I failed an interview, and the interviewer failed me

http://unknowndev.pen.io/

by unknowndev • 13 years ago

0 3 13 years ago

unknowndev.pen.io

ascv• 13 years ago

I've had similar experiences. I had a recruiter set up a technical phone interview with the developer who never called. No brief email saying something like, "Hi, our developers thought your qualifications weren't a good fit for the position. Good luck on your job search." After emailing the recruiter she said she would talk to the developer and "look into it." I never received any further responses.

My favorite is when you apply somewhere and receive no response. Then several months later, you're contacted by a recruiter from the company at which point you've long past moved on with an offer from somewhere else.

keenahn• 13 years ago

I feel bad for you son, but I can't completely blame the recruiter and the company in this case.

Complaint 1: The recruiter asked you questions you didn't find relevant. I have often asked "curveball" questions just to see how a potential hire thinks on his feet or perhaps to see how he handles a situation in which he doesn't know the answer to something (the correct way being "I don't know that off the top of my head, good thing for Google and Stack Overflow, right?"), so it's not really up to you to determine which questions are relevant. Then again, he could have just been a dick, but not necessarily.

Complaint 2: The company had to be prompted and prodded to respond to you Certainly, this isn't very professional, and it would also leave a bad taste in my mouth, but know this: the company doesn't owe you a damn thing. Silence = rejection, simple as that. If there was anything to follow up with, I would have emailed the company that day, and then promptly put them out of my mind until they replied and kept applying to other jobs.

Complaint 3: The company didn't get back to you in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, this is simple supply and demand. Or, the company is terribly incompetent. But it seems to me that they would prioritize reviewing candidates if they had a small number who were qualified. If there was already a week backlog of candidates, they were probably getting plenty of them already.

I understand the point of your piece, that you believe the recruiter failed the company by not properly interviewing you, and that you believe that the company shot itself in the foot by not giving you a real chance. OK. Then do you really want to work at a place like that?

unknowndev• 13 years ago

Of course. In the end, I'm glad the company just didn't get back to me. I found a much better position that I'm very happy with. the entire experience was strange in more ways than what I listed. Writing out everything just makes me feel like I'm taking it to an extreme. For example:

#1 There were other questions on top of that where the recruiter obviously didn't pay attention. Such as I'd mention that I use the MVC pattern to program and have been using it via a PHP framework. He would follow that up with "Do you have any experience with MVC?" and I'm like, are you serious? I just said that I've been programming this way for years. Right after that he'd ask "Have you used any PHP Frameworks?" and again, I'm bewildered because I've already answered this. He would also, LITERALLY, ask the same question again, five minutes later as if he wasn't paying attention. I'm all for curveballs. I've been interviewed for a front-end job and was asked about SQL but it was approached differently rather than "top 10 questions" from Google. Idk. You might be right though, it could have been a test.

#2 Indeed, the company doesn't. However it's discouraging after you're told, "You'll get a response within 48 hours" and nothing happens. Or when a recruiter ignores half your email by ignoring any questions you have and responding to the last sentence in your email. I don't write lengthy emails either. I like to keep it short and concise so you can quickly scan it on your phone if anything.

In the end, I'm happy to not be there and not deal with them. I might just contact them for the hell of it to see what's up.

I failed an interview, and the interviewer failed me

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