithms interviews by entirely different teams. Is getting rudeness from a random person out of 10k enough to have you reconsider in those cases?

nullbytesmatter2• 4 years ago

Probably. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

I still prefer overt rudeness to silent back stabbing, one upping sabotage though.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

It was a very early-stage startup. All the people in the company were interviewing me at once. There were no others.

evgen• 4 years ago

The thing to remember here is that this is not 1 person out of 10k, it is someone this company/team has specifically selected to perform the role of both interviewing you and trying to maintain your interest in the company and role. If a hiring manager is so bad that they would put someone like the person who OP encountered into a hiring loop then it is a good indicator that either the company is poorly managed or that the people who were not involved in the interview loop are even worse.

rubyist5eva• 4 years ago

First, I would just be glad I dodged a bullet. Then probably just send an email to the recruiter and/or hiring manager about it and move on.

Your intuition to end the interview yourself is good as well.

nullbytesmatter2• 4 years ago

Consider yourself lucky. You got to find out the place wasn't for you before accepting an offer there and wasting more of your time. They did you a favor.

It didn't happen to you, it happened for you.

tristor• 4 years ago

If this happened to me, I would drop the call. But I would say something first so it is abundantly clear why.

“It’s obvious the workplace culture here is not conducive to professional collaboration. I’ll be ending the call here, you can remove me from the candidate pool.”

That’s it. No need to grandstand. Don’t apologize. Don’t thank them for their time since they’ve blatantly wasted yours. Just say why you are dropping off, then do it.

steve_adams_86• 4 years ago

I’m interviewing as well lately. I haven’t run into anything remotely like this, but I’ve ended several interviews early.

It’s totally okay to call it if you know you aren’t interested. In fact it’s more polite to save everyone’s time. I’d recommend opening up to the idea that the interview is yours as much as theirs, and you can leave any time you’d like. Just be very respectful about it.

What happened to you is bizarre. Many many years ago I had a slightly drunk guy interview me and tell me I wasn’t the right caliber for his team, haha. That was so weird. Maybe I should have gone in there totally hammered and I would have gotten the job.

Sometimes you just know it isn’t meant to be though and you’ve got to just call it.

inetsee• 4 years ago

I have never had interviews this bad, but I have had interviews which required travel to get to the interview. Travel which was paid for by the company I was interviewing with. In one case I had an interview with paid travel, and I added an interview with another company on the same trip. I actually accepted the offer from the second company. I think in a situation like the one I described, you should go through the process as far as the interviewers want to, while at the same time politely making it clear that you don't think it's a good fit, and that they could save everyone time by concluding the process.

housingisaright• 4 years ago

If something like this happens and I realise there is 0% I want this job - I just mentally check out & stop answering questions as well as I can etc. Although I think it is better to be honest about how you feel, end the interview and avoid wasting anyones time.

It feels bad being disrespected and it is sometimes hard to shake off, but at least you probably dodged a bullet and weeks/months of wasted time.

lizknope• 4 years ago

I'm in semiconductor design not software but we write a lot of scripts.

One of my good friends is an analog custom layout expert in Cadence Virtuoso and its built in scripting language SKILL is a version Scheme / Lisp. If you told him that your favorite language was Scheme he would probably try to hire you just for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_SKILL

jhgb• 4 years ago

Wow. So in the past I used to tell myself "it's the Cadence RESEARCH Systems that has something to do with Scheme" (they used to make Chez Scheme before Cisco bought them), but now you're telling me that both Cadence RESEARCH Systems and Cadence DESIGN Systems have their own Scheme dialect. That is in no way confusing! :)

elzbardico• 4 years ago

I leave

gigatexal• 4 years ago

See it for what it is: a red flag. Recently I had one where I had a feeling but threw it to the side because I thought I would give the person the benefit of the doubt. But then in email correspondence with who would have been my team lead or project manager/owner it became crystal clear that this person's personality and mine would not work. It also illuminated a lack of professionalism as well.

I have been in this industry 10 years now. I am not a million dollar a year 10x engineer but I have taken jobs that paid well but that were horrible environmentally and know now that if I feel ominous things in just the interview then that's all I need to know to avoid a potentially toxic workplace.

danabrams• 4 years ago

I think "what kind of an organization would let someone like that represent them?" and thank the gods for learning early to avoid that place.

abawany• 4 years ago

It sounds like it was one person doing this? Unless this person is in a pivotal or supervising role, I would not worry a lot - they may be on their way out already. I personally would have continued the interview as you chose to do and then reported the experience to the relevant hr/recruiter person. Remember, the one jerk in the room hopefully does not reflect upon the other professionals that continued the interview and were probably thankful the rudy left. Edit: also remember that you will likely encounter the others left in the room in other places and they will likely remember your professionalism in the face of this uncalled-for imposition, which should hopefully serve you well.

beaconstudios• 4 years ago

it's also indicative of company culture if people with this type of disrespectful approach to interviews are allowed to continue without reproach. Remember that this person wouldn't just be joining a company where there's an asshole, they'd be joining a company that tolerates open assholishness.

Of course, this is predicated on the assumption that OP's perception of events was reflective of reality. Sometimes high-pressure situations can also make people over-sensitive (I know it can for me, at the very least).

gunfighthacksaw• 4 years ago

If you have the wit to needle them back without coming off as deranged, then do that.

If not, then calmly state that you feel the company is not a good fit and that ending the interview early is in both of your interests, go outside and enjoy the rest of your day.

Nihilartikel• 4 years ago

As a fairly experienced interviewer, having administered well over 200 both as an employee and an independent... these guys dropped the ball - hard.

If you are interviewing somebody, you are not there as 'yourself', you are representing the company and their engineering org, and by my understanding, it is exceedingly poor form to present the company as inconsiderate and to burn bridges. Even if you're having a bad day and the candidate is a poor fit, you suck it up and remain professional and collegial.

The one who walked out should be removed from the interviewing pool. Maybe they're a good engineer, maybe not, but if they act that way consistently then their attitude and self control are not cut out for interviewing.

pipeline_peak5• 4 years ago

I hate to break it to you, but saying your favorite language is Scheme would get A LOT of interviewers to laugh, especially in the enterprise world where Java and C# are dominant. These aren't usually Hacker News browsing people, and if they have any association with Lisp, it's through a college course, rarely independent interest.

Are you sure he didn't just walk out because he had other things to do and knew the others could take over?

avgcorrection• 4 years ago

More like a nervous laugh.

pipeline_peak5• 4 years ago

Pretty much, unless asked, these places don't really want to hear about pure interests. You say Lisp in terms of industry relevance, they might be thinking "Okay, this guy is clearly a luddite and would make a scary employee".

ericbarrett• 4 years ago

As an interviewer, I'd never mock somebody for saying their favorite language was Scheme (or any other language). I'd ask why it's their favorite, and maybe that day I'd be the one learning.

pdpi• 4 years ago

As an interview question, "What's your favourite language?" is only interesting if you don't ask it having a "correct answer" in mind.

Depending on when you learn that you have to leave, you can either say "Sorry, I won't be able to stay for the whole duration of the interview" or "Sorry, I'm needed elsewhere, my colleague will handle the rest of the interview". Leaving without saying a thing (even if it's just a nod and a smile) is more disruptive for the candidate than saying nothing.

pipeline_peak5• 4 years ago

That is true, it's not the nicest way to leave, certainly not how I would. But we all know "no nonsense" people who behave this way. All I'm trying to say is there's no definite reason as to why he got up and left.

Minor49er• 4 years ago

As an interview question, "What's your favourite language?" is only interesting if you don't ask it having a "correct answer" in mind.

It becomes interesting when it's naturally followed up with "why?"

foobarian• 4 years ago

but saying your favorite language is Scheme would get A LOT of interviewers to laugh, especially in the enterprise world

Or maybe the guy was partial to Haskell or Clojure or similar!

Or maybe he just came out of a long painful meeting where he tried to persuade a committee to let him build a new service in Scheme, but failed.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

Here's my own best guess as to why they laughed:

All the people I was interviewing with recently graduated from a top comp sci school.

A lot of people have very limited experiences with Scheme in school, where they're usually forced to use a primitive Scheme from a million years ago. So they consider it to be a toy language, maybe suitable for education, but completely impractical for industry use.

They tend to have no experience or knowledge of modern, full-featured Schemes with large library ecosystems.

I wasn't asked why I liked Scheme, and wasn't given an opportunity to explain any of this or make the case for Scheme. We just launched directly in to whiteboarding... after which the interviewer who had laughed at me walked out.

pipeline_peak5• 4 years ago

I don’t mean offense by this, but did they actually ask what your favorite language was?

Either way, you have to understand why a regular firm would laugh at that. A lot of these run of the mill places are thinking in terms of API’s. They don’t really care about combinators, run time AST manipulation, or true benefits of dynamic typing.

My guess is they’re cranking out Apps, or some sort of cloud deployment.

JohnHaugeland2• 4 years ago

In general, if an interviewer even laughed at a candidate for saying Visual Basic, I'd rip them off the interviewing team permanently, and reconsider whether they needed to work for me

What the enterprise world does for languages isn't relevant. This level of disrespect, while representing my company, is deeply unacceptable.

The fact that this person felt this was acceptable shows this company's management does not keep a proper workplace.

alexashka• 4 years ago

The same way you deal with rude people everywhere else in life. An interview is just a conversation.

stefanmichael• 4 years ago

I try to cut it early to stop wasting time, especially if its a small company and you will likely be working with that person. I had to do this twice out of 5 companies I interviewed at from YC a couple years back.

yodsanklai• 4 years ago

I think your answer was appropriate. It's very hard to find the best response in this kind of unexpected situation. Probably best to continue the interview, and report the bad behaviour to the recruiter/HR.

apocalyptic0n3• 4 years ago

As someone on the other side of the table, if someone doesn't feel an interview is going well (either because they can see they aren't going to get hired or because they don't think they would accept even if they were offered), I want you to politely tell us something along the lines of "I'm sorry, but I don't believe this is the best fit for either of us. I appreciate the chance, but I think we should end it here." Each side shakes hands with a smile, and we go on our own ways. In the end, it's a waste of your time and our time if either side has already made up their mind. We, the interviewers, end interviews early semi-frequently (for example, if one is going poorly we will just skip a coding test). There's no reason the interviewee can't do the same.

