Worst interview experiences

[Murgos]

So I just did a preliminary interview with a major .com and the first question after I sat down was "How many of the years between year 1 and 2005 are the same number forward and backwards?"

I was expecting personality questions but I walked out of there feeling like someone had kicked my ass and then flushed my head in a toilet.  I don't think I will be getting a call back, I didn't do that badly but I certainly could have been better.

I didn't want to move to the northeast anyway </aesop>.

Anyone got any good stories about interviewing or being interviewed so I can commiserate while recovering from this beating?

[Yegolev]

So I just did a preliminary interview with a major .com and the first question after I sat down was "How many of the years between year 1 and 2005 are the same number forward and backwards?"

Sorry to say, but you win.  My stories all involve me fucking up, not receiving retarded questions.

[Roac]

9:  x    (x=1-9)
9:  xx   (x=1-9)
90: xyx  (x=1-9, y=0-9)
10: 1yy1 (y=0-9)
1:  2002

?
Think that's right.

I don't mind questions like that one too much - I might steal it for my applicants.  What I hate are trivia questions, and that's all I got on my last interview.  I went in and the guy just rattled off a list of very obscure questions.  I think I scored somewhere around a 50 (I think), but I doubt I'll get a call back either.  I'm not sure I want one.  Oh well; sometimes they go well, sometimes not.

edit: doh, fixed

[jpark]

Oh Ya.

Sorry guys I win this hands down.  Nobody can beat me.

After an interview at a big investment firm I was told there was transportation waiting for me.  I saw a limo driver - told him who I was - the guy made a call and drove me to the airport.  2 days later on my follow-up conference call - I was informed that I took the limousine that was waiting for the board of directors who arrived downstairs after I did.  I was also informed on the conference call that intended transportation for me was a yellow cab not the limo.  The conference call btw - was to be a live debate with some asshole analyst in CA, being told all of this just before the debate shook me up.

I actually did get the job.  Moral - if your going going to fuck up an interview - do it big and in style lol.

To this day that story still follows me in the industry.

How about being asked if you would invest your own money in the firm interviewing or one of their competitors?  Stupidity and honesty operate from the same brain center - so in that interview I told them I would invest in their competitor and why.

[stray]

Try auditioning for an acting role.

It's one thing to have fun with other actors, where you're all writhing on the floor, behaving like three year olds or retarded monkeys.....It's another to step into a roomful of people who's express is to watch you do it alone, and judge you on it. Especially when you've got it in the back of your mind that it's basically a stupid fucking job anyways.

[WayAbvPar]

When interviewing for the position I currently inhabit, I was asked to walk a hypothetical customer through the peeling of an apple over the phone. The question befuddled me for a moment, and then I collected my thoughts and went for it. After I got the job, I spoke with the interviewers- apparently a large number of them either refused to even try, or made such a lackluster try at it that is was clear they didn't give it their best effort. I was among the few who tried as well as I could- it showed I was willing to try, and that I could think quickly on my feet. I am guessing the 1-2005 question was something similar- some interviewers like to throw curveballs and see how well people react under pressure.

[Rasix]

I remember having a Microsoft phone interview at 2pm and the call is what woke me up. I think I was up to 5am the night before (likely playing Everquest).  Completely spur of the moment.  The first question the guy asks is a pretty difficult math/logic question in which I had to fumble around for a pen and paper so I could write it down and stumble through while the guy is thinking "ohh great, a dipshit".  I got it right, but honestly, it made me feel like a complete tard. Thing is, they eventually wanted to fly me out for an interview but I had already accepted another position.  Every Microsoft interview I've done has had me walking out of the room feeling like a moron.

Another crappy interview would have had to have been with Boeing.  I did the 1 hour technical interview part first and just slam dunked it.  Next was the HR interview.  The interviewer leads off with "well, they have some questions we're supposed to ask, but a lot of these are just ones are just my favorites"  If any interviewer ever leads off with that crap, run for the fucking door.  What I got bombarded with was a bunch of goofy ass, stupid fluff questions that I tried to answer but probably came off looking like a complete stooge doing so.  The questions were literally like, "if you could be a breakfast cereal, which cereal would you be?".  Just innane, stupid crap that made me feel like I was auditioning for Miss America rather than a position writing software for an attack helicopter. 