Just be polite about it. Don't burn any bridges. You never know when the other interviewers (the ones who stayed in your case) will be interviewing you at another company and remember you for leaving a bad taste in their mouth.

protontorpedo• 4 years ago

Let me politely disagree with you. I conduct interviews regularly and often the candidate's perception about of own performance doesn't match reality. More often than not, they are worrying about aspects of their code that we don't really care about, or concerned about some mistake they made. It's better if both sides just commit to completing the interview, even if you have strong feelings it isn't going anywhere.

danielmarkbruce2• 4 years ago

+100.

It's another 20 minutes or whatever. Just smile and continue.

mindcrime• 4 years ago

Let me politely disagree with you. I conduct interviews regularly and often the candidate's perception about of own performance doesn't match reality.

Agreed. In my own case, when I'm interviewing people I frequently ask at least one or two questions that I really don't expect anybody to know the answer to. It's more of a "here's your chance to really extra impress me", but not knowing the answer is in no way an indication that you aren't qualified. One of my favorites of this type is "Can you explain the difference between deadlock and livelock?" Anyway, when asking stuff like that I make it a point to always try to remember and emphasize to the candidate "there are no auto-fail questions here, and not knowing the answer to this does not mean we won't want you", etc. I've interviewed (as a candidate) enough times to understand how nerve wracking it can be, and I try my best to help the candidates not feel intimidated or whatever.

And yet, I think sometimes people stumble on a single question, and suddenly get more nervous thinking that they've "failed the interview". Interviewing is not an easy process, for either side of the table.

arethuza3• 4 years ago

My interview for my current role started with a mild disagreement about some aspects of the structure of the interview that caught me off guard - so I thought I had no chance.... :-)

wollsmoth3• 4 years ago

hmmm. Sounds like it was a group interview in real life?

I think after that person had left the room I would probably interrupt the interview to ask who that person was and what their role is. Then I'd ask about the general culture of the company.

I think I'd be curious to know if that was someone who would be a peer or someone higher up the chain. In either case I might pull out of the process though. I have met enough "brilliant assholes" in. my life I have little interest in working with anymore of them.

I'd also be curious to know why he is involved in the interview process.

might depend on how bad I need/want the job. If the company is big enough I'm unlikely to see that person then I might just let it slide. I don't know the specifics of where you are in your career and job search, but this is a great time to be looking for work in tech.

I don't think I'd terminate the process there. You're already there, you might as well get some interview practice in. If you get an offer and you'd like to decline because of that interview experience. Tell them!! CC as many people as you know there too.

Good luck with your search, and sorry you went through that. It's unacceptable.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

It was a very small, very early stage startup. All the people in the company were interviewing me at the same time (live, in-person, in one room), and if I was hired I'd work intimately with all of them.

wollsmoth3• 4 years ago

oof. Yeah, I think I'd probably keep on truckin just for the practice but I'd have serious reservations about accepting an offer. I've had interviewers seem kind of dismissive before, but what you described was pretty bad imo.

if they ended up extending an offer I would decline and say why. A company that small probably needs that fellow and they're unlikely to fire him about this. Maybe he was having a bad day.

Probably small consolation but this experience is a good story and frankly if this is how they are to work with, I'd rather see it revealed before joining. As awkward as it was imagine finding out that you made major life changes just to work with some assholes.

Ozzie_osman2• 4 years ago

My co-founder from a past startup and I were once pitching a well-known investor. He put his feet up on the table and pulled out his phone.

My co-founder paused, and very calmly said something like "X, if this isn't a good use of your time then tell us so we don't waste ours, either". He immediately put his feet down, his phone face down on the table, and politely paid attention the rest of the pitch. He obviously didn't invest but we walked out of there with our heads held high.

TrapLord_Rhodo2• 4 years ago

i've found alot of people do this and it's accepted in alot of places but others find it really rude.

When i worked at Tesla everyone was on their laptops answering emails/ working in meetings. I don't think it takes your full attention to listen to someone, but i guess it's a bit different if you were just pitching him and not a room full of people.

Flankk• 4 years ago

"Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren't adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time."

Oddskar• 4 years ago

I don't think it takes your full attention to listen to someone

I disagree to this with every fiber of my being. If you're multitasking doing something that requires anything beyond mechanical tasks then you're not really listening.

I challenge you to actually try and listen to a person with a completely silenced mind. It's surprisingly hard.

aunty_helen2• 4 years ago

I had something similar where the staff member at a Vc firm welcomed us with “there’s just been another meeting called in the office next to me, you guys go ahead with your pitch and I’ll just keep and ear out for what’s going on over there”

We could’ve pitched to ourselves on a blank zoom call and come out more confidente. The worst part, we spent a bit of time on that presentation and really tried to make it less boring.

Fuck you Icehouse ventures.

daenz4• 4 years ago

Should have just walked out. If you take the role of someone who will be humiliated like that, then you will be treated that way. You made the most of it by using it as practice, but you also painted yourselves as people who were desperate for scraps. Remember, you are the prize, not them (to an extent). Don't lower your value in their eyes.

wazoox• 4 years ago

Ah yeah, I remember that guy that was supposedly the investor's expert that we met right after lunch.Obviously his meal was copious and also helped with large servings of alcoholic beverage, so after 15 minutes of our explanations (we were sitting in front of him at his desk) he started snoring audibly with his head down on his chest... We looked at each other and waited for a solid minute before trying to wake him up with some gentle coughing.

daenz4• 4 years ago

Sounds like a "shit test", as in "how much shit will these people take." It's a blunt way to understand if someone will be pushed around. I don't know if this was his purpose, but you don't want to invest in someone who will get pushed around and taken advantage of.

rpastuszak4• 4 years ago

Hehe, that's such a macho way of thinking.

I have a little tingling sensation that we could use more women in positions of power in tech.

We might benefit from slightly different ways of thinking about working with fellow human beings.

(In case that wasn't clear, I agree with your point. I'm just a bit sad about the language and mindset you're describing!)

walrus01• 4 years ago

you also don't want to take investment money from the sort of VC egotist who thinks running a "shit test" is a standard operating procedure. treat people with respect or just don't schedule the meeting at all in the first place.

quickthrower23• 4 years ago

To me it sounds like a fomo investor trying to hedge their bets.

ergocoder3• 4 years ago

The wording is a bit confrontational.

I'd just ask if this is a good time. Otherwise, we can reschedule.

Then, I can decide later whether I will actually reschedule.

It is never a good idea to add shading like that.

throwaway_1928• 4 years ago

Or not confrontational enough.

s1artibartfast• 4 years ago

I dont think it is shade, it is direct and to the point.

saila• 4 years ago

The advice to not add "shade" seems to be predicated on some perceived power differential, but everyone's time is equally valuable. Regardless, I don't see any shade. It's just direct and to the point.

Ozzie_osman2• 4 years ago

The wording might be, but it's hard to convey the tone, and in my opinion, my co-founder's tone was both forceful and polite. I wouldn't have been able to pull it off myself.

muh_gradle• 4 years ago

Accept that the interview is over, end the interview, provide your feedback as emotionlessly as possible to your recruiter or HR, and then move on. Some might deride it as "tattling" but if someone is behaving in an unprofessional manner, then other people should know about it. Chances are, there is a recurring pattern with unprofessional people in this industry and your experiences aren't random.

I've had all sorts of bad interview experiences where interviewers have taken advantage of my naivete and kindness from all ends of the interview pipeline, especially early on in my career. Unfortunately, rude and unprofessional people are everywhere. Even if times might be tough, no job is ever worth sacrificing your self-respect.

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

In that specific situation, you could mention it to the remaining interviewers.

Some version of "Is he always like that?" perhaps.

ISL2• 4 years ago

I don't think there's a need to terminate the interview at the moment of the incident, especially as they're a precious window into the culture of a company. You may learn a lot from watching the reaction of the remaining interviewers over the remainder of the interview.

Assuming that the interviewee chooses not to pursue employment at the company, it seems optional but appropriate to leave constructive feedback with the recruiter/hiring manager on the way out.

danielmarkbruce2• 4 years ago

Just roll with it. You really don't have much context on the laughter or the leaving. Both could have valid reasons. And maybe they don't and the person is an idiot - just roll with that too.

bitwize• 4 years ago

I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.

Anyone who has contempt for the beauty of Scheme is a liability, not an asset, to your team and you can safely recommend no-hire.

nouveaux• 4 years ago

I had to control-f too far down for this comment. I would have a hard time working with anyone who laughed at the idea of anyone's favorite language, let alone a language like Scheme. There are reasons to dislike Scheme but it's hard to argue against how amazing the language can be.

mirntyfirty2• 4 years ago

I’ve had a couple phone interviewers get much too aggressive at which point I told them it looks like they’ll need to find another candidate. Strangely, they both called and emailed back apologizing at which point I went elsewhere on my merry way. I think it’s necessary to have a certain amount of patience with interviewers but that certain boundaries have to be respected.

nonrandomstring• 4 years ago

Having sat on many panels I'll suggest there might be reasons why someone might seem rude. After a great curry the night before I once had to interview holding back what we call "Gandhi's revenge" around here. The scowl on my face probably terrified the poor kid, and then I made a dash for the toilet.

Practice interacting and being in a professional conversant situation without reading too deeply into what you think is going on for the other person. Accept the situation on face value with the best and worst interpretations in mind, but not in effect. That's good for negotiating too. If you feel on the defensive because of an implied power relation, or misunderstanding, hold that thought, wait and see, it could get interesting.

Since you allocated the time anyway, make the best of a recon opportunity. If the interviewer is being rude, the fact that you are unruffled makes you the bigger person. Smile politely and you may unbalance them. Save any grand decision for the end.

johnwheeler• 4 years ago

I disagree. It’s unnatural to ignore nonverbal communication. If you had to take a shit and you were talking to the CEO of the company, wouldn’t you do your best to hide that scowl and be polite?

bcrosby95• 4 years ago

Why not just be open about it?

Shish2k• 4 years ago

It’s unnatural to ignore nonverbal communication

In my experience, most people do pay a lot of attention to nonverbal communication… and they're really awful at interpreting it. Basically taking any vague body motion as evidence in favour of their preconceived ideas :/

My communications got noticably smoother when I made a conscious decision to ignore the majority of nonverbal communication; and if it seemed like somebody was trying to say something, I’d explicitly say “Hey, I get the impression that you’re <angry/sad/etc>, am I reading that correctly?” and go from there rather than assuming.

goodpoint• 4 years ago

One can very easily say "sorry I don't feel well" and walk out immediately.

lampshades• 4 years ago

I decide not to work there and then tune out the rest of the interview. I'll continue the loop for practice.