All of my interviews from that career fair were wierd, possibly because the second day of the fair was September 11, 2001 (Boeing was on the 10th).



 

[jpark]

I am guessing the 1-2005 question was something similar- some interviewers like to throw curveballs and see how well people react under pressure.

True that.

One time I was asked - when interviewing with a venture capital firm: "What kind of car do you drive?"

Honda civic at the time.  I was told later if I had said Mercedes - they would have walked me out the door.

On a separate note I don't like to be pushed around.  You push me I push the fuck back.  I have had 2 interviews with small investment banks that basically ended in open arguments.

[Murgos]

9:  x    (x=1-9)
9:  xx   (x=1-9)
90: xyx  (x=1-9, y=0-9)
10: 1yy1 (y=0-9)
1:  2002

?
Think that's right.

I hope so because thats what I came up with after about 10 minutes of floundering around and a good bit of prompting from the interviewer.  Another question was essentially how to parse a dictionary file for the largest set of words that are anagrams.

I'm starting to like my current job more and more, for one thing I don't have to prove myself anymore.

edit:

Another crappy interview would have had to have been with Boeing.

I interviewed with Boeing once and had a similar experience, the technical portion was given by some Ph.D. and it was just really straight forward questions like "Decribe inheritance." and "What's the difference between pass by reference and pass by value?" and then I had some strange HR interview that I just kind of winged, I was a told a while later that it had come down to three candidates and that they choose one of the others.

[voodoolily]

I wish I were interviewed on my problem-solving skills instead of getting asked questions about whether or not I'd hypothetically do a project that used existing data or conducting my own research. Isn't that basically asking, "are you a glory whore, or are you lazy?"

Edit: If I'd been asked the car question and answered truthfully (that I don't own a car), I wonder what the response woulda been. And the answer to the cereal question is always "puffed Kashi". A question that draws a blank stare deserves an answer that draws a blank stare.

[Sky]

I've had a few of those ridiculous interviews since I've worked a gajillion jobs. I tend to answer bluntly: "Look, I have the qualifications to do the job and I have a great work ethic. Don't jerk me around with this crap." I don't tend to get those jobs, but I figure I wouldn't want to work with wankers like that anyway.

I got my current job by actually suggesting some network improvements when touring the building, vs my competitor who just wanked on about her certification, which she had yet to complete.

My favorite, though, was the walmart questionaire...it must be to weed out the imbeciles, though evidence points to the contrary. I mean...Would you smoke marijuana on the job? Would you steal from your employer? Those are some goddamn dumb queshuns. All it ensures is honest law-abiding folks....and a whole lotta liars.

[Nebu]

I had an interview with a corporate think tank that lasted for 2 days.  NO joke.  They started me at 8am on a Tuesday and I met with every person with a title in the company until 10pm that evening.  I then repeated the fiasco the second day by giving a series of talks and meeting with more people.  At the end of the second day I felt like I had given birth.  I'm not quite sure how, but I was offered the job.  Funny thing is that I learned so much about the company during my research and 2 days on site that I no longer wanted the position.  Funny how that works.   

[stray]

I'd like to delete my post. I have no idea wtf any of you are talking about, as I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Math questions? At a job interview?

I know not your world.

[edit] Seriously though, what's going on?

Don't people get hired for personality, experience and/or proof of concept anymore?

[Lt.Dan]

I once got given the choice take-home writing assignment "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"  For an investment research position.  Luckily the guy I interviewed with was such an self-opinionated ass that I wasn't interested in working anywhere near him.

[Shockeye]

Don't people get hired for personality, experience and/or proof of concept anymore?

You've never dealt with HR, have you?

[Rasix]

Math questions? At a job interview?

It's not as much math as it is logic, reasoning, and the ability to think on your feet.  While the roots are in math, it's math that anyone interviewing for the position would know.  Not that I condone asking that shit out of the blue to someone on the phone that still hasn't taken their wake-up piss yet.  If someone actually asked me to multiply matrices or perform integrals during and interview, I'd just adjust my tie and walk out.

I greatly prefer more of an informal chat, but I'm not completely shocked and insulted when they actually want an on-the-spot evaluation of my mind as racked with nerves as it already is at the time.