If I don't like them after a few minutes of meeting them, I can't imagine how I'll feel when I have to spent a majority of my day dealing with them.

spicymaki• 4 years ago

At the time I didn't say anything, and just continued the interview as if nothing happened, but in retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself...

This is an awful experience and I think it is better to not second guess yourself after a traumatic experience. We are not machines, we are human beings, and getting shot down (in a cruel fashion) when the stakes are high is not something we should be expected to handle well.

orthecreedence• 4 years ago

traumatic experience

Someone being rude to you is not traumatic.

aaronbrethorst• 4 years ago

With intense gratitude for the fact that I will only have to interact with this person once for an hour, and not five days a week, eight hours per day, forever.

thisistheend123• 4 years ago

Interviewed at Samsung ( Noida India) around 2016, where exactly the same thing happened with me.

Was being interviewed by a panel of 4-5 people. The main guy, who I presume was the hiring manager stood up in the middle of the interview and left the room, seemingly unimpressed with my answers.

Thankfully I didn't get through and heard many horror stories regarding their culture in later years.

onion2k• 4 years ago

Burn a bridge and have some fun. Start asking questions like "Is rudeness acceptable at your shitty company?", "Is that guy too stupid to understand Scheme?", "Do you think I'd lower my standards enough to work for you?" etc.

osrec• 4 years ago

As a younger guy, I used to really try hard to impress at interviews, regardless of the poor behaviour of the interviewers. Once I got a bit more senior, my tolerance for squirm-inducing tactics reduced drastically. By this time, I had conducted a few interviews myself, and knew what was appropriate and what wasn't.

The minute I suspected any kind of inappropriate questioning, I used to just get up, thank them for their time and walk out. If you're getting stupid questions thrown at you, the interview is pretty much a lost cause anyway, so why waste time?!

A little later, I discovered an even more enjoyable way to end a "lost cause" interview, that can repay to the interviewer some of the discomfort they caused you.

Once you sense the interview is going south, and the interviewer is unnecessarily enjoying putting you under pressure, as a final resort, request that someone from HR be called to observe the interview. Even better if you have the HR reps number, so you can call them directly! Say that you feel that the methods being used in the interview are inappropriate and unnecessarily pressurising. It's no good sending an email after - you need to strike before the interview is over, while the iron's hot.

It really changes the mood in a beautiful way, and lets you get your own back on power-tripping trash bags. You obviously won't get the job, but that's probably for the better, given the trashy people you'd be working with!

Note: I worked in finance, where horrible interviews are sadly quite common.

Kaze404• 4 years ago

This is hilarious. I can think of a few situations where it would've come in handy. Thanks for sharing.

gabereiser• 4 years ago

Instead of reflecting on what the interviewer did, reflect on that culture for a second. Is that somewhere you WANT to work? Would they respect your opinions? Sounds like that’s a no.

I’ve ended interviews within the first 5 minutes. I have a knack for seeing through this kind of stuff. I also have no shame on calling someone out on it.

Toxic people usually don’t know they are toxic because they have been enabled to do so. It’s also well within your right to confront someone like this and say “Excuse me, sir (or ma’am), I was under the impression this was a top place to work. Your display just convinced me that it is not. I respect your decision to leave as I hope you respect mine.” and walk out. Not saying that’s what you should say verbatim but your time is just as valuable and your opinions should be just as weighted. Whether you work there yet or not.

Companies with a great culture would have asked you to dive deeper. To understand your point of view. Maybe a healthy debate. Teach us something that we don’t know, kind of thing.

I think when you’re early in your career you just want to get the job and will do whatever it takes. After 5 years you should be given the same respect as that person gives their colleagues. After all, you are interviewing to be their colleague. They are interviewing to be yours.

Never, ever, let an interview be single sided. You will have no negotiating power.

AlbertCory• 4 years ago

If anyone remembers Miss Manners (whose kids are now helping write her columns):

I actually wrote to her about one of those situations (interviewer staring down at my resume, interrupting my answers to ask about something else on the resume, etc.) and she printed it.

Her response was, basically: if you expect to stay in the profession, just be polite and don't tell them they have the manners of a baboon.

hereforphone• 4 years ago

I'm in my 40s. I've had several really bad interviews, and a few good ones. My advice to you is to stand up and walk out when the interviewers become mocking, overly pedantic, or arrogant. Consider it a reflection of office culture.

wollsmoth3• 4 years ago

The only thing I can think of is maybe this person thought you were lying. Picking a more obscure language to seem cool, or to make follow up questions more difficult. But I don't think they behaved appropriately in any case.

shantnutiwari• 4 years ago

In the 2-3 times it has happened to me:

What I want to do: Walk out

What I did: Stay there in shock, wondering what to do, and seething in anger on the way home.

Its like anything else--unless you regularly meet rude people, you are at a shock when you do meet someone

buescher• 4 years ago

I had a couple interviews when I was young and callow and really needed the job that still stick with me. One was with a large company that's still around. The HR manager accused me of lying on my resume after I interpreted something like "where are the stretchers, c'mon, everybody exaggerates on their resume?" as "discuss the limits of what you claim on your resume". I learned later this line of questioning is promoted in some books as a "trick" for getting people to admit they lied on their resume. I was pretty rough around the edges back then, so I was rude back, which I regret.

I am now a hiring manager and have conducted countless interviews at this point.

You did the right thing continuing the interview professionally. Assume the most charitable interpretation. You don't know the whole situation with the jerk. Maybe he just started and this is the start of a chain of problems that will get him fired. Maybe he just needs training on how to interview. Maybe he's OK otherwise but they'll never let him interview anyone else again. Maybe he's only sort of a jerk normally but he was leaving for a funeral or something.

There's just no good reason to get yourself a "not now, not ever" note in the company's files and your interviewers' memories just to indulge a bit of social revenge. That said, use your best judgment and certainly remove yourself from an interview for illegal, dangerous, unethical, or threatening behavior. The crazies are out there.

dominotw• 4 years ago

you can't do anything other than to just hang up and move on. You don't have to tolerate this kind of behavior.

revlolz• 4 years ago

Unacceptable behavior for an interviewer. Ironically, that person did you a solid by showing you this wasn't the company you want to work at without already starting there and investing even more time with them. Imagine finding this out after you quit a current job, and low and behold, this guy is your new boss.

You are the candidate and hold equal power. In the thought process you had "I think I should terminate this interview." If it ever gets to a point you are uncomfortable due to rudeness, leave. Sure, in a big faang world you may never have interaction with that person, but them being on the panel has a chance they would be your boss, peer, or in your org some way.

Toxic people can ruin what would otherwise be good careers. Alternatively, this can also be a huge indicator a company tolerates and promotes this behavior. To me, while it's possible, that this was a once and rare thing that only this person has done... Screw betting my career on the least likely possibility.

Clubber3• 4 years ago

I once had a guy in an interview panel pour out a packet of salt and chop it into lines with a credit card at an interview with a major tech company you've heard of. It was like a nervous habit or something. This was back in the late 1990s. I was like WTF.

Ya, you really have to pay attention to red flags, you'll be working (stuck) with them for at least a year, possibly more, and you will depend on them for your livelihood and family's survival.

smugma2• 4 years ago

That’s weird, but like you say, it seemed like a sort of nervous habit.

Not during interviews, but sometimes I close my eyes when I want to focus intently on what the speaker is saying. I used to twirl my pencil.

I try and give both interviewers and interviewees the benefit of the doubt.

Walking out without saying anything seems pretty rude, but I don’t know all the circumstances. Laughing in your face seems much worse. It’s a two way interview. If it doesn’t feel right, hopefully you’ve got other options and don’t need to proceed. Or get an offer (if it isn’t going to take 5 more rounds of interviewing, you’ve already committed time to the interview, consider whether it’s worth taking it to completion) and then raise concerns and listen to how your concerns are addressed.

cyberei• 4 years ago

you'll be working (stuck) with them for at least a year, possibly more

Why is that? Do you mean it looks bad in the CV if you leave too soon?

sharadov• 4 years ago

Are you sure it was salt? Cocaine sounds more like it. He was

1. Either trying to kick a cocaine habit, and was still going through the motions with something that looked like cocaine

2. He was going to offer the coke to OP and see if he was a culture fit.

Sohcahtoa828• 4 years ago

You are the candidate and hold equal power.

I frequently see comments like this on HN and I don't really buy it.

When every job opening has several qualified candidates, and it can take several applications to land a new job, I still think the employer has more power.

itsoktocry• 4 years ago

I still think the employer has more power.

This is the mentality that gets you bullied. There are more openings than qualified people, and businesses can't make money without employees. No one is doing you a favour by giving you a job, they are literally making off your back.

yboris• 4 years ago

My team at my company has been interviewing people this last half year: we've extended offers to a few and so far each has chosen to work elsewhere because they found better pay.

At the very least for the last half year, I think developers may have an "upper hand".

ddingus11• 4 years ago

They do hold more power, but in terms of the basic interview session, it's equal in that either party can end it for their reasons.

Overall, people seeking work have less overall power and a generally poor position, unless they have saved or earned enough to not require the work.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

It really depends on your reputation and specialized skills.

It's easy to name a bunch of names that everyone on HN has heard of, and you can bet anything that in job negotiations they are the ones who have the power. Companies have to come courting them, not the other way around.

at-fates-hands• 4 years ago

> When every job opening has several qualified candidates, and it can take several applications to land a new job, I still think the employer has more power.

Depends on what role you're interviewing for. C# dev? Probably. What about full-stack Javascript dev? Totally lopsided in favor of the developers. I have, on average, a dozen emails from recruiters looking for full-stack JS devs. I barely do JS work any more, but the everything is so scarce, if companies can just find someone who's mildly fluent in JS, they'll hire and train you - its that bad in the Midwest where I live. The entry level roles are pretty competitive, but anything mid to senior level there aren't enough people to go around right now.

You just have to know your market and when you have leverage. When you have leverage, you can really take advantage. Don't like the people interviewing you? Wait a day or so. You like a company? Use your leverage to get more vacation, higher salary, play companies against each other to get more for yourself.

Knowledge is power, simple as that.

hatware• 4 years ago

The employer has more _risk_.

kadoban2• 4 years ago

When every job opening has several qualified candidates

Every applicant also has several qualified companies they can work for.

It's not totally equal, but if your mindset is not peers meeting to see if there's a good fit, your interviewing experience is going to be worse than it could be.

tetsuhamu• 4 years ago

Hiring cycles are more like a clearinghouse than a company choosing the best candidate for a position.

N number of candidates enter that month's job market, companies are able to offer N number of positions.

At the end of the hiring cycle, they make the N-to-N matches and execute the cycle.

A candidate can (and must) have several offers from different companies, just as companies have several candidates for each position.

maerF0x04• 4 years ago

I once interviewed for Qualia, and surprise surprise both the founding CEO and Product person both were quite rude to me. Unsurprised due to their very young age at the time*. Yeah, someone may not be up to your standards, but that's no reason to mock them in a high pressure/vulnerability scenario. It's particularly odd because they were using MeteorJS quite early and I was one of a very few people in the world having creating, deploying, and running a meteorJS app at that time. If you can believe it that was about 6 years ago and I still can recall their faces to this day. Not that it bothers me anymore, but that the impression sunk deep.

Their recruiters continue to reach out to me to this day, not a snowball's chance in hell.

Contrast this with a scenario at Dropbox where I was underprepared for a datastructures question (BitSet). While the interviewer was mildly taunting me, he at least was gracious enough to give hints and talk me through the solution as it ended. I knew I wasnt getting the role, but at least I learned something that day.

* not that rudeness in youth is acceptable or expected but a lack of life experience can lead to a lack of perspective or realization that life is much longer and you only get one reputation

andy_ppp3• 4 years ago

I find the Dropbox story completely stupid too. You should never be failed in an interview for not knowing things you can trivially Google, in my opinion.

lojack• 4 years ago

Interviewers tend to have one of two different mentalities...

Some are trying to see you fail. They're looking for a reason to say "no". They tend to not be of any help on a problem, will often try to find ways to trick you. They also tend to have an ego problem -- you need to prove to them that you're worthy of joining the team.

The other class of interviewers are those that want you to succeed. They will answer questions, and help clarify things. Even if you are unqualified for the role, and they know it, they still want to help you along so they can see your best work. People that shut down when they get nervous tend to open up to these interviewers. They also tend to be the people that are more pleasant to work with.

explaingarlic2• 4 years ago

I know I'm not qualified to speak on your decisions or life, and you probably know more about the situation but - why "not a snowball's chance in hell"?

People change, they get given second chances. I wouldn't mind giving a company a second chance, especially after they probably had a real kick-in-the-nuts because of their approach to your interview, since it most likely wasn't that easy to find another qualified MeteorJS dev.

ianbutler2• 4 years ago

Complete side note, I really wish Meteor took off more than it did I really enjoyed working with that framework went to the conference back in like 2014-2015 at the UN building in New York and felt really productive with it. I know it's still viable and I might use it for a personal project but wonder how businesses that use it are holding up.

kurupt2132• 4 years ago

This is so weird, I work in a niche field and relatively few people have the skills my team has. We are normally looking for someone who has a skill we don’t have. We can teach the right candidate everything we know on the job.

roamerz• 4 years ago

This is my favorite answer in reading the comments. I might add that person that laughed and walked out may have been a plant to incite a reaction from the interviewee. If that would have been me (and the rest of the interview was going well) I probably would have just laughed and said something after he left to the affect of ‘made someone laugh today - check’.

tyingq• 4 years ago

Agree generally, though that the other people in the room didn't try to acknowledge what happened, apologize, etc, is the biggest problem to me.

Any company might have a random asshole pop up into a chance encounter. What that random asshole does is less telling than what everyone else around them does to address it.

EdwardDiego3• 4 years ago

Exactly. I was in an interview with a data engineering consultancy, and the CEO goes on a weird rant about "there's givers and takers in a company, which are you?" and then proudly told me about firing a couple of people that week.

Was a very useful interview for me, and I've told a few old colleagues who were approached by the company also about it, so it saved them time too.

forinti2• 4 years ago

I'd see your appreciation of Scheme as quite positive!

I once had an interview (in Portuguese) where some HR person asked me if I spoke English and seemed to get very upset when I replied that I did. This person started berating me with an angry face: "how would you know??". That was very strange. I can't imagine what was going on in this person's head.

mariojv• 4 years ago

It's been several years since I interviewed, but I do recall one Zoom interview where the panel was in a physical room and one of the people on the panel was just on his phone texting or something for around half of the interview.

I basically just ignored the behavior and continued as normal, professionally, with the other interviewer. Eventually, whatever I was coding up finally drew the rude interviewer's attention.

I made it to the next round, which I passed, and was ready to do a final round but ended up going with another offer before proceeding with them. After reading a bit more about the work culture at the place and seeing the interviewer's behavior, I definitely don't regret it, even though their RSUs would likely be worth quite a lot today. Work life balance and culture are important so that you're not miserable in your job.

My advice is: continue the interview professionally, but take the rudeness into consideration before you take an offer if it comes. Worst case, you're out a few hours of time and learned a bit about a different company. Also don't assume the worst. With the interviewer who was texting, I chose to believe that maybe he had some personal issue going on rather than thinking that my behavior triggered the rudeness, which helped me finish up the interview.

imroot• 4 years ago

I interviewed for a position on HN's "Who's Hiring" thread a few years ago. They asked me to do four different tech screens...but the kicker was, that they were all the same question.

During the second one, I mentioned that this seemed a lot like the first one, but, did it anyway, a different way. During the third one, I literally just used the same code/approach I did on the first one.

During the fourth one, I refused and said, "Hey, this...isn't for me." and then had two weeks of HR emailing me almost every day asking if I'd reconsider.

agiacalone• 4 years ago

That kind of thing weirdly trips up people, though.

I mean...not you or me or probably most people on HN...but it happens.

agentultra• 4 years ago

Did the other interviewers in the room continue on without saying anything either?

That's so strange. I'm not sure how I would have reacted to that but I don't think it would have been very kind. I like having a few good high-brow, back-handed slaps to throw around when I need to put rude people back in line. But walking out laughing? That's so surreal I feel like I would have simply done the same. I imagine it would've seemed a very chaotic scene to those remaining.

pmoriarty16• 4 years ago

"Did the other interviewers in the room continue on without saying anything either?"

Yep. They didn't say anything and continued as if nothing happened. Though I did get the feeling that one of them seemed uncomfortable after the interviewer who laughed at me walked out without saying a word.

oxff• 4 years ago

Remembering that one time an interviewer asked to fill a spec and then asked why I didn't <description of something clearly outside the spec>.

ahoka• 4 years ago

Maybe they were a Lisp-1 person?

I think asking to stop the interview could be a proper way to handle this in the situation. Maybe you can also try talking to the recruiter / hiring manager about your experience.

ochrist• 4 years ago

You are not alone. Here is some inspiration: https://thedailywtf.com/series/tales-from-the-interview

exdsq• 4 years ago

I had a four stage interview process with a startup where I also built a pretty solid plan for how to build their project once I started and when it got to negotiations I asked for $140k, they countered $90k, I said no way I’d do less than $120k, and they ghosted me ever since. Thankfully found something else and sent a final follow up saying I was withdrawing my application but the absolute worst interview process I’ve experienced that late in the process.

JohnHaugeland2• 4 years ago

At the time I didn't say anything, and just continued the interview as if nothing happened, but in retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?

Finish the interview politely. You don't want to leave the other interviewers in the lurch.

Then immediately after the interview, contact your rep and say "with respect, due to the extremely inappropriate behavior of person X, I will not be moving forwards. Here was my experience:"

setgree• 4 years ago

There was a good thread on red flags during an interview last year https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26426602

Repeating what I wrote then:

I once got stood up for a round of interviews — I showed up, waited, emailed them multiple times to let them know I was there, and then 30 minutes later they wrote to me to ask if I could come in another day (rather than meeting me at the front desk where I was sitting). At the time I was just annoyed that they had wasted my time, but in retrospect, the real red flag there was that no one took responsibility — “there was a scheduling conflict” was as much as I got.

As to how you handled this particular situation, OP -- I think you handled it fine and I wouldn't worry too much. I think most of us would have been flummoxed by this person's extremely unusual behavior.

ddingus11• 4 years ago

I've only faced this a time or two, and I ended the session. I did that with respect and candor, being frank about it potentially being a poor fit, wishing them luck and all those basic human things.

No regrets.

In my view, these things are self-correcting. If the interview is so poor that I feel it doesn't make sense, it's extremely likely more will be a rough scenario.

deepsun• 4 years ago

I'd continue interview just for the practice of being interviewed, since I'm already there. Unless I have more important things to do.

anotherlab• 4 years ago

This thread has mentioned that it was unacceptable for the interviewer to walk out without saying why they were leaving, or even saying goodbye and thanking you for your time.

While that was an enormous red flag, so is that they had laughed in your face about your choice for a favorite language. That person was extremely rude to you and that behavior was accepted by their co-workers.

While wanting to end that interview right on the spot is a natural reaction, I would have kept going. Depending on the size of the your market, you could get tagged as that person that bailed in the middle of the interview. Depending on how the rest of the interview went, you could be direct and ask about that interviewer and if that was indicative of the company culture.

omoikane• 4 years ago

This is a signal that you might not want to work for this company anyways. Interviewers should be aware that they are representing their company during the interview, and will be spreading an impression of their company beyond just the one candidate that they are currently interviewing.

(I have not been in this situation but have had the reverse happening to me where the candidate walked out on me after performing poorly in the first few minutes. I asked if they want to at least stay for lunch, but they seemed like they were in a hurry to run away.)

pclmulqdq• 4 years ago

At one point, I called out an interviewer during the interview on his bad behavior. However, this is not a good solution. I think he learned his lesson, but it certainly cost me a good relationship with anyone else at the company. Thankfully, it was a startup and I didn't need the job.

The best solution in my opinion is to complete the interview, then politely inform the HR person that you are no longer interested in the job. If you are doing an onsite interview, you can feel free to leave during the middle of the day. When they ask why, politely say that you don't believe that this will be a good fit, and thank them for their time.

Rude interviewers imply rude colleagues - if they are rude to you when they are on "interview behavior" you don't want to know what they are like otherwise.

jimbob45• 4 years ago

I can handle rude interviewers all day. It’s the (outlier) ESL ones that present my greatest difficulties. I know they’re trying their best and so I sit through the interview because I want them to not know I’m miserable if I leave. Still, we both know nobody will be getting a callback afterwards.