[stray]

Don't people get hired for personality, experience and/or proof of concept anymore?

You've never dealt with HR, have you?

At one time, yes. I thought they were mumbling though. You mean to tell me they were actually saying something?

Most of my other jobs have been from either family businesses, family connections, walk in work, or something that employs certain crafts on a job by job basis. I'm far too humble for anything more....Or just a loser, depending on how you look at it.

[Merusk]

I'd like to delete my post. I have no idea wtf any of you are talking about, as I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about.

Math questions? At a job interview?

I know not your world.

[edit] Seriously though, what's going on?

Don't people get hired for personality, experience and/or proof of concept anymore?

Look at the people answering, and what their jobs are.  Math is an important part of the day to day each of them, and as Rasix points-out, a good way of determing their reasoning skills.  We're not getting lawyers, salespeople, division presidents and other 'business professionals' answering here.

I'm lucky enough to say I haven't had a horror story to share with you all.  Neither from the interviewing side or being interviewed.  I suppose the biggest 'whoops' moment was the last Architecture firm I interviewed with.

   One of the principles interviewing me asked what my philosophy was, and what exactly was I looking for.   I was forthright and told him that I thought a good portion of the profession was a joke.  I wasn't looking to go to a "High Design" firm, as they are filled with people who were all about ego and self-promotion.  I also expressed my feeling that most "Designers" were only looking to make a name for themselves at the expense of the client and their goals.  A functional building is, in my opinion, superior to a 'pretty cool' one.  If you can mix both you're doing your job, but function has to come first.

 Now, I knew from looking at him and the way he dressed he had aspirations of being such a designer, or at least had some hero-worship of it.  However, the firm didn't produce such work, so lord knows what he made of my answer.  He had a meeting to get to about 5 minutes later*, so I have no idea what he thought of the answer.  I think it perplexed him that someone in the field would answer as such (it always does when I say it.) but hey I'm honest.  If you're not that, then it'll come out while you're on the job, or you'll be miserable doing the work anyway.

*Which wasn't just an excuse, because on the tour of the building 15 minutes later I saw him in said meeting.

[voodoolily]

It's not as much math as it is logic, reasoning, and the ability to think on your feet. While the roots are in math, it's math that anyone interviewing for the position would know. Not that I condone asking that shit out of the blue to someone on the phone that still hasn't taken their wake-up piss yet. If someone actually asked me to multiply matrices or perform integrals during and interview, I'd just adjust my tie and walk out.

I greatly prefer more of an informal chat, but I'm not completely shocked and insulted when they actually want an on-the-spot evaluation of my mind as racked with nerves as it already is at the time.

I would give my eye teeth to go to an interview where I'm simply quizzed on my knowledge and problem-solving skills, which greatly outweigh the amount of experience I have on paper. "Making the Dean's list" amounts for jack shit in my field if you haven't worked long enough to have much BPJ. I've been a better botanist than my superiors at my last two jobs, but just haven't been working long enough to be a certified Professional Wetland Scientist.

[stray]

I think it perplexed him that someone in the field would answer as such (it always does when I say it.) but hey I'm honest. If you're not that, then it'll come out while you're on the job, or you'll be miserable doing the work anyway.

Ah...Honesty. It's why I'm in the situation I'm in now.*


* Honesty with myself I mean. Honesty lead me to temporarily (or maybe completely, who knows) abandoning the path I was on. I didn't find that middleground you've found as an Architect.

[Bunk]

All I'll say about job interviews is that if you go in to one without having thought out an answer to "Where do you see yourself in five years?" you are an idiot.

[stray]

Q: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

A: Trying to answer this very question.


Hmm....Does that speak of Ambition or the lack of it?


[edit] I'm so sorry for derailing. Honestly. Work (I mean talking about it) brings out the worst in me.

[Roac]

Q: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

A: Trying to answer this very question.

Hmm....Does that speak of Ambition or the lack of it?

I got asked that once, in an interview right before college graduation.  I told them I wanted to be a team lead by then - they laughed, and I wound up working elsewhere.  As it turns out, it only took 4 to be manager over all development, with recommendations to take over IT when our current guy leaves, although this is admittedly a much smaller IT org (~30 IT here vs a few hundred).  Still, I've had good opportunithy here that I apparently wouldn't have had there.