FabHK3• 4 years ago

Not sure how it is now, but in investment banking interviews, interviewers definitely used to be rude or obnoxious sometimes. To an extent, this was a deliberate move to test a candidate's reaction. If the pressure rises when the market goes south on the trading floor or when preparing an important presentation for a merger, temper might rise as well, and there is little time for niceties. Dealing with it reasonably graciously is an important qualification for working in that kind of environment.

Now, I'm not advocating being an asshole. But when working with top people in high pressure environments it certainly helps if you can deal with assholes. It is a bit reminiscent of Postel's law: Be strict in what you send, but tolerant in what you accept.

In this case, it could be that there was some other important meeting the person had to attend, and didn't want to interrupt the interview process with an explanation or goodbye.

If you conclude that this is not the environment you want to work in, fair enough, and concluding the interview politely at that point would certainly have been an option - it seems that the organisation and you were not a good fit anyway.

mikro2nd• 4 years ago

One good way of dealing with that sort of rudeness is to confront it directly, being extremely polite. "Excuse me???" with a directed look. "I'm not sure I understood you correctly, but did you really mean to imply..."

Watch the walkback.

FabHK3• 4 years ago

Yes, or just ignore it. Experience with non-neurotypical people, or other cultures, can help you learn how to just shrug things off that you could otherwise perceive as rude. And then you can shrug it off even if it was intended to be rude.

FpUser• 4 years ago

Being in a market for decades I do not remember a single case of an interviewer being rude. Incompetent sure but never rude / impolite.

1minusp• 4 years ago

Wish i had had the presence of mind to pause and do the same in a recent interview (where despite 'pushing back' against a counter comment, the interviewer insisted that I didnt 'push back' enough). I retrospect, i had asked a couple of probing questions in an earlier interview about his funding for the initiatives he had proposed, and he might not have taken kindly to those questions (unjustifiably, i feel). Another git on the panel yawned in my face halfway thru a 45 minute interview. I've been in more than one interview situation where the interviewer seems tired out, hasnt had a good nights sleep etc. Comes across incredibly rude.

wonderwonder• 4 years ago

At my first job, I was young, maybe 21 we had a guy come in for an interview. I was not even on the interview panel but the guy had a funny mustache and the person running the interview started bringing random people in to ask him questions but also to low key laugh at his mustache. The company itself was a clown show and management treated employees like garbage so I guess it was the sort of culture that was encouraged. I did not really think about it at the time as I was young and oblivious but now that I am older I occasionally think back to that and feel bad for the interviewee and really regret allowing myself to be involved in that.

_raoulcousins• 4 years ago

I really don't like these "favorite x" questions. Aren't interviewers just asking something like "tell me about a language you use and why it's relevant to this interview"? Why not ask questions more directly?

I saw on reddit recently (some database related subreddit) someone say "tell me your favorite type of join" as their favorite interview question.

gradschool• 4 years ago

I can imagine it would have been upsetting but in time I'm sure you'll grow jaded. Since we're sharing stories, my last interviewer seemed eager to think I was an idiot (rightly or wrongly) and I couldn't summon the motivation to talk him out it. He asked if I know what reading and writing to a database means, and I asked if that was what he was asking me, and rather than answering he just moved on. When it got to the point of him saying that a person who knows absolutely nothing about databases might not be a good fit for the job, I told him I won't get my hopes up, thanked him for the interview, and wished all the best to him and the company.

throwaway284534• 4 years ago

I gotta say, I'm terribly addicted to antagonizing these rude conversations, usually by saying the most escalating thing I can think of on the spot.

"What does reading and writing to a database mean?"

"I suppose you could think of them as opposites...For example, most humans push waste out from their bottom end. But for you, it comes out of your mouth with relative ease."

AdrianB1• 4 years ago

When I had such experiences (very rare) I continued the interview, then I left and never came back. Life is too short for something else.

Oh, and I told all my friends to avoid those companies. It was a nice gesture for my friends, not a "cancel X" move.

tpict• 4 years ago

I once had a phone screen for a full stack SWE position where the interviewer was laser focused on the fact that I had previously held the title "web developer". The entire interview was spent defending myself from accusations that web developers "don't write code", or that "they're more about design" etc, while my resume described past job duties that were a 1:1 match with the JD. The canned "we'll be in touch shortly" was said with a chuckle and I never heard back from them.

At the time, I was in desperate need of a new job or else have to leave the country, so it hurt to be dismissed so readily.

These days I'd be more inclined to excuse myself early, but on the other hand, who's to say that this one person is representative of the company and their culture? Maybe they're a recent hire. Maybe I would have enjoyed the subsequent interviews. My only regret is that I didn't share my experience with someone else at that company.

unsupp0rted• 4 years ago

A little while ago I had an interview in which the owner of the company (Fintech-ish) started reading my palm and telling me things about me he would have extrapolated from what I'd already told him about myself.

That's not a euphemism: he genuinely believed he was reading the lines on my palm, and that that makes sense to do in an interview.

baby• 4 years ago

I would probably have laughed as well thinking you were joking (my experience with scheme was kind of like brainfuck but with parenthesis)

falkenb0t• 4 years ago

I had a very similar experience (though not quite as extreme) with a Comcast interview. The interviewer would ask me about my experience and either cut me off before I could answer or practically insult me when I would give an answer to the effect of "I don't have experience with this specific technology but I do have plenty with this equivalent tech." It left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards but honestly, like many others are already saying here, that guy did me a favor by letting me know right up front that I would not like working there.

I was fortunate in that it was only a 30 minute phone interview so I could just grit my teeth and wait it out but it is entirely reasonable to terminate an interview if you are not being given respect.

shaggie762• 4 years ago

There was a recent article that bubbled up HN that I can't find with life lessons from a wise old programmer that posted a new list every year.

One of the things that stood out to me from hist list went something like "discover the thrill of being extremely polite to people who are rude to you." Being no saint myself this really resonated with me.

I wouldn't walk out, and I certainly wouldn't take an offer, but I'd stay for the interview for the trill of behaving excellently.

mark-wagner• 4 years ago

It was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31199300

It’s thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.

shaggie762• 4 years ago

Thank you!

akhmatova• 4 years ago

Then they just walked out in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.

Then you should walk out as well. Explaining calmly but confidently why you are doing so, of course, to underscore the fact that you can still be a professional even when they are not. But either way -- the interview had clearly lost any purpose by that point, so the sooner everyone can cut their losses and move on, the better.

syngrog66• 4 years ago

easy. you immediately flag the job in your mind as NO and move on mentally. try to be polite and diplomatic but still abort ASAP

what I do

life is too short, and good engineers in too high of demand, to put up with toxic people or groups in your life. trick is to spot them early, before you've said YES and began a serious mutual time investment

thebigspacefuck• 4 years ago

Don’t work at that company

peterangular• 4 years ago

I do what I use to do on dates that weren't working out. I politely explain, "hey I'm not feeling this, nothing personal - I just don't think it's going to work out. I don't want to waste anyone's time so I am going to go home." Say this confidently and without a hint of anger to avoid conflict.

People will get bit flustered but just kill 'em with kindness repeating the three main things in the quotes:

* Not feeling it

* Nothing personal

* It would be rude to waste your time

They'll eventually get it as you pick your stuff up and leave. If it's an interview I will thank the person for their time/the opportunity with a handshake on my way out the door.

throw03172019• 4 years ago

Oh wow. Sorry to hear your experience. However, I think they Failed your interview of them. Would you want to work with people like that?

Lio3• 4 years ago

I once had a 3rd round interview where I was lead into a room to await a senior exec who wanted to personally vet me.

So I waited...

An hour went by and a PA came in to apologies and say the big man was on his way but still on a call.

Another 30 minutes went by and I just walked out without further discussion.

I did get the job in the end and it was a decent gig but I still wished I'd left then interview sooner.

Luckily we work in an industry where kissing arses generally isn't required. That doesn't mean you can or should be rude but it goes both ways.

Don't be a doormat.

If someone laughs when you say Scheme is your favourite language, it's perfectly fine to smile back at them and ask them why they're laughing.

lamontcg• 4 years ago

Being an introvert I'm not quite sure I'd terminate the interview loop myself, but I'd probably stop trying to sell myself for the rest of the loop and start trying to figure out if I could ask questions that would reinforce that I shouldn't work there. My brain would go to the place where I was trying to teach myself how to better interview companies for their behavior--you're in a situation where you know you don't like this company, so what other data can you gather about that, and what questions could you ask of future companies that you interview at?

rpmisms• 4 years ago

Pushy interviewers are my favorite, since that's my personal love language, and combative people usually respond well to appropriate pushback. Plain rude? I'll walk out first, watch me.

giantg2• 4 years ago

I had a tech lead and manager interview me for an internal position. The tech lead was on her laptop the whole time. The manager asked her if she had any questions. So she asked me something. I started giving my response and she went straight back to her laptop. When I was done answering, she didn't say anything or even acknowledge my answer. There was a long pause and the manager picked back up. I finished the interview.

Before I could decline the position in the system, they called me and offered the job. I said something to the effect of "thanks but I'm don't think it was a good fit. Good luck in the search". Then he started pressing me for why I'm turning it down. I told him I didn't think I would get enough support/growth from the tech lead if they can't even take time for the interview (also it made me think the team might be overworked).

Then the manager called my current manager. Both managers couldn't understand why I turned it down. How? How can they not understand that even after I explained it?

So in summary, I finished the interview and declined the offer. I would have withdrawn my application but didn't get to it fast enough.

hintymad• 4 years ago

Yeah, I think you can politely point out that such behavior is out of line and terminate the interview. On the other hand, no need to get angry. People may insult you for no good reason, but it does mean you need to get back every time (I forgot the exact quote from Do Vito Corleone).

BTW, it's actually great that you got a strong signal about the company. The interviewer apparently lacks of intellectual curiosity and the company culture is dubious. A much worse outcome would be that you find out the culture after you join the company.

denysvitali• 4 years ago

You post the company name online and make bad press.

The way he behaved isn't just disrespectful, it's completely fucked up.

fredrb• 4 years ago

My worst experience was when an interviewer told me to stop doing the exercise because time was up, and proceed to say that they could "solve this exercise in 30 seconds by copy-pasting an answer from StackOverflow". They mentioned in the beginning of the interview that I could Google whatever I wanted and then said I "should've taken the hint if I wanted to complete the exercise".

The complete interview was a joke. The person didn't know which position I was applying to; another guy joined the interview halfway through and asked if he should take over; and the worst: the main interviewer was boasting about working 12 hours a day as a contractor and getting double the salary from the actual employees.

They didn't make an offer.

formjk• 4 years ago

I recently interviewed at a startup where I faced a very bully interviewer. First a bit of background about me ..I have few years of gaps in my career due to family responsibilities. But whenever I have rejoined work, i have always enjoyed the work and loved working in development role with active coding.

The start of interview felt like he had made up his mind, being lady, with so many years of gap in between, may be she is no good for coding role. I was asked a question for which some particular answer was expected, which is commonly used for that domain, but since I had never worked in that domain, the answer didn't click instantaneously..

And the very next question he asked me in next 2 mins time was "you don't know the answer because you haven't been coding ? "

I politely conveyed that just because i dont know the answer to this question, doesnt mean i do not code. Its simply means that i have not worked on this particular problem and probably next time they should screen people with those particular skillsets. And i didnt continue the interview.

It felt good. I didn't want them to bully me just because I am a candidate (and not employer) and tht too the one with not extremely impressive profile. Even if I had cleared the interview, I don't think I would have accepted to work with that company.

noodle• 4 years ago

I don't work for that company. A company that would allow that to happen is probably not a company with a culture I'd like to be a part of.

In your specific example, depending on how the rest of the team reacted, I might've also just stayed to the end.

jonathankoren• 4 years ago

I had a similar experience when being interviewed by a director at Uber. (I really wish I remembered his name. He worked for Microsoft for about 10 years before coming to Uber.)

I know how I wish I handled it, but I just sat there because I was honestly confused by him.

When asked if I had questions, I should have asked the shadower if he thought Uber encouraged a culture of mutual respect. Then as a follow up, if that culture was demonstrated here. When he’d inevitably say, “Yes?”, I would have simply said, “I don’t.”

imwillofficial• 4 years ago

If they walked out, I would have ended the interview right there.

Respect yourself first and others will follow suit.

mychael• 4 years ago

- End the interview early and call them out on being rude.

- Drag their company they work for on Blind and Glassdoor.

This is the best thing you can do not just for yourself, but for other engineers as well.

eulers_secret• 4 years ago

If they were rude enough, I'd be tempted to leave a bad Google/Yelp review.

brudgers• 4 years ago

*I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs*

Then, whether planned or not, the rudeness was an effective and important part of the interview process...there was no cultural fit.

I mean maybe the rudeness was performative. Particularly given how utterly useless the question is and how there's no answer where someone couldn't plausibly respond rudely...PHP is obvious, but "Rust? Oh you're one of those people?"

How people respond to rudeness can be an effective gauge of personality.

Some people will laugh it off. Some assume the source was having a bad day. Some will actually say the "what the fuck?" they're thinking.

And some people will go ballistic.

Not reacting as part of your professional self-image says a something about your personality. Terminating the interview on the spot wouldn't be part of that...because it would be unprofessional.

Which is particularly true for people who work directly with clients where the way to deal with rudeness is rates that make experiencing rudeness worthwhile.

By which I mean not accepting rudeness is a privilege. The McDonald's cashier and the hotel maid don't get that option.

Good luck.

aklemm• 4 years ago

Well, all I can is it's good to be old enough and financially secure enough to happily give them a "fuck you" and walk out myself.

pfortuny• 4 years ago

You might have pointed that out to the other interviewers to show that you are below no one, and you do not allow being laughed at. That may lead to a much more interesting interview.

missmossmass• 4 years ago

A rather disdainful experience I had with Refurbed.com a couple months back: interviewer immediately reaches out to schedule a meet then proceeds to ghost you with the pretext that they were busy/sick. Only for them to later brag about their 0.5% success recruit rate. On Glassdoor and other sites alike, more than 60% applicants rated them negatively. What a garbage recruit process and honestly incompetent interviewers.

Do not enable such. Walk out. End it.

ideonexus• 4 years ago

I have social anxiety disorder, which I deal with in the workplace by putting on a "Customer Service" persona. So in any interview, I consider the interviewer as my customer and I want to make them happy. In an interview for a previous job, the Lead Architect was very aggressively putting me through several technical questions and at one point he told me I was completely wrong in one of my answers. When I politely tried to explain why I believed my answer was correct and offered to demonstrate on my laptop, he got angry and stormed out of the interview, leaving his two embarrassed looking coworkers to continue.

It was a bad experience, but the other two interviewers were very nice and I really wanted to work for this non-profit, so I sent a follow-up email apologizing for upsetting the Lead Architect so much, saying that I thought it was just a misunderstanding, that there were multiple correct answers, and provided some documentation to further explain why I answered the way I did.

I got a job offer that afternoon, and two weeks after I started they fired the Lead Architect. That same week, I went out to lunch with the team, where one of the interviewers told everyone about how I made the Lead Architect look so stupid during the interview and that I was so incredibly nice about it that they knew they had to hire me. Turns out it was a workplace where everyone highly valued politeness and the Architect had been antagonizing and bullying everyone for years. Ended up being one of the friendliest places I've ever worked.

xisukar2• 4 years ago

What a nice turn of events! You literally killed the Lead Architect with kindness haha

ask_b123• 4 years ago

As it says in the Bible (I'm not 100% sure what 'heap burning coals on his head' means):

«“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.»

shnock• 4 years ago

Thank you for sharing your story. I found it educational and will work to emulate some of your described behavior.

I bet that lunch made you feel great!

lmas• 4 years ago

Aww man thanks a lot for your story! Kindness is really the only way to treat people, including yourself. And you totally owned it!

ipaddr4• 4 years ago

The way you handled that should be taught. Great job it sounds like success will follow you wherever you go.

permalac• 4 years ago

I think I will apply your train of thought in future interactions with difficult people.

Customer service persona, I like it.

quickthrower23• 4 years ago

Brilliant story. Lucky they had the balls to get rid of him, few companies would.

hcrean• 4 years ago

At the point you feel they are being rude, you know you don't want to be dependent on them for your income. There is nothing more to do here but waste everyone's time.

This is the core truth of the situation. Be gentle with how you tell them this; but not telling them, or letting them believe something else is fundamentally dishonest.

chernevik• 4 years ago

Tell the recruiter/HR contact, or your next interview, about it and see what they do. There is the possibility that this person is an outlier, or even a known problem.

greenthrow• 4 years ago

Politely end the interview immediately. Really.

I had an in person interview with multiple people at a company and the CTO came in for his part and immediately started telling me how he wasn't supposed to be there he was supposed to be on vacation and he had a flight to catch so let's get this over with. I immediately said "Thanks for your time, please let everyone else know I appreciate talking with them and enjoyed our conversations. I'm not comfortable working at a place that treats candidates this way." and I stood up and left.

MisterBastahrd• 4 years ago

I used to be a recruiter. Have conducted thousands of interviews. Before I had my first big-boy developer job, I was interviewed by this rude manager and his boss (who was not rude) who thought he could get a 2 for 1 by hiring me to develop his websites while also working the phones as a recruiter.

Now, anyone with any sort of sense will tell you that it's stupid to enter into a negotiation (which is what interviews are, even if you're probably not discussing acceptance and pay right away) without knowing about who you're talking to. And while I didn't have any specific knowledge of the inner-workings of his company, I was definitely familiar with his industry.

I've always made it a point to carry a notepad with me when interviewing with people. I have a section of points I specifically want to highlight, and also a section on specific things about the company that I'd like to know more about. Turns out that rude-ass over there on the other side of the desk couldn't answer some pretty basic things about his own workplace, down to the commission structure for new hires. Things that a self-assured future captain of industry (as he presented himself) should have definitely known.

At the end of the interview, I thanked them for their time and also told them that I did not think I would be a good fit due to my perception of their corporate culture. I don't know what happened after that, but I do know that as gracious as the owner was, he was staring daggers at his employee about halfway through my grilling.

leke• 4 years ago

If the interviewer is very talented, and has instead of delusions of grandeur, realisation of grandeur, he may well get away with it. I knew such a person in a company. The less experience and knowledge you had, the less he would respect you. He was actually pretty chill with other smart people, but of course this didn't make him a good human being.

I think you did well to stay in the interview. Hell I even would have taken the job if it was offered. I mean if you are desperate for work, you have to just deal with it. You can always stick up for yourself in the mean time.

schmookeeg• 4 years ago

I'm always grateful when an interviewer shows me this side of them early in the process, it really saves everyone some time, and I dodge a bullet.

In your scenario, I'd have probably just smirked at the (I hope embarassed) remaining interviewers, and said "welp, anything else you guys wanna discuss before I go? Because I think I see where we're all headed here" or some other lighten-the-mood banter. Then we can exchange recipes or new restaurant hotspots, shake our heads at how ridiculous tech can be, and be on our merry ways.

Johnny555• 4 years ago

Be honest with the next interviewer, tell them what happened and tell them you don't think you're a good cultural fit for the organization if they have that kind of person on staff.

The next interviewer can either try to explain away the behavior "Yes, that guy's a jerk, but don't let him taint your perception of the organization", or maybe they'll say "Yeah, this is the no-nonsense culture we like around here, if you can't take criticism, then you're probably not a good fit".

Either way you'll have more information about whether or not you want to work there.

Tierh

jes• 4 years ago

Back when I was hiring people, I would have probably hired you on the spot, if you said Scheme was your favorite programming language. But that's just me.

More to your point, it would have been fine to collect your things, get up from the table, and say something like "Thank you for this opportunity to talk. I wish you well." or something like that.

Not nasty, not sarcastic, just relaxed and confident.

Cultivating an ability to be genuinely more or less indifferent to what arises in my life (to be non-reactive) has been working very well for me.

I wish you the best.

danpalmer• 4 years ago

I had a terrible interview at Citadel. The interviewer basically messed up all the things that we as an industry have learnt not to do over the last 10-20 years. Not just the format, but it was adversarial, trick questions, he interrupted all the time, belittled my ideas, and was generally an unpleasant person.

I dealt with it by declining the offer I received and making sure to give feedback about that interviewer directly to the HR team and that he was a contributing factor. While considering the offer I enquired about whether he would be in my reporting chain and made it clear that was a dealbreaker for me.