So yeah, I'd suggest not getting bummed from a bad interview.  Look at it in another way; you're interviewing the company too.  You want to fit into a company that's going to accept you, not just one that'll take you.  Otherwise you may find your prospects 5 years from now haven't moved at all from today. 

[voodoolily]

All I'll say about job interviews is that if you go in to one without having thought out an answer to "Where do you see yourself in five years?" you are an idiot.

Sadly, it's another one you can't always answer honestly. "Raising a genius toddler" doesn't go over well in the dog-eat-dog world in which we live.

[Johny Cee]

The point of the math or problem solving questions is just to see how your critical thinking works with a dash of stress and in an unrelated field.  For example,  the question I remember from buddies interviewing the Management Consulting and Investment Banking gauntlet (Which was nearly everyone.  We conformed to expectations at Williams) was: 

"Why are manhole covers round?"

[Roac]

"Why are manhole covers round?"

The "correct" answer is because that shape will prevent manhole covers from falling into the hole.  Actually it's because manhole covers need to cover round holes.  The holes are round partly because human bodies are round, partly because round shapes deplace pressure well.  Point of fact, sufficient lip on any shape cover will prevent the cover from falling in the hole.

I hate that question, but it is popular.

[Samwise]

Q: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Don't say "doing your wife."  Don't say "doing your wife."

Doing your.... son?

[Margalis]

Note: I interview a lot of people. (And I hate it)

I dislike logic puzzles. I've never seen any correlation between people who do well on them and people who work out as employees. They purport to test "thinking on your feet" and such but there are very few jobs where you have 10 minutes to solve some silly logic problem. I also dislike it when interviewers say "just talk through what you are thinking about it." Because usually what I'm thinking is "stop bothering me so I can solve this stupid fucking problem." I don't think out loud. When I want to think carefully about something I lock myself away with a pen and paper. I don't blabber "well I could try this."

Interviewing I look for two things: do they have the skills, and are they going to work out as employees. So many people have the skills but they have a bad work ethic, a poor approach to things, always have to do things their own way, never learn from mistakes, won't work hard on something they don't like to do, etc. I think it's pretty easy in my field at least (software stuff) to tell if the person has the skillset required. It's far harder to figure out what will happen when you throw them into the work environment.

[Roac]

I think there is a difference between puzzles that are the "aha!" kind, where you have to either see the solution or you miss it, and the kind where you have to work through a problem.  I don't see the former having much value (such as the manhole cover).  I like puzzles like the year anagram; if you can't work out how to solve it, you're going to have a hard time as a dev, because these are the kinds of problems we routinely face.

[Fabricated]

Q: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Don't say "doing your wife."  Don't say "doing your wife."

Doing your.... son?

I prefer "Well, god willing, laid up at home with a work related injury."

[Evangolis]

My first response to the initial problem was "Are your date representations 4 char right justified space padded, 4 char right justified zero padded, or some other presentation?", for three reasons.  One, that is generally the sort question I have had to ask when confronted with year fields in the last ten years as a programmer.  Two, it changes the answer, since zero filled is, I think, 20 (xyyx, y=0-9, x=0,1,2  0000 excluded, >2005 excluded), while Roac's solution looks right for space filled.  Three, because I tend to answer questions with questions, which is one reason I don't do better in interviews.

I applied for a position reporting security alarm calls on the third shift awhile back, and among the battery of tests I got was as Wonderlic IQ exam.  I found that a bit odd, but concluded it was an attempt to allow real people to avoid taking any responsibility for who they might hire.

[Samwise]

As far as I can tell, roughly half of people blatantly lie on resumes, so one of my goals when interviewing someone is to determine if they fall in that half.  If I catch them listing proficiency in something that they know absolutely nothing about, even if that thing doesn't directly pertain to the job, I'm not going to recommend hiring them.

[Margalis]

Yup. I usually give people a chance on that though, because so many people are told to "embellish." Usually I say something along the lines of "if you don't know that's fine. If you want to guess, that's fine. But if you guess make sure you say it's a guess first."

I will ask anything someone has on their resume. I give a tough interview. I have an excellent memory for certain types of information, I tend not to forget concepts. So if I see a for example some college course someone has taken I will ask them a lot about it. I also know at least a bit about tons of different programming languages and APIs, so I can usually ask questions about those things too. Sometimes it takes people by surprise - if you say you took a data structures course I'll ask you what a Red/Black tree is. (I don't expect most people to know that, and I only remember the basic idea - color nodes red and black with a certain pattern to preserve a roughly equal distribution of nodes that falls within some specific bounds) I'm not really looking for specific information (I really don't care if someone knows what a Red/Black tree is) but if I know more about the course they listed on their resume than they do that is usually a warning sign.

Modify: About answering questions with questions. I would probably say "depending on your date format it matters, so I'll just assume we are talking about standard written numbers with no extra characters or leading zeros." If you do too much asking back it can look like you are avoiding the question.

I don't do too many interviews any more because I don't like doing them, and also I tend to scare some candidates. I am always the bad interview, where someone thinks they are doing well, then they talk to me and figure their opportunity is shot to hell. (Sometimes it really isn't - I grade on a scale) I am also not very personable (in case people here haven't noticed already). I can have my charm at times but I'm not the guy you want making the first impressions. I'm not a grumpy or annoying coworker, but I don't have a warm, outgoing personality either.  Interviewing with me is a lot like interviewing with HAL I would imagine.

[Roac]

Presently I go with a mix.  Mostly it's because I have to follow a fairly rigid scheme in the hiring process, and damnit, I want to be as flexible as possible.  So I give myself as much wiggle room as possible.  The interview is part technical, and part personal.  I don't mean personal as in private, but the stuipdly generic questions like, "how do you define teamwork".    I asked the second group mainly because I have to (grr...), but surprisingly, some cannidates can't give an adequate answer.  Not even a textbook one.  "Where do you see yourself in 5 years"... even "to have a kid" could be somewhat humerous or ice breaking.  One guy brought up his divorce in almost every one (Goodbye).

The tech Qs aren't terribly in debth; mainly to feel out someone's exposure to a technology.  Resume says you worked on SQL - know transact SQL?  Build stored procs?  What about cubes?  No need to rigidly define things, just enough to know someone is or isn't bullshitting.  If they've done what their resume says, they'll be able to talk about it competantly, even if they don't know every last thing I could quiz them on.  How did you build X?  Why that architecture over, say, this one <insert another way of doing it>?

Then comes the test.  Quick easy and hard Q on 4 or 5 topics, plus one or two problem solving items.  Tests are nice in that they don't involve much of my time and give me something concrete to compare two people against, but aren't so rigid that I can't give credit for interesting or insightful partially correct answers.

Things I don't much like are "aha!" puzzles, tech trivia, or questions so abstract as to be obscure ("if you were a tree...").  Supposedly, those kinds of Qs tell you about their personality.  I don't want to know much more about someone's personality beyond them being *normal*.  Maybe someone else can explain to me why I should care how a person ascribing theirself to one virtue over another makes them better workers, but the more I read, the more I get the feeling that it's HR people trying to pretend they know something more than they do.

[Jimbo]

I have never had to go threw all the bullshit you all have had to go threw.  My last job I just got hired for is my paramedic position.  I basically dropped off my updated resume and called two days later to check on the status.  The supervisor told me to come clock in and get to work, no interview, just get on down and get to work.  My RN job in the emergency department went about the same, came in and dropped of my resume, checked on the status, then went to an interview that was more like a get to know me and then called and said come on in and get to work.  Before that I got drunk and went and joined the Air Force, and before that I got drunk and joined the Army Reserve.  I worked at Long John Silvers once in high school, but don't remember having an interview process, just that a couple of friends worked there and they said to come on in and work.

Of course my landing my current emergency department RN job and my Paramedic job so quickly and without a lot of hassle is that I have 3.5 years of Army Reserve time and 9 years of active duty time, and the jobs and training I did in the military paid off for me.  I do keep getting pressured to go into leadership positions or teaching...things I hate, I hated becoming a Seargent in the Air Force because now I had to be in charge of drunk ass Airman Skippy, and actually lead and set examples for the young troops.  Fuck that, I joined to fuck, fight, and fly!   :-D