Apparently the guy gave me the best feedback of all my interviewers. Why then did he need to be like that?!

hnlmorg• 4 years ago

You did the right thing. Better to leave the interview on good terms and turn the job down than make a scene yourself and risk burning a future bridge (you never know when you might run into these people again).

swat535• 4 years ago

If at any point in time, you decide that the company is not a good fit for you, you can end the interview by saying: "Thank you for the opportunity, I don't think I'm a good fit for this position"

No need for any further explanation, no need for excuses, just simply pack your stuff calmly and leave.

Other unrelated career advice (after 15+ years of experience):

1. Don't participate in any abusive/toxic behavior (even if all employees are doing it)

2. Document abusive behavior (emails, texts, etc) with screenshots whenever possible (especially if it involves you)

3. Try to quit professionally whenever possible (provide no feedback or very little ad give a notice), in cases where you _know_ you absolutely can't mentally/physically take it anymore, then leave immediately (i.e NEVER put your health in danger, all the legalities, logistics, etc can be dealt with later; even in extreme situations)

4. Never overwork yourself, your compensation has nothing to do with your effort.

5. Don't constantly criticize the code base, especially if you are new, you don't know the history yet and many people have emotional attachment to their code.

6. If you want to play the office politics (for whatever reason, e.g raises, extra vacation time, etc), find out who are the _bigger_ decision makers and make sure they are aware of YOUR contributions. Don't burn the midnight oil, thinking they will care, that's not how it works; they need to constantly hear your name and ideas.

7. Office romance is NOT worth it _most_ of the time; however if you are going to take this route, make arrangements to be able to leave the company if necessary.

8. Don't talk behind other people's backs, don't partake in excessive drinking or become _too_ attached/close to your coworkers (especially with their family lives). Always maintain a healthy boundary, even if you genuinely think some of your coworkers could become your life-long friends.

9. Use spaces instead of tabs.

worik5• 4 years ago

All very good advice. I would add:

10. Your workmates are not your friends. Your friends are your friends.

and

11. The way a company shows it appreciates you is mainly, not only, through money. (Related to 10) Having fun "team building" activities in otherwise non working time is not them showing appreciation.

cannabis_sam• 4 years ago

I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself

I probably wouldn’t have had the guys to do this myself either, but I think this would have been the right thing to do. Like others have said, they gave you important information about how the company (does not) deal with assholes.

throwaway7875442• 4 years ago

Pretend to be friendly until the interview's over.

Never burn your bridges. Even rude asshole bridges. You don't know if maybe that guy just got a call that his kid has cancer after working an 80 hour week. You don't know if maybe that guy will be hired at your next job. You don't know if he might bad-mouth you to other employers for fun. And you don't know if maybe they're waiting for one more reason to fire his ass. There is no benefit to walking out early, so just wait it out, and then politely inform them you don't think the position is a good fit for you.

29athrowaway• 4 years ago

Remember that you are interviewing the company as well.

Identifying a toxic company through a rude interviewer saves you time and effort.

_wldu• 4 years ago

I always ask what is your favorite language and why. And I've never laughed at the answer. I'm genuinely curious to know why they feel that way. I've learned a lot from the answers (about the candidate and about the language they like most).

If someone laughed and walked out. I would ignore it. I would be surprised at that type of reaction, but would remain professional and make a mental note to not work there. That's a very bad sign.

Diversity is what makes us strong. This applies to programming languages and differences of opinions as well. Sure, someone has to call the shots and make a decision (we will all use Go or Java) but having devs who know other languages, and have strong views as to why they like them, is a good thing.

worik5• 4 years ago

I had an interview for a job as a Perl programmer in the late 1990s.

At the time I had about three years programming Perl, and I was keen to work in the (at the time) hot area of programming for web sites. I was working in C++ on Windows, fun enough but not as fun as Perl (it was the 1990s)

I prepared carefully for the interview. Making sure I was clear about what I was expert at, what I was good at, and the parts of Perl that I was not so good at. At the interview I started out by carefully detailing all that I was expert and good at, took about five minutes, I thought it would help because if what I was good at was not what they wanted I could get back to work and no harm done....

After my careful exposition the first question the interviewer asked me was: "Can you do object orientated Perl?" Clearly they had not understood a word I said, they were asking questions from a list after waiting for me to finish and I did not want to work for this firm. What a waste of time.

So I decided to see just how much of their time I could waste. I carefully answered all the questions from their list, in as much excruciating and technical detail as I could. I watched them squirm. At the end of the list, there was the pro forma "any questions?". You bet! I had a lot!!

In the end the interviewer was standing behind my chair, not quite physically pushing me out, but clearly very pissed.

I was correct about not wanting the job. Three years later, after the company went broke, I had a contract trying to fix a site they worked on. Where their idea of OO Perl had been An Object for a SQL table, AN Object for Every Row, an Object for Every Value..... A huge mess.

That was my first experience of "HR interview first" using outsourced HR firm. What a waste of money, and a red flag

wkimeria• 4 years ago

I have not faced that level of rudeness, and I do think for something so egregious it is totally valid to terminate the interview (while explaining why), but I'd be curious how the other interviewers handled it.

If that happened I would actually directly ask the other interviewers "Did I do something wrong or say something to offend him/her". Put the ball in their court and hear what they have to say.

I also love swat535's suggestion to end the interview with "Thank you for the opportunity, I don't think I'm a good fit for this position"

Also, you are right, I'd treat that as a data point into whether this is a company you want to work for.

I once had a company ask me to interview (one of their recruiters reached out to me) and I was so so on it, but curious, so I took time off and scheduled a technical phone interview. 5 minutes after the interview should have started (I was waiting for the phone call and wondering whether I had messed up the scheduling), I received a brusque email from the engineer meant to interview me "I don't have time to interview you, reach out to our recruiter". You can bet my interest in the company tanked and when the recruiter tried to re-schedule me (without so much as an apology) I declined and ask they not contact me in the future. Because I figured either.

1: They hired jerks 2: Their engineers were so stressed that they viewed an interview as yet one more burden.

I have been on the other side where a candidate we were interviewing (at the time I was a junior engineer and my interview partner was a Senior engineer). The candidate was so rude/condescending to her (but not to me, I wonder why) that after we finished our interview session we told HR and they cancelled the rest of his interviews and thanked him for his time.

Brian_K_White6• 4 years ago

"I'd be curious how the other interviewers handled it.

If that happened I would actually directly ask the other interviewers "Did I do something wrong or say something to offend him/her". Put the ball in their court and hear what they have to say."

This exactly. The initial event is not necessarily the worst unforgivable crime in the world. What's more interesting is do they consider that a lapse and are apologetic, or do they consider it normal.

And no one who isn't a complete ass should have a problem with merely being asked "What was that?", and "We don't know but sorry about that." would be good enough for me, at least enough to proceed.

There's always at least one or two douches around no matter where you go (if there weren't, that would bother me more like some kind of brainwashed cult), or someone with a bad day, or someone who "struggles with asshole" ie not a bad person and you could work fine with them but they just have their moments and even they know it. So the incident by itself shouldn't be taken as more than a flag to find out whether it was the exception or the rule.

Leaving immediately is essentially committing the very intolerance that I would hate in others.

nullc• 4 years ago

Be mindful of fundamental attribution error.

For all you know their spouse died last week and they were having a terrible time.

They shouldn't have acted that way, but we should be wary about generalizing a person from a single mistake or a company from a single mistake.

You can always turn down a job offer if one is extended if the company rubbed you the wrong way, I can't see how you'd be better off terminating an interview rather than completing it. ... unless they started talking about something illegal or something like that.

gojomo• 4 years ago

While that's really weird, I think you handled it properly in-the-moment.

Sometimes there are difficult people, sometimes you're catching people at their very-worst due to hidden reasons.

Unless there's an imminent worry about someone's health or safety, one reasonably professional way to handle such situations is to continue with the planned, important tasks, then discuss/take-action on the exceptional behavior with a little distance, in another forum better-suited to that.

And, since there were other interviewers there who were the flouncers' coworkers, and you seem to have been in their premises, if they didn't make a big deal about the situation in the moment, you didn't really have any more obligation than perhaps a shocked-look, or brief "that was weird" comment at most, before following their cue to get-back-to-business.

That doesn't mean the concern ends there, though.

On a subsequent day, and certainly before scheduling any separate set-of-interviews or considering any offer, it'd have been appropriate to ask the other interviewers, or whatever manager/HR-person/recruiter who's your main point-of-contact, about the incident. It'd be appropriate to ask if the person who stormed-out is often like that, if you'd be working with them, and so forth.

You'd want to sound-out whether they're some burn-out/malcontent on-the-way-out, or a difficult-but-essential person who others tiptoe-around & try to keep productive-but-contained, or something else.

And even if you progressed no further with the potential employer, perhaps even because the tantrum-person nixed you, it'd be appropriate to offer some feedback that you found their behavior off-putting.

But also more generally: while both sides of an interview should work to hold-back snap judgements until all relevant info is available, given the value of skilled professionals' time, at any point where there's certainty that one side or the other doesn't want to proceed, it's OK to cut things short.

If you're the candidate & become sure these aren't people you'd want to work with, you can absolutely say you've decided you're not interested & go. And if the 1st or 2nd interviewer in a series of many interviews achieves certainty that a candidate falls irredeemably short of what you thought when you brought them in for, or the projects' needs, it is a gift to both the candidate & the later interviewers not to spend another 4-12 person-hours going-through-the-motions.

d1str0• 4 years ago

Personal anecdote regarding interviewing with AWS:

Pre covid, I had two in person interviews with different AWS teams. One in San Francisco and on in Seattle. Both technical interviews were tough and the interviewers were very polite, helpful, and gracious, even when I would struggle. They were also very interested in my answers to the sorts of questions about “what’s your favorite language?” Or “what sorts of hobbies do you have?”

Even though i did not go through with either position, my experience interviewing for AWS was a very pleasant one.

kmod• 4 years ago

I think the interviewing process is an extremely informative view into what it's like to work at that company. The exact steps to take depend on how bad it is / how much you want the job / other context, but I think it's a safe assumption that they are treating you like they treat their coworkers, and that this is not unusual behavior for the company.

I've ended a few interview processes at companies due to things I observed during onsite interviews (not necessarily rudeness), and with the benefit of hindsight I think those were absolutely the right call.

I did have one particularly rude interviewer once, but since it was in finance I thought it was a "stress interview". I took the job, and it turns out that this person was just toxic and the company had a culture of tolerating toxic people if they were high enough performers. I'm still glad I took the job, but the experience definitely was strong evidence of the link between what you see in an interview and what you get if you work there.

notananthem• 4 years ago

Depends how you want to handle it. If its rude, address it in the moment as you would a rude colleague. If its someone you'd report to, ask the other interviewers if this is to be expected (hint; it will be, but asking cements in these peoples' minds that its effecting hiring). Be loud and honest and mostly don't work there. There's a million places to work right now, but make it known why you won't deal with people's bs, or better yet address it in the moment and let them know its not acceptable. If its just "perceived rude" but fine, then great, you both learned something. If its fine and you just thought wrong, great lesson, you learned you were mistaken.

b200002• 4 years ago

a recruiter for a space startup which shall remain unnamed but which anyone can guess who i am talking about, called me one day because of my experience with realtime embedded stuff in c/c++. i told her politely i was happy to consider applying but that the compensation was going to have to be significantly increased for me to consider joining, and she could not understand why i expected to be paid for my experience and education, background etc. after all, who doesn’t dream about working for a SPACE company????? i then also mentioned i will not do any coding interviews, under any circumstances, but that i was happy to share samples of my work and talk about decisions i made designing hardware and writing firmware, middleware and user space applications. she then balked BUT WE ARE SENDING PEOPLE TO SPACE! and insinuated i must be a fraud or liar since i refused to deal with their standard bullshit procedure. the conversation then quickly ended with her turning it back on me and making me feel like i was completely stupid / unexperienced / incompetent etc. needless to say i will never work for these entitled people.

huhtenberg• 4 years ago

Kind of might depend on the context, e.g. if it's was an embedded dev position that required a mix of C and assembly, and Scheme was not just your favorite language, but also the only one. But then it's not clear why they'd invite you to the interview... unless your resume was misleading... and so on, and so forth. The context is important.

lumost• 4 years ago

You will deal with many rude individuals. I'd recommend approaching this as a simple lesson that you don't want to work with this company, and finish the interview. You can follow up with the recruiter and decline politely regardless.

diseasedyak• 4 years ago

I've been in the IT job market since 1995-ish, and have worked for a lot of companies, both big and large. In all my experience with interviews, I've only had one that was a rude disaster.

It was for a DBA position with a small team at a major insurance company. It was a team of 2 that wanted a 3rd experienced Oracle DBA to help them expand. Sounded good. Interview starts with those 2 guys, and immediately it was readily apparent that one of them had no real intention to hire someone, at least not me. Within 5 minutes, the shithead one had laughed out loud when I said I didn't have much experience with a certain part of Oracle. Any Oracle DBA out there knows that the product is f'ing PACKED with stuff, lots of it you won't use because you are in a certain segment (i.e. - in a data warehouse environment, you use certain tools but not others, etc).

I just sat there, staring at him. The other guy at least had the courtesy to turn red-faced. I know a lot of posts here say to just thank them and walk out, but I was so shocked I just sat there. The rude asshole never asked another question, and finally the nice guy escorted me out. He left me at the door with a "We'll be in touch." and I just chuckled and thanked him.

SergeAx• 4 years ago

Interview is a mutual process. The company checks if the candidate suits it, and candidate does the same about the company. I would sincerely thank that person, excuse myself and finished the interview.

mathattack• 4 years ago

Remember that every candidate can be a future supplier or customer. That’s why rude behavior is so damaging.

I wouldn’t terminate the interview, or even give negative feedback. Just politely decline if they ask you to continue the process. That way you have the ability to go back if the situation changes. (If the jerk leaves)

krnlpnc• 4 years ago

Report their behavior by name to the person who initially screened you.

asd88• 4 years ago

You don’t deal with them. You just feel lucky that you dodged the bullet of working at that company and move on.

pedalpete• 4 years ago

I would have tried to bond with the other interviewers there. This is an opportunity for you to show them your character. They have to work with that guy. Show compassion for them. Even if you never work there, why make a fuss? Make it an opportunity.

ozten• 4 years ago

Interviewer was probably still pissed about R6RS ;)

I'm really sorry. I have felt so terrible after bad interviews. It really, really sucks.

jsiaajdsdaa• 4 years ago

Laugh about it, treat it as an experience to be arrogant to them yourself , move on to the next.

LigmaYC• 4 years ago

Laughing at your favourite language? This may not have been intended to be rude, depending on the context.

Seb-C• 4 years ago

A couple of years ago I had an interview with a startup in Japan.

The CTO just wouldn't stop speaking (very fast) and barely let me speak or even heard me. This was first red flag to me.

At some point he asked me very distinctly "If you join, you will work with engineers that are way smarter than you, is that OK with you?". I was startled by this question and felt quite insulted by it. The conversation basically went south when I answered something like "Well, I'd sincerely love to get such experience because as far as I remember it has always been the other way around when it comes to engineering.".

Now don't get me wrong, I am usually doing my best to stay humble and open minded, and comparing people or bragging around is not something I normally do or consider appropriate.

But I am also a proud and very good engineer gifted by the ability to learn, understand and visualize things very quickly. I have been passionately honing my skills and learning everyday for more than 15 years. And as a human being, I would absolutely defend my pride it if someone attacks it.

I think it's only natural to feel bad about such situation, but the interview not working is not always your own fault.

kimchidude• 4 years ago

People that act like that are insecure and defensive about something. I'm constantly dealing with these types in my industry (education). It took me a long time to learn that this behaviour is almost never about you, so try not to take it personally.

nokya• 4 years ago

Fully agree, there is no "you should" in my opinion, because you weren't ready or expecting such behavior. Call it a lesson for future interviews :)

Next time you see this behavior you can tell them very politely and calmly that you are not interested in joining a company that promotes this behavior, you are incredibly sorry for taking their time and that you would like to terminate the interview now.

Two outcomes: you wake someone up and they kindly ask you to give them a chance because this behavior will be dealt with, or you are saving yourself from a bad employer.

berkeshire• 4 years ago

One cant do much. I have had a couple of terrible experiences. Its amazing what power does to some technical managers and senior HR. Its their karma and they are going in the right direction of being assholes who will have a miserable old age once the power is gone.

andsoitis2• 4 years ago

this is likely a toxic work place.

as a candidate, you are interviewing the company as much as they're interviewing you.

riizade• 4 years ago

I had an encounter with a rude interviewer when I was slightly younger. (Nothing egregious, your run-of-the-mill overconfident person who wrote their own algorithms interview question and scoffed at any answer that wasn't their handcrafted one, even if it had the same time and space complexity.)

Directly after that interview, I had an informal lunch with another engineer at the company, with more interviews scheduled afterward. I mulled it over during lunch, and instead of continuing the on-site interview, I thanked my lunch companion and told them that after my experience with the previous interviewer, I was no longer interested in entertaining the prospect of employment at the company.

The lunch companion seemed mildly surprised, and apologized for the previous interviewer. I went home and had 3 hours back to myself that day I hadn't planned to have.

To this day, it is one of the most cathartic experiences I've had in my career. Realizing that I had the power to walk away and exercising it, after years of having deference toward interviewer and companies drilled into my head, felt empowering.

Sometimes I think everyone should do this once, even if they're pretty neutral about the company, just to feel more comfortable standing on equal terms with a potential employer.

Now (not that I'm particularly experienced) I advise people receiving offers to ask their potential employers if they can hang out with the team for lunch, or for a day or more. I think a lot of people can put on a smiling face for a 1-hour interview and might be a lot more irritable during a typical workday. The average workplace tenure (anecdotally) is ~2 years, it's worth doing an extra day of due diligence before signing up for an org. And of course, if they say you can't meet the team or get lunch, that's signal too (generally negative).

EDIT: I should mention, the company was small enough that I knew I'd have to work with the rude interviewer at least sporadically. Your mileage may very with large FAANG-type organizations where you'll never see your interviewer again.

surds• 4 years ago

Two interviews can to mind when I read this.

1. An in-person phone round interview at one of the social media Companies in the Bay Area. The interviewer came 10 min late, gave me a problem and was then busy as hell with his phone. At least he had the courtesy to tell me that there was a prod issue he was engaged in, but still, not cool.

The problem was tough as hell, and I didn’t solve it. There was no help/prompts either. I was curious about the source of the problem - and the person told me that it was his own personal twist on a problem from competitive programming competitions.

So, basically, unless you are a seasoned competitive programmer, you are screwed. Again, not cool.

2. An interview at one of the Big Banks in SF for a Engg role. One of the interviewers asked me about my current job and was visibly upset when I said it was cool and nice. Then they followed that up by being disinterested and openly hostile in the rest of the interview.

Didn’t get the job and dodged a bullet. But I still don’t understand what his problem was. Since when is it necessary to hate and abuse your current job when you look for the next one?

ramtatatam• 4 years ago

I experienced rude person on one interview about 7 years ago. It was turning point in my career and I'm glad this guy revealed what it would be like to work for this company.

I was interviewing for tech lead in one of startups in my niche. The very first meeting with the CEO ended on very positive note, and also he said that there is a potential growth path to CTO (I was young and had no idea what CTO really means so I believed him). Startup was fairly established with big customer base for the niche it operates. And my experience was a perfect fit, at least from technical point of view.

Prior to that role I was working in environment where people generally had respect to each other. I never had to deal with politics. It was enough to be respectful and just deliver what I was meant to deliver.

When I entered the interview there was a long table, on the other side of the table there were 4 persons - CEO, COO, accountant, and some older person in his early 50s. On the other side of that table there was a chair for me to sit on.

The interview immediately started from a bombardment of non-technical questions I would normally have time to reflect on. But still, I was expected to provide fast responses even though those questions was not really even close to what the role was about or what I disclosed on my CV. Particularly the older guy was very active and, well, the tone of his voice and the way how he was structuring his questions was not nice, to say the least. Anything I said was immediately denied by this guy, and while the time was passing the tone of his voice and general behavior was becoming more and more rude.

I remember what I was thinking about straight after I left the interview - this was the worst interview in my life, it felt like actor-played drama. I was on many interviews prior to this one, I think I can say I have seen enough to be able to tell the difference :) Later on, when I talked this through with my wife I was wondering if leaving would not be better way to end this theater, from perspective of years I think I could steer the interview away from areas I'm not competent by simply saying that it's not what I advertised on my CV.

When I left the room I was simply told I'm not a good fit, even though days earlier CEO was very excited and during the interview there was not a single technical question asked (like, not even what technologies I worked with, or what projects I delivered). I found it quite confusing, but such is life, I moved on :)

Ask HN: How do you deal with rude interviewers?

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